Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
I want to thank everyone who sent kind wishes to Sam for his birthday in August. He did exactly what he wanted. We stayed home with our kids—including Jake and Harper—his parents, and our friends. I made spaghetti with the monster meatballs and the Caesar salad that’s a meal in itself. We drank lots of wine, he got lovely gifts, and no one in his extended family visited, which was what he wanted more than anything.
We had friends over for Labor Day. Sam did his normal excellent grill work, Dane played bartender, which he normally didn’t do but was amazing at, and Aja and Dylan helped me in the kitchen, which meant they kept me company and stirred, strained, and served food. It was so appreciated.
When I finally took a seat beside my husband at the picnic table that we’d set up on our deck next to the other one we brought up from the basement, I was across from Aubrey and Rick. I noted that they were both looking over to where we had set up card tables and folding chairs in the backyard. Aja and Dane were there as well, Aja next to Sam, with Dylan on her right, and Dane was beside Rick with Chris on his left, across from his wife.
“You two all right?” I asked Rick and Aubrey.
Aubrey cleared her throat. “We were just telling everyone that Chisholm’s not enjoying his sophomore year of high school at all.”
“It just started,” I reasoned.
“He says it’s a continuation of last year.”
I turned to look for him, and he was there, headphones no longer on as they had been when he came into the house an hour before, but instead, sitting beside Hannah showing her something on his phone.
“She’s always so nice to him,” Aubrey said with a sigh.
I turned back and scowled at her.
“What?”
“She likes him. Why wouldn’t she be nice to him?”
“But my point is, she doesn’t have to be.”
“He’s having a harder time than he’s letting on,” Rick told us. “Do you know what they call him at school?”
“Jizz,” Sam said without missing a beat, in between bites of potato salad.
“Sam,” I gasped.
“What?” He looked at Rick. “That’s it, right?”
“Ohmygod, how did you know that?” Aubrey whispered.
“You named him Chisholm, which I thought was a brave choice at the time,” Dane chimed in.
“Dane,” Aja said sharply.
“Oh come on,” he said to his wife. “It shortens, not to Chis, like Chris, but instead to Chiz, with a Z sound, not the aforementioned S, so therefore”—he gestured at Sam—“it only follows that Chiz would become jizz.”
“Exactly right,” Sam agreed.
“It’s horrible,” Rick declared.
“It might be fun in college,” Chris said, trying, I was sure, to be helpful.
“No,” his wife informed him. “Stop.”
“It was an utterly foreseeable issue,” Sam assured Rick, eating another pork rib.
“Well, what are we––”
“With Robert,” Dane began, which quieted everyone, “all the nicknames were built in. With Gentry, some people call him Gen, which he didn’t like at first because people expected him to be a girl sometimes if they didn’t know him.”
“Yes, but, Dane, that––”
“But now he doesn’t mind that,” Aja assured Aubrey. “I think Chisholm will love his name when he gets older. At the moment, it’s another brick in a wall of him not fitting in.”
“That’s right,” Rick agreed.
“Well,” Dane said, tipping his head at him. “The part that a lot of other kids don’t have is support. You and Aubrey are excellent parents who love and encourage your child.”
Aubrey teared up, and thanked him under her breath.
“Look at Chris and Dylan,” Dane went on, smiling at Dylan and bumping Chris’s shoulder with his. “They had some tough years with their son Micah, but he’s come through beautifully.”
Dylan pressed her lips together tight, clearly overwhelmed by his words. Chris just nodded beside him.
“If you need any help, please call on any of us, though I suspect Hannah has everything well in hand now that she’s been made aware of the issue.”
“What?” Aubrey asked.
At the moment, I saw Hannah and her friends from college that she’d invited to our barbecue, all of them, including my daughter, utterly stunning, leaning into a picture with Chisholm at the center. They were all smiling.
“Hey,” Kola said, walking to the end of the table where Aubrey was and squatting down beside her, his arms folded. “If it’s okay, I’m gonna pick Bru up from school tomorrow and take him with me to the counseling center. I have a great group of teens I work with, and he said he’d be down with meeting everyone. Hannah said she’d pick him up after, or if you wanna come and check it out, then you can grab him instead.”
I saw Aubrey reach out with a trembling hand and place it gently on Kola’s shoulder. “That would be amazing.”
“Bru?” Rick asked my son, his voice hoarse.