I’m in a place in my writing career where I’m spending a lot of time trying to understand exactly who I am as a writer. What genre do I write? Who is my audience? Am I writing to send a message or for entertainment? Maybe you’ve asked yourself these questions from time to time. I think we all have. But a couple of weeks ago, I came across a question I hadn’t even thought to ask.

When setting my goals at the beginning of this year, I decided to not only set productivity goals (write this, edit that), but to also set a goal to improve my writing craft. I’ve been writing for a while and though I’ve grown vastly simply by continuing to write, I also wanted to focus my attention on something I’d needed to improve for a long time: my character building.

To get the year started off right, I ordered the book Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card and had it in my mailbox before the first week of the year was over. I held it in my hands like it was paper gold and began to consume it with voraciousness. It was everything I needed to know about characterization but had never been able to find all in one place before. The way he writes, too, makes it all so easy to grasp.

And this is how I came across a concept Mr. Card introduced to the writing world: The MICE Quotient.

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Photo by Marco Bellucci

I’ll tell you a little bit about what’s going in my life right now. First and foremost, I am about a month and a half away from delivering my second daughter. Seriously–when I walk into a room, my belly is first and foremost. Secondly, my husband and I are beginning to make preparations for an out-of-state move (something I’ve never done before) that could be happening as soon as a month or two after the baby is born. Throw in tax season, both our jobs, keeping up with my online writing communities, and raising a toddler that is–as I always say–too smart for my own good, and it’s pretty crazy around here.

Yet somehow, I’m managing to keep up with the writing schedule I’ve set myself: working on my characterization skills, writing and posting a chapter of Holding My Breath every couple of weeks, and maintaining my blog here. But because that wasn’t enough, I also took on two group blogging commitments for an extra three blogs per month. I must be a glutton for sleep-deprivation.

But the truth is–and maybe you’ve noticed this about yourself too–I get so much more done when I’m busy.

Writing More When I’m Busy

Have you ever heard the saying, “If you want to get something done, give it to a busy person?” I’m that busy person. It seems like the more balls I have up in the air, the more I can take on. But if I stop for a second, they all come tumbling down. If I even slow down a little bit, I start to lose my grace.

I find this especially true for my writing. Oh sure, I always dream of locking myself away in a cabin in the middle of the forest with rain pouring down as I stare out the window and write the most amazing story ever written. But honestly, if I do manage to get a chunk of free time, it’s like my brain goes into Flan mode and I can’t think straight long enough to get a word down. Like today–I spent all day running errands with my 20-month-old (you’re impressed, right?) and then as soon as I got her down for her nap, I sat in front of my computer and began writing. This will be my second completed blog in the last two hours. Yesterday I laid around the house and wrote nothing.

It’s hard to make time for writing but I think when I’m busiest is when I’m most capable of getting my writing done. I try to take advantage of the fact that my brain is already well-awake, I’m on my toes, and my productivity endorphins are pulsing through my veins. There are times when an easy-going day gives the right side of my brain time to feel things out and let the story stretch, but on most days, I need to buckle down and getting the words on the page. And if my theory is correct, it looks like the next year will be the most productive of my life!

When do you feel most productive? Are you a “busy person?” Do you get Flan brain if you have too much time “write,” like I do?

New Places to Find Me

I hope you’ll come check me out at my new blogging homes! I am now writing at Hugs & Chocolate, a writing community for “inspiration, information and motivation” where I post every 2nd and 4th Monday of the month. I’ll also be posting a monthly blog on productivity at Routines for Writers on the 1st Tuesday of each month. I’ll update with the links for all of my new posts on Facebook and Twitter, so I hope you’ll find me there!

Chapter 5

When I walked into the office on Monday, Sam paced the lobby. I saw him before he saw me and I watched him run his index finger across his bottom lip. Back and forth, back and forth. I’d begun to notice that the suit he wore to work each day reflected how he expected the day to go. Sharp black suit paired with a blue tie meant he was anxious about a meeting and wanted to make an impression. Tan meant he felt more relaxed and would probably spend most of his time on the phone. Today he wore a black suit (he was awaiting the phone call from Whole Foods) but had paired it with a red tie (freaked out).

He started when he spotted me watching him and reached for my hand.

“C’mon,” he said, and had already turned to walk away before I took it.

I hesitated for a moment and then let him wrap his fingers around mine and pull me toward the staircase. I didn’t even watch where I was going. I didn’t even care. I stared at his hand around mine and let him lead me wherever he wanted.

“They called,” he finally said in explanation as we reached the third floor. “Your dad wouldn’t tell anyone anything until you got here.”

“He wouldn’t?” I asked, surprised.

“He said everyone on the team deserved to hear the news together since we all worked on it.”

Deserved to hear the news. That could go either way.

Sam stopped in front of the conference room door. He dropped my hand and gave me a wry smile. I knew I was imagining it but our close proximity made the air around us feel statically charged. I had an almost overwhelming urge to pull him into my arms and reassure him that no matter what my dad said on the other side of that door, he was amazing. He would rest his head on my shoulder and I’d run my fingers over the golden hair around his temples and we’d stay there in that moment forever. But Sam reached out and turned the doorknob and we turned to face reality instead.

“Come in,” my dad said when he saw me. I tried to read his eyes but he was impossibly good at keeping a straight face. If there was a surprise party to throw, you wanted him in charge.

The other marketers, minus Jackson, sat around the table on the edge of their chairs; Jackson had stopped showing up for work before Sam had gotten the chance to let him go. Jenny, my dad’s assistant, sat up front—his right hand woman. Sam silently held a chair out for me and I took it. Then he slipped into the chair next to me and we waited.

My dad cherished these moments—the ones where he had control and got to make everyone wait. He found it hysterical. Even more so when he had good news to share. So when the clock ticked past ten seconds of silence, I knew what it meant. A grin stretched across my face and I laughed. My dad’s icy mask broke and he laughed too. Everyone in the room glanced back and forth between us as we shared a joke they hadn’t caught onto yet.

“What?” Sam asked like he might burst.

Dad and I laughed harder. “They’re in!” I said. Dad nodded a confirmation.

Sam shot out of his chair and crossed the room to pull my dad into a hug. They laughed together and patted each other hard on the back in a show of manly affection. Everyone else chattered their congratulations to each other, shaking hands across the conference room table. But all the noise was merely a background to Sam’s smile. He was so happy. We did it. Today was the start of something life-changing for our company and for our family. And Sam would be a part of it.

“We have to celebrate,” my dad said. “Jenny, can you throw together a party at the vineyard for Friday night?”

Her eyes widened but she nodded, too excited to say no.

“And we’re going to need the first fifty bottles of our new Whole Foods Cabernet Sauvignon,” he said, blinking back tears. We all cheered. It was one of those perfect moments in life when you know one day you’ll look back and say, “Do you remember that day? That was a great day.”

Sam didn’t let his excitement overcome him for too long. Before everyone else had finished celebrating the news, he pulled me out of the conference room and back to his office. As he rounded his desk, he pointed to a stapled stack of papers in front of the chair I usually occupied.

“Over the weekend I prepared a list of emails and phone calls in the case this should happen. I need you to take care of these right away. Do you think you can get them finished before you leave today?” he asked.

I sat across from him, took the papers in my hands and rested my boots on his desk. I flipped through the few sheets and scanned them. I would have to stay late, I knew, but I didn’t care. I would never tell him no. Especially not today.

“Not a problem,” I said.

He gave me a tired smile and released a long breath he’d surely been holding since the Head Buyer for Whole Foods had walked in the front door of the vineyard last week. He laughed lightly and rested his forehead in his hands, his upturned palms over his eyes.

“You can relax now,” I said with amusement. If you’d asked me a few weeks ago, when I first met Sam, if he ever got nervous, I would have given a very confident dissent. I’d learned since then that Sam had much more to him than seen from the surface. It made me want to know more.

Sam let his hands run down his face as he looked up and rested his chin in his palms. He had a thoughtful smile on his face.

“Do you always wear those?” he asked, an interested yet humored tone in his voice. I followed his gaze to my riding boots. The way he looked at them made me slip them off his desk and sit up straighter.

“Not always,” I said. What was wrong with wearing riding boots? I thought most people found it to be one of my more charming quirks.

Sam shrugged and stood up from his chair. “Well, the computer and phone are all yours. I’m going to work with the team to do some final touches on the labels.”

I nodded, staring down at my boots. I had a pair in almost every color—they went with everything. But maybe they weren’t elegant enough for the office…

I looked up only when I felt Sam’s hand on my shoulder. I was so distracted I almost missed the pressure of his fingers on my skin.

“And hey,” he said. I looked at him. “Thanks again.”

I put on a smile and nodded but diverted my eyes.

Cassie came over after school on Thursday. We’d gone dress shopping for the party the day before but since I couldn’t decide on one, I’d bought three. I needed her help in making the final decision. She lay on her stomach on my bed as she watched me try them on over and over again in front of my full-length mirror.

“How was your mom’s doctor’s appointment?” I asked her, examining the black dress I had on from every angle in the mirror. I didn’t make eye contact with Cassie when I asked. It was a sensitive subject for her but I knew she appreciated that I cared.

“She didn’t go,” Cassie said. The disappointment came through strong in her voice. Cassie’s mother suffered from severe depression and was supposed to find out about a new medication that morning. Unfortunately, her mom’s condition was so severe, it often kept her in bed more than out of it. It wasn’t her fault, of course, but I couldn’t blame Cassie for being resentful. Begging your mom to wake up for five years straight—watching her miss school functions, lose track of birthdays, skip meals for days in a row—would make anyone resentful.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I slipped the black strap off my shoulder and let the dress fall to my feet. Cassie cleared her throat and sat up on my bed, obviously ready for a change of subject.

“I like the purple one best,” she said.

“Yeah?”

I favored that one too. It was a deep plum color with a low V cut in the front and back. The thick faux high-waisted belt opened to a pleated skirt that fell just above my knees. It was flirtier than the black dress. And the red dress was just so…red. I wanted to catch his attention, not beg for it.

“I think you’re right,” I said and she tossed it to me. “Good thing I bought shoes to go with it.”

“What…you’re not wearing your boots?”

I forced a scoff though I felt my cheeks warm. “I don’t always wear my riding boots.”

She laughed, oblivious to my discomfort. “Yes, you do,” she said and came to stand next to me.

“Well, maybe it’s time I tried something different. I can’t wear riding boots in college,” I said, the words coming to me only as they poured out of my mouth. “I’ll be hundreds of miles from the ranch. It wouldn’t make sense.”

Cassie shrugged. She didn’t care what I wore enough to pay attention to my reasons for defending it. Instead, she picked the black dress up off the floor and held it up to her shoulders.

“Hey…do you think…I could come?” she asked.

I kept my gaze locked on my own eyes in the mirror. “Really?” I asked. “I guess I didn’t think you’d want to. It’s going to be a boring work thing.” Up until now, I’d thought she’d been avoiding meeting Sam but now I wondered if I was the one avoiding it.

Cassie faked a sigh and twirled her fingers in her hair dramatically. “Yes, compared to listening to my mom snore over taped episodes of Ellen, making my brother macaroni and cheese, and reading Jane Austen, it will be quite the letdown. But I’m willing to do it for you.”

My laugh was hollow. “When you put it that way…”

Truly, up until a few weeks ago, I would have already asked her. Probably before I left the conference room when my dad first made the announcement. I took her everywhere with me. She was practically my sister. I felt slightly ashamed that until she’d asked, I hadn’t thought about it.

“Of course,” I said. “You should wear that dress. It would look perfect on you.”

Cassie’s face lit up and she immediately began to shed her school clothes.

We spent the rest of the afternoon planning our hair and makeup but my heart wasn’t in it. My mind was too busy trying to figure out how to steal a few minutes alone with Sam at the party when I’d be taking my biggest obstacle as my date.

Since as long as I can remember, I’ve had an overactive imagination. My husband would call it obsessive worrying. The TV show Parenthood so eloquently called it “catastrophizing.” But you, as a writer, will understand. Tell me right now you’ve never heard a bump in the night and started imagining what it could be. A burglar? The creepy neighbor next door who, you’re pretty sure, hates you because you turned off your lights last Halloween instead of handing out candy and in turn, you both got egged? Or maybe a wild bunch of Javelina (I live a wooded area) who have been eyeing your beloved Spot for the last month and are finally here to drag him off to Animal Farm for good. (Where was he that afternoon last month, anyway?)

Say you’ve never done that with a straight face. I dare you.

I use my powers for good too. I remember a time about seven years ago when I heard a colleague of mine was getting a divorce after years together and I felt so sad for him that I began to imagine a story where they were forced to spend time together, face their troubled marriage, and fall in love with each other all over again. Or the time when my friend finally got out of an abusive relationship and while I watched her heal, I thought of all the scenarios where she would meet the most amazing man who would appreciate her and show her what real love meant. (I’m happy to say that story came true.)

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Chapter 4

“What do you think of these?” Sam asked me, holding up his new business cards and inspecting them in the light. I walked around his desk and leaned against it. He handed me one.

Samuel R. Fenton, it read.

My first thought was to laugh but I didn’t. His expression was serious. No one ever used their full name and middle initial here. We were all one big family and were more likely to call each other by a nickname than anything else. My second thought was that it was pretentious. But in a way, that was Sam. I didn’t know much about him, but I did know he liked to be seen in a certain way. Whether that was for business or for everyone, I wasn’t sure yet.

“Great,” I said and handed it back to him.

He opened his wallet where he placed a few of his newly approved cards and said, “You keep it.” I hid my satisfaction as I slipped his full name and middle initial into my back pocket.

Before he closed his wallet, I glanced at his driver’s license. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to know more about him. I caught his birth date—December 12th—and mentally calculated his age. Twenty-four. Seven years older than me. He folded the engraved leather closed, placed it in the pocket of his jacket and stood up.

“Big plans for the weekend?” he asked. He gathered his paperwork, preparing to leave for the day. It was 4:30 on Friday—my least favorite time of the week. It meant nearly 72 hours before I’d see Sam again. Before I’d hear his voice.

“Not really,” I said. “I’ll probably take my horse out. Go do something with Cassie.” He hadn’t met Cassie yet but I talked about her often. I had a feeling she was putting off meeting him for as long as possible so as not to encourage me. I kept my eyes averted when I asked him what he’d be doing this weekend. There was one detail about his home life I’d been waiting to find out, and if it came out now, I didn’t want him to see my reaction.

“Just keeping myself busy with work and trying not to worry about that phone call next week,” he said with a dry laugh.

I gave him a playful smirk. “Don’t you ever do anything for fun?”

He grinned and my heart skipped a beat.

“I might go out with a couple of friends,” he said. “They’ve been nagging me about getting out. Saying I spend too much time alone.”

“You don’t…” I cleared my throat, “live with anyone?”

“Nope,” he said. “Just me. I left everyone back home.”

“Back home?”

“In Colorado.”

“Oh,” I said. “Who’s everyone?” I did my best to make my tone casual, like I was only asking out of politeness.

He sighed thoughtfully. “Well, my parents. My brother. My friends. My ex-girlfriend.” He said the last one with a roll of the eyes.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sorry, but I hoped it would prompt him to say more.

Sam shrugged. “Better off. I’d rather be alone for a while.”

There was my answer. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear, but I rejoiced in knowing there was no other woman in his life. Even if I could never date him, at least I didn’t have to hear about romantic dinners and wild nights with some perfect little blond, who click-clacked into the office to bring him lunch and make me feel like a silly teenager.

Sam never made me feel that way.

“You’re up early,” I heard a deep voice say from behind me. Of course, I already knew who it was before I looked up from Moonlight’s saddle where it sat on the saddle stand, halfway through cleaning.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I said to Tyler, our ranch hand. The sunlight was beginning to creep into the stables, lighting up the space behind Tyler, turning him into a stocky shadow moving toward me in the warm morning air. It was the first morning I hadn’t needed a sweater.

“Taking Moonlight out?” he asked, ducking into the dim light next to me and finally taking full shape. His wide jaw was covered with his usual “cowboy stubble,” as I called it. He slipped his baseball cap off—something he always did when greeting me—and smiled. “Good morning,” he added.

“Good morning,” I said, smiling back at him. “Yes, I’m taking Moonlight out. Do you want to come?”

Tyler was five years older than me and had been working with our horses for a few years now. Since I spent so much time in the stables, we’d gotten to know each other well over the years. In some ways, he was like the older brother I’d always wished I had.

“Sure,” he said. “I was planning on taking Brawny out after I finished feeding. Do you mind waiting?” Brawny was my dad’s horse. Dad was usually too busy to take him out so Tyler tried to ride him at least every other day. True to his name, Brawny was more brawn than I could handle on a regular basis.

“Not at all,” I said, pointing at the saddle I needed to finish cleaning.

Once the horses were fed and Tyler finally agreed to let me help him muck the stalls afterward (despite his adamant protests), we saddled up the horses and took off into the vineyard. Tyler and I were the most experienced riders who ever visited the vineyard, so on the rare occasions that we got to go out together, nothing held us back.

We ran the horses for ten minutes before we finally let them slow down to a steady trot. Brawny hadn’t been out in a couple of days and in his excitement, he kicked his front hooves up a few times, forcing Tyler to lean forward to keep from being bucked off. We laughed. Truly, Tyler was the only one who could handle him. My dad just liked to pretend. Everyone in the family knew Tyler always ran Brawny to exhaustion before Dad would climb on him.

When Brawny finally settled down on all fours, Tyler smirked at me with his shoulders drawn back at an angle somewhere between confidence and cockiness, and something about him struck me in that moment. If I didn’t think of him so much like a brother, I might have considered him gruffly handsome.

“Someone’s happy this morning,” I said. Tyler agreed and gave Brawny’s flank a few hefty pats.

“So I hear you’re working at the office already,” Tyler said.

“Yeah,” I said but didn’t elaborate. I’d spent the entire morning trying not to think about Sam and what he might be doing at this very moment, but with one question, Tyler brought his face back to the center of my mind. I slowed Moonlight down to a walk and Tyler followed suit.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Well,” I said.

He laughed. “That’s it?” Tyler was used to my long-winded confessions about everything going on in my life at the slightest provocation. I wasn’t usually reserved with him but I had a hard time talking to people about Sam. Sam was a fantasy I wanted to hold onto and I didn’t want someone else’s opinion to tear that away. Still, a question nagged at me and if anyone could give me the answer, it was Tyler.

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked him. When he nodded, I said, “How much older is too much older?”

To my surprise, his cheeks flushed slightly and he narrowed his eyes at me. “Do you mean…to date?”

I blushed too and nodded my head slightly.

Tyler hesitated, not looking at me. “Why do you ask?” I didn’t have a response I felt comfortable sharing so I said nothing. Finally, he said, “Well, Alexis…you’re sort of at a tricky age, you know? Not quite a girl anymore but not quite a woman.”

I swallowed hard. I hated hearing that. Especially from him. I didn’t feel like a child. I wished everyone would stop treating me that way.

“But…” he continued. “I think you know what’s right. A couple of years older, maybe. I don’t know if any older than that would be appropriate.” He cleared his throat. “Not until you’re eighteen, at least.”

I kept his answer in the periphery of my mind, not letting it get too close. Eighteen was still months away.

Tyler threw a few glances at me and I could tell he had something else to ask but wasn’t sure if he should. His baseball cap covered his eyes in shadows but I clearly saw his usually full lips pursed into a line.

“What?” I said in exasperated defeat.

“How much older, Alexis?”

I stared ahead at Moonlight’s ears as I said, “Seven.” When I gathered enough courage to look at Tyler, his expression cut right to my heart. Disappointment and disapproval. The same reaction I got every time I opened up about my feelings toward Sam.

“Do you think your parents would be okay with that?” he asked, hitting me with another unwelcome blow. But even through the judgment in his voice, I heard genuine curiosity.

I shrugged. That was one question I wasn’t prepared to answer. Or ask.

On Monday, we got the call that changed everything.

My first order of business once I decided to focus on character building this year was to go online and shop for a character-building book. I am locationally challenged when it come to educational opportunities and right now, even an online class would be difficult to commit to. But writing craft books are great because I can pick them up whenever I have a few spare moments to get inspired. I had never heard of Characters & Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card before but the reviews on Amazon were fantastic so I ordered it immediately.

Side Note: This post isn’t a book review but I will say, I’m about 1/3 of the way through the book and I can’t get enough of it. His points are right on and his voice is so compelling it doesn’t even feel like learning (and I already love learning). If you are interested in improving your character-building skills, I definitely recommend this book.

1,000 Ideas in an Hour Exercise

In Chapter 2, Card introduces an exercise he calls “A Thousand Ideas in an Hour.” He has used this exercise at workshops, though the example he gave was taken from questions he posed to a class of fourth graders. The idea of the exercise is to start with a simple question and build story from it by continuing to ask cause and result questions. Each question may give one or ten possible ideas (this is how 1,000 is really possible). Pulling from one of those ideas, another question is asked, and then another, until either a story has formed from a character or a character has formed from a story idea.

Card provides us with this example (shortened):

Do you want a story about a boy or a girl?
–A boy! No, a girl!

OK then, we won’t decide yet. How old is this person?
–Ten! No, twelve!

Twelve? Why twelve? What happens to you when you’re twelve?
–When you’re twelve, you get more money.

How does that happen?
–Babysitting.

What can go wrong when you’re babysitting?

And his example goes on like that for several pages as we watch a group of fourth-grade students build a story about babysitting a child who won’t stop crying. After trying everything, including calling the baby’s parents, they call an ambulance and just when it shows up, so do the parents–right after the baby has stopped crying. It’s a fun, cute example but it’s easy to see how a story can be developed from nothing but a single question.

My 1,000 Ideas

My situation was opposite. I had a story (a story that already had a first draft, even) but after outlining, character profiles, and watching my main character develop over several hundred pages, I still didn’t feel like I really knew her. So when Card mentioned this exercise could be used backward, I thought it would be a great opportunity to ask some new questions about my character and see what came of it.

Because I knew my story so well and was afraid I would put myself back into the same hole I’d been stuck in, I asked my best friend and brainstorming buddy to meet me at our favorite coffee shop to try this out with me. She loves to brainstorm with me but other than our initial chats about this novel–long before I wrote it and it developed into a different story entirely–she didn’t know much more than the general plot line. Which was perfect. I need fresh ideas, not biased ones. It took us a while to get into the groove of the exercise but once we did, the questions started coming in rapid succession. Mostly the format followed the sequence of me asking questions and then her providing possible answers. I was careful not to sway the conversation too much (though there were times when, of course, I didn’t want to go on a wild goose hunt following a story line that had nothing to do with my book).

By the time our hour was over, I was thrilled with what we’d uncovered about my main character and that we had even come up with some potential additional conflicts. Interestingly, my friend designed a character very similar to what I’d already written (either we think too much alike or my character is perfect for the situation I’ve put her in–I’ll go with the latter) but with much deeper motivations–something I’ve struggled with since I first started writing fiction. The combination of a new perspective and being forced to ask more questions when I would have normally stopped at the first, pushed me past my usual character-building barriers. Not only did I learn more about my character, I learned more about myself as a writer.

Your 1,000 Ideas

Are you starting a new story or does your current story need some fresh ideas? The exercise is really simple. I recommend doing it with a partner or with a group, simply because a writer’s story ideas are based on her own thoughts and experiences so she’s bound to keep coming up with similar ideas over and over again. Adding some other people’s thoughts and experiences to the mix will help you expand your way of thinking. You can ask the questions and have your partner give you answers, or you can have your partner ask the questions while you provide the answers. I think either way is beneficial. You may even want to do both at some point.

The most important part of the exercise is to focus on cause and result questions (Why? and What now?), and to keep your mind open to even the most far-fetched possibilities. You might be surprised by what inspires you.

Chapter 10

It breaks my heart to think one day Zoe will hate the body I made for her.

Shea

6 1/2 Months Old…

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Three overworked mothers going to the spa. Everett planned it for my birthday and even performed some trickery to get Hector to agree to watch the twins for a few hours.

Riley, Jasmine and I met that Saturday in front of Breathe. We stood outside and stared up at the building for five minutes before we walked in–me, because I felt like a man at Home Depot; Riley, because she was trying to come up with a clever way to make fun of the name, and Jasmine, because she thought spas were a myth. Our elation deflated when we got to the point of taking off our clothes.

“Somehow I forgot that people get naked at the spa,” I said. Riley looked at the locker and wrinkled her nose.

“We’re supposed to get naked?” Jasmine asked, and Riley and I burst into laughter.

“Bathrooms,” Riley said, and each of us took a stall to change into our robes like we were back in high school gym class.

“Enjoy your massage,” I told them as we split in the hallway and headed to our separate rooms.

The therapist was a tiny little thing. At first glance I wondered if her hand could make it around my wrist, but once I closed my eyes, she could have been using her feet or elbows or knees and I wouldn’t have noticed the difference. I felt uncomfortable in the beginning–her touching the still-dark marks on my hips–but she quickly put me at ease with the sweetness of voice. It’s my personal belief I fell into a coma. She assured me that a lot people snore on her table.

After our massages, we met up for a lunch of Cobb salads and iced tea, and then it was back to our private rooms for facials and body scrubs. By four o’clock I was so relaxed, I could have melted into a puddle. The final event on our schedule was half an hour in the sauna, where we all met up again.

“Did you have a male masseuse?” Riley asked me in a whisper. I smirked and shook my head.

“I did,” Jasmine said.

Riley gasped. “Not fair!”

“He was cute too,” she added.

We all filed into the sauna where there were several other women sitting on the benches. The sound of the door closing behind us made of all us jump, and we stood there looking at the other women, their robes spread wide, lounging around in nothing but the skin their mothers gave them.

“Um,” I mumbled and glanced back and forth between Riley and Jasmine. Jasmine plastered on a tentative smile and shuffled forward politely. One of the women, a redhead about the same age as us, lifted her head, smiled and then closed her eyes again. Riley shrugged, so we tip-toed to the bench in the corner.

The three of us sat there, not speaking, not moving, our legs close together and our arms wrapped tightly around the fronts of our robes. The pressure to get naked pushed in on us from every angle, but we were determined to maintain our dignity.

And then it started to get hot. Really hot. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead and upper lip. Jasmine waved her hand in front of her face to no avail. We stared at each other, willing ourselves to be strong, but it was too much. Riley gave a frustrated sigh, stood up and pulled the belt of her robe loose.

It’s a weird thing seeing your friend naked for the first time, but I couldn’t help but stare at her in admiration. Her stretch marks weren’t as bad as mine, but they moved in tiny metallic slivers from her belly button to her pelvis, like they were years old, not months. Her breasts hung slightly from the weight of breastfeeding, but she was beautiful. Really beautiful. She gave an unapologetic shrug and sat back down, her robe loose beneath her.

I swallowed hard. Was I brave enough to bare it all in a room full of strangers? I looked around. At first, all I saw was perfectly toned bodies straight off the pages of a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. But when I looked closer, I noticed not every body was perfect. Some women were older than me, some heavier, yet every one of them had embraced their figures, imperfections and all.

I stood up shakily. My heart pounded and my fingers fumbled as I loosened my belt inch by inch. Riley looked me in the eyes and nodded in encouragement. My robe fell open and though her eyes never wavered, I felt her scan me in her peripheral vision. She smiled her approval. I turned to the room waiting for everyone to either scorn me or burst into spontaneous applause, but mostly, they were just enjoying themselves, oblivious to my life-changing accomplishment. I sat back down, smiling, my pride tingling on my skin.

Jasmine continued to wave her hand in front of her face. Riley looked at me with a glint in her eye, and I smiled. We leaned in on either side of her and whispered, in unison, “Do it, do it, do it.” Jasmine blushed and waved us away but we didn’t give up. We chanted until finally, she rolled her eyes and slipped her robe of her shoulders.

***

When I opened my front door the next day, I stepped back in surprise.

“Mom,” I said.

“Hi,” she said simply. Her hair was a few inches shorter, and she had lighter streaks in her usually dark bob. Her nails were bright red with freshly applied polish. She’d been at the salon all day.

“Do you want to come in?” I asked.

She stepped around me without a word. The cool autumn air trailed in behind her, and I closed it off with the door. My mom stood in the corner of the living room, her hands folded at her waist, silent. She wouldn’t look directly at me.

“Would you like something to drink?” I asked. She shook her head. I opened my mouth to offer her some other pleasantry, but she spoke before I could.

“I didn’t come to apologize,” she said, like she was forcing herself to say it before she lost her nerve, and any hope I had of making a breakthrough disappeared.

“Okay. Then why are you here?”

She took a deep breath. I’d never seen her like this before and honestly, it made me nervous. She squeezed her eyes shut like she might cry, and I took a step toward her.

“No,” she said and held out her hand. I stopped. I furrowed my brow when she untucked her lacy, white shirt from her rose colored skirt. She looked up at me hesitantly, and then stared into my eyes as she slowly lifted her blouse. My mind screamed out at me to stop her, but my mouth was too numb to say a word.

When her stomach came into view, I sucked in a breath, and my hand flew to my mouth. She continued to pull up her top until it was at her bra line, while a tear trailed down her cheek.

“Oh, mom,” I said.

She brought a hand down to run her fingers across the thick, dark lines on her stomach. Tears filled her eyes. “I’ve been so hard on you,” she said. “It’s just…I didn’t want this for you.”

It didn’t make up for all the things she had said, but, somehow, I understood. My mom had spent her entire postpartum life trying to feel beautiful again–something I now knew too well. Tears blurred my vision, and in that instant, I forgot everything we’d argued about. I ran to her and wrapped my arms around her, burying my face in her perfectly highlighted hair.

“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I’m so sorry.”

***

We decided to throw Jasmine an “I quit my job” party. We went all out. Everett and I rented a small party space, and Riley decorated it streamers and balloons. She even got a mat for the babies to play on. It was all very over-the-top.

“You two are hysterical,” Jasmine said when she walked through the door and saw what we’d done. She hugged us both and kissed us on each cheek.

“You deserve it,” Riley said.

“Oh please,” she said, “not having to deal with my boss anymore is reward enough.”

I eyed Hector as he walked over to the guys, his countenance gloomier than usual.

“Is he okay?” I asked Jasmine. She looked at Hector and frowned.

“He was the sole breadwinner before. He can do it again. We have more reasons than ever for me to be at home.” She smiled at Andrea resting on her hip and kissed her forehead. “Who’s that over there?” Jasmine asked. We looked at the guys again. They were passing around a cooler of beer. I turned back to Jasmine with a smirk.

“Yeah. Who is that, Riley?” I said.

She shrugged, noncommittally. “Tim. We’re on a date.”

“A date?” Jasmine asked. “I didn’t know you were dating.”

“Not really date-ing,” she said.

“Wait…please tell me it’s not your first one.” When Riley smiled mischievously, Jasmine balked. “You brought him to hang out with babies on your first date?”

“He oughtta know what he’s getting into,” she said. I stifled a laugh.

There was steak and potatoes and salad. There was ice cream and cake. There was coffee and champagne and wine. There was enough beer to talk the guys into babysitting. Riley, Jasmine and I retreated to the corner and watched from afar as the guys got on their hands and knees in a circle around the kids.

“Tim really is cute,” Jasmine said.

“Yeah…” Riley said. “I still haven’t decided.”

We laughed, and I passed the wine bottle to Jasmine.

“I’m supplementing,” I said out of nowhere. I’d kept it hidden for so long it was like it finally clawed its way to the surface and broke free. Either that or the wine had gotten to me. “With formula, I mean.”

“I know what supplementing means,” Riley said. “Are you okay? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I don’t know.” I sighed and took the bottle of wine back. “Breastfeeding was so important to me but when it came down to it, we just never could get it right. I felt like a failure.”

“You’re not a failure,” Jasmine said.

“I just wanted to do everything I could for her. I wanted to be…”

“Perfect?” Riley finished for me.

“Is that so much to strive for?” I asked.

Jasmine raised her eyebrows. “There’s no such thing as a perfect parent.” Jasmine leaned close to me, and I felt the chemical heat radiating off her skin. “If we all make it out alive, that’s the best we can hope for.”

I snorted a laugh and took a long pull on the wine bottle.

“But why does it feel like motherhood is a constant uphill battle?” I whined.

Jasmine and Riley both laughed. “Because it is,” they chimed in unison. I burst into laughter, and we all giggled until our eyes filled with tears.

“I think we’ve had too much wine,” I said and set the bottle on the table behind us.

When it was quiet, another nagging thought slipped out.

“I was thinking,” I said, “about that day at the spa.”

“What about it?” Riley asked.

“About how embarrassed we were to take off our robes.”

“Ay Dios Mio,” Jasmine said, crossing herself. “Don’t remind me.”

“No, see,” I said and pointed my finger at her. “That’s exactly my point. Why should we feel so bad about showing off our bodies?”

“You got a good look of what’s left after carrying those two,” Jasmine said. “Why shouldn’t I be embarrassed?”

I turned in my chair to face her. “Why? Because we’re no longer shaped like girls? Because we have hips and loose skin and stretch marks?”

Riley blinked hard. “Uh…yeah.”

“Do you really hate your stretch marks so much that you’d give up bikinis and lingerie?” I asked Riley.

She opened her mouth to say something snarky, I’m sure, but catching the seriousness on my face, she stopped to think about it. “I did. At first,” she said. “But now that I’ve gotten used to them, it’s not so bad. Not that I have anyone to wear lingerie for.”

“Maybe so,” Jasmine sang and pointed toward Tim. Riley blushed and smacked her hand.

“What about you, Jasmine?” I asked.

A dry laugh burst from her lips. “Like I have time to worry about what I look like,” she said. I narrowed my eyes. “Okay!” She held her hands up defensively. “When I start to feel down about it, and I do, I just remind myself that it’s worth it. If I could trade my angel babies and have the body I used to have…I’d take the stretch marks every time.”

I sat back and smiled, their answers confirming what I hoped was true–that there was womanhood after motherhood.

“What about you?” Jasmine asked.

I looked over at Zoe playing with Everett and a stuffed giraffe. “I know it sounds silly, but I like to think I gave some of my beauty to her.”

I waited for them to laugh at me for being overly sentimental, but instead, Riley reached across Jasmine’s lap and grasped my hand. “She’s very beautiful,” she said.

I smiled at the light of motherhood aglow on my friends’ faces. It didn’t shine everyday but when it did, there was nothing more real.

“I don’t think any mother should feel bad about her body,” I said, thinking of one mother in particular. “What we’ve done is so incredible and so much more important than looking perfect without a robe on.”

They both nodded though the uncertainty still showed in the lines on their faces. I knew it would take more than a semi-drunken confession to convince them fully.

“Here’s what I propose,” I went on, feeling a little braver than I should. “Six months from now, when our kids celebrate their first birthdays and the weather warms up, we put on bikinis and go swimming, stretch marks and all.”

Riley barked a laugh. “You’re crazy,” she said.

“No I’m not. I want to prove that being beautiful is more than being a size two and having flawless skin…for other moms out there and for us…and for our daughters.”

We turned our gazes toward our children, growing up already before our eyes. I put my hand out in front of them, palm down. It was one of those cheesy moments, like in Now and Then, right before the drawing of blood and the calling of the spirits. Riley smiled, all cynicism gone, and placed her hand on top of mine. Jasmine looked from Riley to me to Andrea, then placed her hand on ours.

Chapter 9

I keep wishing Xavier’s 20-year-old self was here so I can show him how amazing he is.

Jasmine

6 Months Old…

“Da-da,” I heard Everett say from the kitchen. “Da-da,” he said again. I moseyed in, my head tilted, eying him.

“What are you doing?”

He looked at me like he’d been caught wiping crumbs between the couch cushions (I know this from experience).

“Nothing,” he said.

“You’re trying to get her to say Dada first.”

He stared blankly at me, and I shook my head.

“Unbelievable,” I said with a laugh and left the room.

***

“Look how big she’s getting” was the first thing my dad said when we met for lunch later that day. He’d called earlier that morning to tell me he would be in town. I hadn’t seen him since the big blowout with my mom, and he missed me. It wasn’t until now that I realized how much I missed him too, reminding me that not only had he not seen me, he’d been missing some of the most important moments of Zoe’s life.

“It’s grandpa,” I whispered in Zoe’s ear and pointed to my dad. She looked at him and smiled before she buried her face in my shoulder. That made him laugh, and the tension disappeared just like that.

“How are you?” Dad asked once we got a table.

“Great,” I said.

“And Everett?”

“Good. Working a lot.”

“I bet he is. He has a family to take care of now,” he said, solemnly–almost proudly. “You did good with that one, kiddo.”

I smiled. “I know.”

“So how’s the little one?” he asked, and we spent the rest of our lunch talking about Zoe. I told him everything that had been going on–about Zoe’s weight and my breastfeeding problems and our little bed mishap. Like Everett, he simply laughed and said, “We all go through it, Princess, and look…you turned out just fine.” It was so easy to talk to my dad. I hated how often I forgot that.

“Everett is trying to get her to say Dada first,” I told him.

“Oh, really?” he said with a laugh.

He looked at Zoe sitting in her high chair, smacking the table in front of her with both her hands spread wide. Dad leaned in closer to her face.

“Gram-pa,” he said. “Gram-pa.”

Zoe looked at him for a moment, then went back to smacking her hands on the table and reaching for the napkin. I laughed.

“Sorry. That’s about the same response Everett got.”

“She’ll say it when she’s ready, and I can promise you this, it won’t be because of any goading from any of us. And she’s a free spirit, this one. Her first word will probably be ‘elephant’ just to prove a point.”

When our laughter faded, it got really quiet, and I felt like I knew what was coming next.

“Your mom wants to see you,” Dad said, not looking at me because he knew I didn’t want to hear it. But he loved my mom and he loved me, so he said it anyway.

“Great. We’d love to see her,” I said. “As soon as she apologizes.” The callousness of my own voice startled me. It was like something had clicked in the overly-polite side of my brain and I couldn’t go back, no matter how much easier it would be.

The hopeful looked that crossed Dad’s face disappeared as quickly as it came. He picked at his napkin.

“You know how she is, Shea,” he said.

“I know, Dad. But it’s not just me anymore. I have a daughter of my own to think about. I don’t want her teaching Zoe it’s okay to disrespect me.”

My dad nodded. “I know. You’re right. I just hate to see you two fighting like this.”

“All she has to do is apologize and start treating me with respect. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”

Ten minutes later, Dad kissed Zoe and me goodbye and promised to have Mom call me. I wasn’t holding my breath.

***

The next day Riley called and told me I had to meet her at the coffee shop immediately. The uncertainty in her voice made me anxious, and the look of confusion on her face confirmed it when she sidled through the door and dropped into the chair across from me.

“What’s wrong?”

“She slept through the whole night,” Riley said.

“Alexis?”

“Of course, Alexis. Who else?”

I thought about it. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“No. I don’t think you understand. I mean the whole night. She didn’t wake up once. When I woke up this morning I thought she was dead.”

Alexis shook her plastic keys and we both looked down at her.

“Clearly she’s not,” I said.

Riley and I smiled at each other.

“So is that why you dragged me out of the house at the ungodly hour of noon?” I asked.

She shook her head, saying nothing.

“What?” I pushed.

“I met a guy.”

I gasped so loudly the people at the table next to us looked over. My enthusiasm faded when I realized Riley didn’t look as pleased.

“Are you wired backwards today?” I asked her. “Why aren’t you happy about this?”

Riley sat up and leaned toward me with intensity. “What the hell am I supposed to do with a guy?”

I tried to be serious, but I snorted behind my coffee cup.

“Don’t be cute with me,” she said, bordering on desperation.

I smiled and sat back in my chair. “What’s his name?”

“Tim.”

“Well that sounds promising. Is he cute?”

She raised an eyebrow. The what-do-you-think look.

“Ahh. So that’s the real problem. It’s not that he’s interested in you. It’s that you’re interested in him.”

“Is it too soon?” she asked. “Alexis is only six months and who knows if Derek will decide to show up one day. Do I really want to bring another man into Alexis’ life and risk both of us being disappointed?”

“First,” I said. “Don’t you dare wait for Derek to come around again. And if he does, you turn him on his heel and send him off in the other direction.”

“I know. Trust me, the last thing I want is to deal with him. If I wanted two babies in my life, I’d just get pregnant again.” She let out a maniacal laugh. It was the same laugh we all used when we talked about having another baby. “He left before he even met Alexis, so as far as I’m concerned, he’s not her father. Besides, I think the fear of child support will be enough to keep him away.”

“Let’s hope so.”

Alexis let out a cry. Riley pulled her out her car seat and sat her in her lap.

“And as far as too soon,” I continued. “Only you can know that. Do you feel ready?”

Riley groaned. “I always hated it when people asked me that when I was pregnant. What does ‘ready’ feel like exactly?”

“It feels like…scared out of your mind but willing to give it a shot anyway.”

“Oh, well, in that case…” she said sarcastically. She took a long sip of her coffee. “I don’t know. I feel like I want Alexis to have a family. I never realized how important that was to me. I grew up with a single mom, and it took me having a baby to see how much I wish I’d had a father figure in my life. I want that for Alexis. I want that for me.”

“I think you have your answer,” I said.

We sat quietly for a moment. Zoe babbled in her car seat on the chair next to me.

“So where did you meet him?” I asked.

“Here,” she said. “About 20 minutes ago.”

“But…” I pointed to the door.

“I drove around the block.” I stared at her in disbelief, and then we both burst into laughter.

“Call him,” I said.

***

Zoe babbled in the car all the way home and I made the “gaga” and “baba” noises along with her. I even threw a “dada” in there for good measure. She squeaked and squealed and it made me so happy to hear her so happy. The little things that make them smile…

We got home half an hour before I expected Everett and I still hadn’t gotten her down for a nap. She was wide awake, still singing her songs as I unbuckled the car seat.

“A ba ba ba,” she said.

“A ba ba ba,” I said back to her.

“Goo goo goo,” she said.

I repeated it back to her. I had her out of the car seat with her head over my shoulder when she said it.

“Ma ma ma ma.”

My heart skipped a beat, and I held her out to look at her. “What did you just say?” I asked her. She looked away and smacked her lips. “Did you say mama?” I asked. She looked at me like she’d only now realized I was there. She continued to smack her lips. “Mama,” I said. I said it again. And again. She just smiled, stubbornly. She was like her mother that way.

I never told Everett. he worked so hard for our family and I knew he’d miss some of her firsts. She’d say Dada eventually and I wanted him to have that. It was important to him. I already had her every moment of every day and with that, I had everything.

Chapter 3

I used to have a crush on Justin Timberlake. Well, to be honest, if he showed up on my doorstep and asked me out, I’d still have a hard time saying no. Cassie was more of a JC Chasez fan. All through middle school and the first half of high school, we had their posters covering every inch of wall space in our bedrooms and spent hours fantasizing about what it would be like if we could just meet them, and what we would say.

That’s why I didn’t understand why Cassie was so upset when she found out I’d decided to start working at the vineyard early this year. I told her it was to help out my dad, which, of course, was true. But she knew my real intentions. She of all people should get what it was like to dream about a guy she could never have. I promised her we’d still spend as much time together as we always did, but she was still short with me when she left my house that day.

That was two weeks ago. Sam and I had been working together every weekday since then from noon to five, and it turned out we worked really well together. Once I categorized him into the Justin Timberlake section of my brain, it made being around him much easier. Giving him celebrity status made him the un-gettable get, which took a lot of the pressure off. If there was no chance of ever getting him, I didn’t have to worry about impressing him anymore. Mostly.

Sam and I actually had a smooth way of communicating with each other, and his need for organization clicked perfectly with my love of office supplies. Most days I could anticipate what he needed before he had to ask, and he made sure I had complete information about every marketing project we were working on so I could answer phone calls and emails without having to ask. I’d always loved working at the vineyard, but working for him made it more enjoyable. Cassie had to at least understand that.

“Where’s Jackson?” Sam asked, glancing around the hallway outside the conference room. The other marketers huddled closely near the door, ready to enter the room for the meeting we’d all prepared relentlessly for: the presentation of our new wine to Whole Foods.

“I haven’t seen him since I got here,” I said. My stomach clenched. Jackson had disappeared a lot more frequently since Sam had started, when the productivity levels of the marketing department reached an all time high and Jackson’s motivation hit an all time low. Which, according to my dad, was hard to do. When he wasn’t around, Sam joked that Jackson was allergic to work. I hoped he hadn’t finally succumbed to his illness right when we needed him most.

“Where is he?” Sam asked again, more to himself than to us. The other four marketers mumbled and shrugged. “Shit,” he said under his breath and rubbed his hand across his hairline, obviously trying to control his breathing. I pushed forward to get in close to him. No matter how many times I stood next to him, and—celebrity status or not—every time I caught the scent of his cologne, the pace of my heart quickened.

“It’s okay,” I said. “We can do it without him. What do you need?”

“The wine,” he said with a frantic laugh. His eyes met mine and I saw every ounce of his anxiety in them. This meeting meant everything to him. It was his first pitch and possibly meant the difference between staying at Hidden Chateau Vineyard and leaving. And we’d all worked so hard. I wasn’t going to let Jackson, of all people, screw it up.

“Get started. I’ll take care of it,” I said.

His eyes drilled into mine, trying to decide if he could trust me to pull it together in time. Apparently he decided he could, because he nodded and opened the door to allow the other marketers to file in. When the door closed behind him, I took a deep breath then broke into a sprint.

I went to Jackson’s office first, just down the hall, but even at first glance, I knew it wasn’t there. His desk was empty of the three bottles we planned to present. He must have never picked them up from the printing room.

We printed the mock up labels on the second floor. I hiked up my slacks and tried not to trip as I fumbled down the stairs in my riding boots, avoiding other people on the stairs. I flung open the door and there, sitting on a table across the room, stood the bottles. I dashed over and began to wrap my arms around them before I realized something. There were no labels on them.

I gasped and cursed Jackson aloud. I knew I only had minutes before the buyers from Whole Foods expected to taste the wine we wanted them to invest in. I flew to the computer, opened the design file, then jumped out of my seat to check every printer tray within arm’s reach, searching for the right labels. When I thought I found what I needed, I returned to the computer and printed the designs. I placed them on the bottles as quickly and carefully as I could, then loaded them into my arms and dashed out of the room.

I bounded up the stairs. People jumped out of my way. With a last minute thought, I stopped in the break room to pull some wine glasses and a serving tray from the cupboard before running the rest of the way to the conference room.

When I reached the door, I stopped to take a breath. I hadn’t dressed for the meeting. I’d never planned to attend it—that wasn’t part of my job description. And now, after running up and down the stairs, loose strands of hair stuck to my neck with sweat. But Sam needed me in there now, so my ragged appearance would have to do. I placed the wine bottles and glasses on the nearest desk and one at a time, I balanced them on the tray in my left hand, careful to steady my breathing. I’d only ever served this way at home for fun when dropping something didn’t really matter. But if we needed anything right now, it was a little flair. I approached the door, said a silent prayer and walked into the conference room.

Just as I stepped around the door, the head buyer came to a halt in front of my face, almost slamming into me and knocking the wine out of my hands. My gasp made him jump and I fought to keep the tray balanced on my fingers. The room fell silent and all eyes were on me—our four marketers, three buyers from Whole Foods, and Sam. Every one of them was standing, glum looks on their faces, as if the meeting was over. And it hadn’t gone well. I hadn’t prepared myself for what I would say once I finally got here and I certainly hadn’t prepared for this.

I cleared my throat and did the only thing I could think to do.

“Your wine, Mr. Fenton,” I said, staring directly at Sam. He took his cue and rounded the table to clear a space for me. The muscles in my forearm twitched wildly as I leaned forward to place the tray on the table, begging the gods not to let me drop it on one of the buyers. My practice found its way to my fingertips and I slid the tray smoothly along the mahogany to a comfortable place in the center of the barrage of businessmen.

“Thank you, Alexis,” Sam said, and even in his most professional tone, my name sounded like a melody. The buyers reluctantly returned to their seats and I took that as a good sign.

I slipped out of the room and leaned against the wall next to the door. My heart beat wildly as I stood there for the next fifteen minutes. This meeting meant so much—not only for the future of the company, but to our family. And to Sam who had put so much of himself into our little business already and had so much of his confidence in himself riding on the outcome. And to me, who wanted to see everyone succeed. Especially him.

When the door opened, the marketers left first in a single file line back to their offices. A couple of the buyers for Whole Foods came next. Minutes passed as I waited for Sam to emerge and when he did, it was shaking the hand of the head buyer for Whole Foods. They both had solemn looks on their faces. Solemn looks I couldn’t read.

“I’ll await your call,” Sam said with a final shake of the hand, a final bow of the head. He breezed past me on the way back to his office. I barely heard the faint whisper of my name on his lips and fell in behind him.

Sam didn’t speak until he closed the door of his office. When I turned around to face him, his expression was neutral.

“So?” I asked.

“So…we wait,” he said.

I sighed.

“We won’t hear for sure until next week.”

We stood there staring at each other for a long moment. Then, Sam took a step toward me and my body went instantly tense. He walked toward me and before I could react, he placed his hand on my shoulder.

“No matter what happens,” he said, “I want you to know…you really saved my ass in there.”

I waited for him to say more but he didn’t. He just held my gaze, knocking the wind out of me. I’d never had the opportunity to look at him so closely for so long without the fear of being caught. I began to notice details of his face I hadn’t seen before. The curve of his cheekbone, the depth of his jaw line, the heart shape of his lips, the subtle mole above his left eyebrow…the intensity of his eyes. Every shape of his face was flawless.

“You’re welcome,” I breathed.

That evening, I sat across the kitchen island from my mother as she cooked.

“So are you going to tell me about it or are you going to leave me in suspense?” she finally asked.

“About what?” I asked, shifting in my seat. Did she know about my crush on Sam?

“The meeting, of course,” she said with a laugh.

“Oh!” I rested my arms on the counter. “As far as I could tell, the marketing manager did really well.”

I couldn’t say his name. It didn’t feel right to talk to my mother about him in any context.

“We’re supposed to hear back next week but he’s pretty confident,” I added. Maybe the exaggeration would get back to dad and he’d cut Sam a little slack. It wasn’t his fault, after all.

“Are you talking about Sam?” she asked.

I coughed. “Yeah. I didn’t know if you knew his name.”

She nodded slowly, seemingly distracted by dinner. I knew better. She was gauging me. “Your dad is confident too,” she said.

I gave her a questioning look.

“He hasn’t spoken to Whole Foods but he sure has a lot of confidence in this Sam. He has nothing but good things to say about him.”

My heart sang. If my dad liked Sam, I hoped that meant he’d be sticking around.

I chose my next words carefully. “I’m not surprised,” I said. “He does a great job.”

“So you like working with him?”

“Mmm hmm.” I glanced down at my fingers drumming the cool granite.

“Good,” she said and transferred the vegetables to a pan on the stove. The oil sizzled and popped. “Sounds like you’ve been making quite an impression at the office yourself.”

I glanced back up at her. “Really?”

“From what your dad says, Sam is really impressed with your work. He says you’re smart and on top of things. He really likes you.”

I tried not to let my jaw fall but my eyes were wide, I knew.

“Sam said he couldn’t have finished that meeting today without you.” She stopped then, waiting for my response, analyzing my face. I struggled to gather my composure but imagining those words coming from Sam’s mouth made it impossible.

“Oh,” I finally said. “Good.”

My mom smirked and shook her head. “You never could take a compliment, could you?” She turned away from me to stir the vegetables and I turned my back to her to make it impossible for her to see the smile on my face.

Suddenly, celebrity didn’t feel quite as far away.

Chapter 8

Sometimes Zoe makes a facial expression and I get the uncanny feeling I recognize it. And then I remember where I’ve seen it before–the mirror.

Shea

5 Months Old…

Everett was at work and the house was quiet. I lay in bed with Zoe asleep in my arms, thinking how much she had grown already. Five months old. Wow. She’d discovered her feet this week and even started to sit up on her own for a few seconds at a time.

Already I can see her learning about the world. Examining it, cataloging it, trying to understand it. She looks at everything like it’s all so new. And it is to her. It’s a new world for me, too. But I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of this mothering thing. Finally.

I slipped my arm out from beneath her head and sneaked out of bed. The early morning is often the only few minutes I have to myself all day, so when I can, I like to take my time getting ready. Maybe shave my legs if I can work up the energy. Maybe.

As I combed my hair, I thought about my friends. Each of us moving along on our mothering journey, yet none of us dealing with the same situations. Even Jasmine’s twins are so different from each other that I’m beginning to understand why there’s no rule book for parenting.

Andrea is as fussy as ever, which could be attributed to either colic or being a girl. Neither of which, Jasmine can do anything about so she just has to ride it out, which she still isn’t convinced she can commit to. Xavier is finally coming out of his shell–probably a good thing before Andrea runs him over. Jasmine keeps hoping Hector will step in to raise him to be a good man but it seems like she’s seeing less of him than ever. I’m worried about her.

Alexis is already exactly like her mother, which is hilarious. She has all kinds of things to say about when she eats and how, whether or not her mother is changing her diaper correctly, how amusing her toys may or may not be depending on the time of day. Riley’s finally getting a dose of what it feels like to be in the crosswinds of her lightning storm, and it has truly humbled her. She’s still as snarky as ever, though, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Me. What can I say about myself? It seems I’ve finally loosened my grasp on how quickly the world turns. No matter how many parenting books I read or how much I baby proof the house, I can only control so much…and the rest I just have to let be.

A thud jolted me from my thoughts, and I stood up, listening. It took a second for the screaming to start, and when it did, my heart stopped. I shot out of the bathroom and my breath caught in my throat when I saw Zoe face down on the floor next to the bed. I said her name and picked her up cautiously. As soon as she was in my arms, her crying stopped, which made me feel even worse. How could I be such an easy solution to her problem, when I was the cause of it? I examined every single inch of her, and when I was sure she was okay, I slid down to the ground and burst into tears.

***

A few hours later, Zoe had a doctor’s appointment. I almost cancelled, certain he would see my failure written all over my face. Or worse, on hers. Is there tamper-evident packaging on babies? I went anyway. She’d been rubbing her ears a lot lately, and while she didn’t seem to have an infection, I wanted to be sure.

One thing I have to say about my pediatrician’s office is they’re prompt. I remember when I was pregnant, sometimes I would wait in the doctor’s office for an hour, or approximately three trips to the bathroom. In Dr. Meyer’s office, though, I was usually sitting in the back room with Zoe stripped down to her diaper in ten minutes or less. One of the nurses took Zoe’s weight, height and circumference, and then we waited in the bright blue office while the walls closed in on me.

“How’s the little one?” Dr. Meyer said as he came in the door, laptop in arm. He’s an older man with stark white hair and dimples. Some women might call him handsome.

“She’s good. I mean, well, she’s okay. I mean…I think something wrong, I guess, or I wouldn’t be here,” I said with a laugh, and snugged Zoe’s little body closer to me.

Dr. Meyer smiled. “All right. Why don’t we start with why you’re here then?”

I shifted in my chair. “It’s nothing, really. I feel sort of stupid now that I’m here.”

“A mother’s intuition is best,” he said. “Trust it.”

“Okay. She’s been rubbing her ears.”

“So you think it might be an infection?”

I shrugged, and he laughed at my sudden indecisiveness. Usually I pelted him with questions and self-diagnoses like a tennis ball machine.

He asked me to put her up on the table, so I did. I hovered nervously nearby as he listened to her heart and lungs and felt her abdomen. I kept waiting for him to turn on me with a glare and an accusing finger, but he never did.

“Okay, let’s take a look at those ears,” he said finally. I don’t know why doctors always wait until the end to look at the problem that brought you to the office in the first place, like they’re waiting to see if you’ll die of impatience first.

He looked in one ear and then the other.

“No,” he said simply.

“Really? I was sure–”

“Just ear wax. Either that or she might be teething. Sometimes that will cause ear pain.”

“So much for my mother’s instincts,” I said, and he laughed. “Is there anything I can do?”

Dr. Meyer shook his head. “Not really. If she seems to be in pain you can give her some baby Tylenol.”

He motioned toward her, indicating I could dress her so I did. He made a couple of notes in his laptop, and I thought he was going to leave, but instead, he sat in his chair until I was done.

“There is something I want to talk to you about,” he said and my heart sank.

“Oh?” I put on my best surprised face.

“Is Zoe breastfed or formula fed?” he asked.

“Oh.” I stood up straighter. “Breastfed. Exclusively,” I added.

He made an mmm-hmmm noise and I sank into a chair with Zoe in my lap.

“Is something wrong?”

“Well, Zoe’s a little underweight for her age.” He turned his laptop around to face me and pointed to some brightly colored lines. “Do you see this dot here?” he asked. I nodded. “This is where she should be…and this is where she is.” He pointed to a line significantly lower than the average.

“Oh.”

I looked down at Zoe. By looking at her, no one would know the difference. She was smaller that Alexis, but she was about the same size as the twins. Although, now that he mentioned it, the twins were also small for their age, being multiples and born early.

“Is she okay?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. It’s nothing to worry about. Some babies just have a harder time putting on weight. Or there’s the possibility your milk production is low for whatever reason. But it’s probably time to start supplementing with formula.”

I had stopped listening around the time he started talking about my milk production. Suddenly, the small room that had just been suffocating me felt like an open field, and Dr. Meyer, a million miles away. His voice echoed brands of formula and how much to give her, but I wasn’t really listening.

I left the office and went straight to the grocery store. I picked out a few cans of baby formula and put them into the cart. Paid for them at the register. Drove home. I did all of these things with my brain on pause. It was like I was in a walking coma. The thought of calling Riley floated through my mind, but I was too afraid to say the words out loud.

“How was your day?” Everett asked when he got home.

“Fine,” I said.

“How was Zoe’s doctor’s appointment?”

“Good.” I stirred the white liquid in the pot, my eyes crossing as I watched it swirl together.

“What are you making there?” he asked and kissed me on the cheek.

“Formula.”

It took him a moment to answer. “You mean, like, formula? For Zoe?”

“Mmm hmm.”

Everett gently took the spoon out of my hand and turned me around. “What’s going on?” he asked. He knew how much I loved breastfeeding. I’d never given Zoe a bottle even once.

I buried my face into his chest, and though I willed myself not to cry, my tears wet his shirt. “I’m a horrible mother,” I said, my words muffled by his shirt.

“What are you talking about?” he asked and tried to pull me off him so he could look at my face. I only clung to him harder. “Shea, what’s going on?”

“She’s underweight,” I moaned. “It’s my fault. I’ve been starving her all this time.”

“Shea,” he said and finally managed to pull me off of him. “What did the doctor say?” Before I finished telling him everything, he cut me off and said, “Shea, c’mon. You can’t blame yourself for this. There’s no way to know how much milk you’re producing or if that’s even the problem.”

“I know it is. I’m sure of it. Maybe I’m not drinking enough water. I could drink more water.”

He frowned and pulled me back against his shirt. “Honey, we’ve got to put Zoe first. Whatever the reason, we have to make sure she gets what she needs to be healthy.”

“I know,” I said. “I just feel like I failed.”

“You’re doing everything right,” he assured me.

When I started crying again in violent sobs he put his hands all over me like he was afraid I’d been hurt.

“She rolled off the bed,” I moaned into his shirt. At first his body tensed, but then he relaxed again and, unbelievably, he laughed. I stopped crying and looked up at him. Seeing the shocked look on my face, he laughed even harder. My first thought was to slap him, but it soon dawned on me what his smile meant.

Zoe was fine.

We all make mistakes.

And laughter is the only way we make it through them.

So I laughed with him.

***

Before bed, I gave Zoe her very first bottle. I expected her to reject it, but maybe I just wanted her to. More than anything I wanted to hold onto the idea that I was sole source her life. And that she needed me. She didn’t reject it, though. She took right to the bottle easier than she’d taken to my breast. A tear landed on her cheek, and I wiped it away with my thumb. She suckled, her eyes closed with sleep and happiness and I couldn’t help but smile. That’s the thing about being a mother. Somehow, as long as your child is happy and healthy, even your failures feel like accomplishments.