But now Wilder had a job on Tuesday night. And JD needed a babysitter.
She looked around the living room with new eyes.
For the first time the house felt permanent. She couldn’t get called back. She was her own master, and she was going to cultivate all the friendships in front of her: JD, Andie, even Craig, TJ and Alex, some moms from church and school.
She traipsed upstairs to put herself to bed, and fell asleep wondering what JD needed, and how to tell him what she’d figured out.
Chapter 15
The next morning dawned a clear gray. Kelsey dressed her kids for mid-weather: that horrible phase where you didn’t know if the day would turn cold or blazing hot.
The kids were halfway through their bowls of cereal when JD and Andie showed up on the front doorstep. Kelsey swung the door wide without even looking; it could only be them. There was no one else who showed up at 7:40 in the morning.
As they headed out, they all looked up at the sky. “Should I drive?” Kelsey knew JD couldn’t offer, his car wouldn’t hold all of them.
He shook his head. “It feels like the first real day of fall. It won’t rain before we get back.”
With that prediction haunting the back of her mind, they started out. They all walked the extra block to drop Allie off at daycare. She fussed, but was grateful that JD and Andie were there for extra hugs. Normally, Kelsey dropped Allie off second, but she wanted to find out what JD needed.
The little troupe turned toward the elementary school then, and went the last two blocks to the school. As soon as Andie and Daniel were through the gate, they had forgotten about the parents watching to be sure they made it inside.
Kelsey turned to go, then realized that JD hadn’t. “Come on, bud, she’s safe.”
He looked chagrinned. “Do they just keep getting bigger? Don’t answer that. They do. I know that.”
A laugh came out of her, and she was grateful for the feeling. Little by little, her load was getting lighter. “They do just keep getting bigger. And you do stop periodically and say, ‘oh my god, when did she grow?’ Just one day their clothes don’t fit anymore and you can’t lift them.”
“Is that why people want more kids?”
“Maybe.” She cocked her head at him as they wandered back down the path. Parents walked in front and behind them, and a few stragglers hurried late kids toward the school doors. “Do you? Want more kids?”
He laughed, so hard she could almost see tears in his eyes, and shook his head. “I’ve barely got a handle on the one I have.” He sighed. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Shoot.”
His hands went into his pockets, which she’d learned by now meant he had something to say that he’d thought about, but wasn’t sure of. “My Mom and Dad come out to visit every October, on their way to Italy. They go on pilgrimage every year, so that’s when they come by. They refuse to spend Thanksgiving or Christmas in the country.”
“You and Andie are welcome to spend the holidays with us.” It was casually thrown out there. But the quick catch in her chest said more. Friends, she reminded herself. For the holidays. Something she had never had before.
“Thank you, but that wasn’t what I was after.”
“Oh.” Something lost, even though she’d never had it. She steadied herself. “What was it then?”
“I finally told them about Andie yesterday. The yelling may have blown out your phone lines.”
“That bad? They aren’t excited about having a granddaughter?” She took in a breath. Who were these people? Her own family had blocked her in every way from her own dreams and life, but they had done it by circumstance. No one had ever told her she couldn’t or shouldn’t be a lawyer or a photographer. Her mother and father had given her money for college, or whatever she chose to pursue. “Or is it that they don’t consider her their granddaughter?”
His hands pushed deeper into his pockets. “That’s part of it. They’re very Catholic. So having a child out of wedlock is a huge sin. On top of everything else I’ve done.”
“So . . .” She spent a second getting her thoughts together. “Don’t they see what a good thing you’ve done for her? It’s a big deal JD, raising a child that isn’t your legal responsibility.”
“It’s not that big.”
That was typical JD, and she said so. “It is that big. Most people would have sent her back. They would have made up some excuse about why they really couldn’t do it, or wouldn’t be the best place for her, and they would have sent her back to the state of Texas. You kept her.”
“I thought about sending her back.”
“Yeah, well, you’re human. Please don’t tell me what you did was a sin. I can’t tell you how many nights I dreamed of putting Andy in an institution and setting myself free. I feel enough guilt about those thoughts, don’t you go adding to it.”
He switched gears and surprised her. “They don’t know she isn’t my biological child.”
“You didn’t tell them? Are you picking fights? Or are you saving it for later?”
“No. That’s going to be Andie’s decision to tell them someday. As for right now, it’s really important that they not find out that she isn’t genetically related.”
“Do explain.” She paused, and waited until he filled the empty air. They were in front of her house now and she simply went up the front walk and in through the front door, knowing he would follow.
“Andie is in their bad graces for being born. I’m in for having a child out of wedlock. My mother has never understood the damage her tongue can do when she doesn’t pay attention to what she’s saying. If she knows about Andie, she’ll yell at me to send her back, and she’ll tell Andie, in some way, that she’s inferior.”
“Ouch.” Kelsey reached into the fridge for a coke, and without thinking, grabbed a second one for JD.
He raised his eyebrows at her, but she kept her face steady. Sure it was only 8:15, but she’d been up for an hour and a half. He didn’t say anything about it, just popped it open within seconds of her own sharp fizz and took a drink.
“My mother is so convinced that she’s right about everything, there is every possibility she’d feel it was her duty to notify the state of their error. She might dig up Andie’s biological father and convince him he belongs with his child.”
There was something in his face, and she debated saying it, so she half-assed it, and regretted it as soon as it was out of her mouth. “That would be bad for Andie.”
JD didn’t half-ass it. “It would be awful for me.” He took another slug of his coke. “I still think life would be easier without her. But this is what it is. Easier isn’t better. I worry about her even when she’s at school. But she hugged me the other night. Just out of the blue. Did it again this morning.” He shrugged, “She came and crawled into bed with me when she woke up today. I don’t know why she put her faith in me, but I can’t break that.”
Kelsey held her can up to him, and made a dull metal thud when she clinked the two together. “Congratulations, you’re a Daddy.”
He laughed a little, then swallowed the rest of the drink, before crushing the can in his fist, and tossing it sideways into the trash. It was such a guy thing to do.
Just to be silly, Kelsey tried the same. It took too long to finish the soda. Her ‘crush’ was more of a mild dent, and her shot went awry.
JD laughed at her, then said he had to get out to the garage. She held back telling him what she’d come up with about the band. There was a better way to tell them.
She called and left a message with Bethany, asking if she could sit that night. Then called Maggie to see if she would want to go out?
Kelsey waited for the cars to arrive.
Alex passed by her front window first, and she would have missed him if she hadn’t turned around right then. She dropped the laundry she was folding and went after him; she was pretty sure she’d scared the bejezus out of him. But she convinced him that she absolutely
must take his portrait right now.
The light was perfect she said. That wasn’t a lie. Wasn’t five minutes of his time a great exchange instead of rent? She placed him in front of the too-white fence that stood around the yard, and snapped him from head-on, from the left, the right, down low and up high with her standing on the picnic table.
He held only his drum sticks, both clutched in his left hand, and tried to look comfortable. But he didn’t quite pull it off. He looked put out. And he looked a little wary.
Kelsey thanked him and set him free, snapping off one last shot as he walked away. Then she got Craig and TJ aside as they pulled up against the curb. TJ was naturally in a good mood. The day she saw him sour she would be afraid the earth was cracking in half. So she used Craig first. He was suspicious of her no matter what she did. From the look on his face, she couldn’t derive much better torment than making him pose for portraits.
He propped his bass on his foot and balanced it there with a bored look that suited him perfectly. So far they had each been wearing jeans and a dark shirt. Craig’s had a logo on it, but Kelsey was confident that she could erase it.
TJ was less of a bother than the other two. She messed with him a little bit, fussed with his hair like a mother hen, straightened his shirt. Posed him and re-posed him. All for the purpose of getting him a little put out. Seven minutes later, when he couldn’t hide it anymore, she started snapping photos.
JD was last. He was too easy going, too willing to pay her back whatever she asked, feeling too indebted. She had to seriously perturb him.
“I really want to get your silly side.” She walked up to him, camera hefted in one hand, and brushed his hair out of his eyes. It was so hard to stay in the moment as photographer, when touching him felt so right. She set the camera down, and played with his hair for another minute, telling herself it was for the shoot.
The damn fool was all too happy to oblige.
She sighed, not knowing how to get what she needed out of him.
Craig did it for her.
“Hey, pretty boy! Get your butt in here, we’ve got to run the set.”
JD hopped. “I’ve got to go. We’ll get this later.”
“No!” She thought fast. “I need it now. I have to show them to someone this evening. Please?” She put what she hoped was the right dash of desperation into her voice.
“I-” He paused. “They’re waiting on me.”
“I know.” She held her hand out, like that would stop him if he wanted to go. “Please, just a few more minutes.”
At last, he gave her a wary look. He wanted to be practicing, didn’t understand her. It all showed in his face. He looked her in the eye, even though his head and his body were leaning toward the garage, where he wanted to be. His hands were itching to play something, and she could see it in the way he held the guitar.
She snapped rapid photos from different angles. It was perfect.
“All right.” She sighed. “I guess you can go now.”
Before she could break face, she turned and walked inside. All the while in her brain a little voice was going Yes! Yes! Yes! When she was sure he wasn’t looking, she turned and rapidly squeezed off one last shot of him walking away.
Kelsey called clients while she downloaded pictures and ate a granola bar. Tomorrow she would ban food at the computer.
She filled in info online and promised herself that she would pull full credit reports on each client after the kids were home. The granola bar was polished off, and her memory was loaded.
Kelsey lined up all the low shots, then all the left shots, and so on. She chose what she would use, then spent the rest of the morning editing. She removed the picture from Craig’s shirt, killed spare shadows, a lone bleach spot on Alex’s jeans.
A sharp knock at the back door jolted her. She was just starting to relax when she heard the knob turn. Quickly, she hopped up and bolted for the office door. Only JD would just come in that way, and she was just getting the door shut behind her as he walked up.
“So, did you get what you need?”
“Yeah.” She tried to sound less than stellar about it. She didn’t want him to know, just yet.
“Can I see?”
“Please, no.” Distraction! She couldn’t think of anything, so she threw out what was true. “I’ve been staring at those for so long, I’ll go cross-eyed. I’ll show you tomorrow.”
Just then her stomach let out the strangest noise.
JD’s jaw dropped. “Was that you?”
“Yes.” She grimaced. On the upside he wasn’t asking about the pictures anymore.
“Do you want to grab lunch?” He looked at her sideways.
“Yes!” Finally, her hand unclenched from the office doorknob—as though JD might try to wrestle his way in to see the photos. As if she could stop him if he tried. “All I have in the house is a little bit of lunch stuff for kids. I haven’t been grocery shopping in . . . too long.”
That was because of the camera. She was spending all her free time with it.
He took her hand and pulled her away, out the back door and through the still vibrating instruments in the garage. “We’ll have to come back this evening and pack.”
She nodded.
“Who are you showing the photos to tonight? I thought you were going to watch Andie?”
She flushed red. “I’m sorry, I should have asked you.” Oh, this was bad. “I just assumed you wouldn’t mind, I got this appointment and I booked Bethany.”
“That’s okay. Maybe we’ll all go somewhere after school tomorrow. I know Andie wants to spend some time with you.”
Kelsey cringed.
“Hey!” He stopped on the sidewalk, turning square to her. “You said you weren’t going to do that again.”
“Do what?”
“Flinch.”
“Oh,” Her breath let out. He’d scared her. “I wasn’t flinching, I was feeling guilty. You told me Andie wanted to spend some time with us, and I just assumed she wanted the kids.”
“She wanted all of you, but she’ll be fine.” JD led her up the back steps to the condo, “I can make spaghetti, broccoli, macaroni and cheese . . .” He looked a little more chagrined as he listed each item.
Kelsey wanted to laugh so badly, but she tried to hold it in. “I wasn’t expecting flaked salmon salad.”
“Good, because that isn’t coming.”
He wound up making eggs and sausage, and complimenting her on the prospective client she was meeting tonight.
Guilt wormed its way a little deeper. He was cooking for her and congratulating her on a fabrication.
As they sat down to eat, he brought up his mother again, “They’ll be here the week before Halloween. You and TJ are the only ones who know. Please don’t tell.” Eggs disappeared from his plate at an alarming rate.
“It’s not mine to tell.” Kelsey shook her head. She didn’t reveal everything about Andrew. “She’s your daughter, it’s your decision. I’ll tell you if I think you’re making the wrong one, but I’ll abide by it.”
“You would tell me?”
“Yes.” She nodded. The old Kelsey wouldn’t. But the new Kelsey, the one that was taking pictures and living in the world around her, would.
“You think this is right?”
She thought for a moment. “Right is a big word.”
His plate was nearly clean, one last triangle of toast was left, and he ate that even as he looked at her funny.
“I don’t know if there is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in this. I think your decision is the best one for Andie. I don’t know if it’s the best one for you.”
JD nodded. “I’m good with that.”
She couldn’t finish all that he’d piled on her plate, and she pushed the remainder at him. “I have to get back to work.”
“Me, too.” He stood and saw her to the back door. “Why don’t I just pick the kids up at school? That way you’ll get an extra half hour of work in.”
Something inside
her softened. Kelsey stood in the back doorway, “You know, I don’t think I’ve said how impressed I am by what you’ve done.”
He snapped a little straighter. “What do you mean?”
“All of it. It’s impressive, giving up your job and moving across the country to try your hand in a field like this. Then Andie got slammed at you, and you just rose to the challenge again. Most men wouldn’t have done either.”
His head tilted, his hair falling over one eye. Apparently he hadn’t had it cut that short. He made a striking portrait standing, and Kelsey wished she had her camera. She could see the strength, what the rest of the world couldn’t see at the surface of him. There was compassion in his eyes, and a straightness to his spine, that said he did the things he believed in, and that he would be the one to stand up when he felt someone needed to.
She said a quick thank you, and turned down the steps. She wondered what was showing in her own eyes as she had looked at him.
Chapter 16
JD and the rest of Wilder made their way out onto the stage. He was always hoping for a crowd that was ready to go, but the bar was at a low hum, not a wild thrum. At least they knew how to handle this. They’d done it enough.
He picked up the guitar he’d set in the stand on stage earlier. The stage was cramped, but again, they’d worked that way before. With a smooth, innate motion, he flipped the guitar strap over his head and made a few minor adjustments until it no longer felt like the guitar was something he was holding, but simply an extension of his arms. While he looked out over the crowd trying to pick out anyone who might be an agent, his right hand reached down, fingertips absently walking through notes.
For a moment he thought about Kelsey, and hoped that she was doing well with her client tonight. She’d need her garage long before the band got anywhere. Then Alex tapped the beat for the first song of the set, and he started it with a gusto that JD wasn’t sure he could match tonight.
He didn’t count the rhythm, it just came to him. His hands knew when and what to start without his brain, and he was transported to that place where he was just playing. There was adrenaline, because this wasn’t Kelsey’s garage, but a real bar with real people watching. And you just never knew who. He cranked up his efforts.
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