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As I tuck my phone away, my dad’s words float through my mind. “You and Sam will make me some good-looking grandbabies. But that doesn’t mean I want them right now.”
God, I’d been mortified when he said that to me. I’d been like eighteen or nineteen years old, and Sam and I had been having sex, but it wasn’t something I shared with Dad.
Years later, before he died, he’d sung a different tune. He’d say things like, “Now, Sandra, I need you to stop looking after me and go out there and meet a nice young man so I can meet my grandchildren. You never know how much time I have before it’s my turn to meet our maker.”
Partially thanks to his pressure, along came Henry. But then I had to give Henry back to his mother, and one month later, Dad died. My future shriveled into nothing.
A heaviness weighs down. I delete the photos of Sam’s kids and slip my phone into my back pocket, then call out to the pasture, to Polly. She’s been my confidante forever. The one living being I could say anything to and she’d never tell a soul.
“Didn’t happen, did it, Polly?”
She meanders up to me and knocks me a step back with her head, asking for a scratch. With a heaviness in my heart, I oblige. Loving on Polly gives me comfort.
After a good rubdown, fresh water, and hay, I close her in for the night and return to the house to prepare for bed. My thoughts stray from my dad, and like they often do, to Henry. When you take in a foster child, the goal is reunification with the parents. Only I failed at absorbing that part of the training, because I ache for him. I ache for that little boy and for all the things in my life that didn’t come to be.
The phone rings, and given the well of emotion in my throat, I seriously consider letting it go to voicemail. But Aunt Nora’s smiling image shines up at me, and I answer.
“Happy New Year.”
“Sandra. Happy New Year to you. Are you hungover?”
“No.” If I had more pep, I might laugh at my raucous aunt.
“Well, that’s a shame. Don’t tell me you didn’t do anything.”
“No, I did.” I plop down on the sofa, fully aware I sound sad, but sometimes the best way to handle sad is to let it be.
“What’s wrong?” Aunt Nora’s concern coats the line between us, and my index finger rubs the back of the phone.
“Nothing.” The automatic answer is met with a grunt. Then silence.
“Honey, I think it’s time you consider seeing a therapist.” I close my eyes and tilt my head back, letting my gaze roam over the ceiling. This is why I didn’t go to Washington for Christmas. Aunt Nora jumps to drastic conclusions all because I’m feeling a little down. This isn’t the first time she’s suggested a therapist, and it won’t be the last. “It’s perfectly natural. You lost your child and your father close together.”
Tears well in my eyes, and I thrust a nail between my teeth. He wasn’t really my child, but I certainly loved him like he was. I’d been so sad all the time, and Derek couldn’t deal, so he ended things the week before I found Dad in the woods. The rule of three held true for me. Three shitty things all at once. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.
“Did you get my email?” Aunt Nora loves to forward articles.
“Maybe?”
“It’s an article about all the options available to have a child as a single woman, or as a gay couple.” As a gay woman, even though she didn’t have children of her own, my aunt’s friends with plenty of alternative families traveled down a nontraditional path for their children.
I explored all the options. That’s how I originally ended up as a foster parent in the state’s foster care program. As a single woman, I wasn’t an ideal candidate, but there’s always a shortage of foster parents. I’d thought it might be a path to adoption, and in theory, it could have been.
For those first few years after the rule of three, I wasn’t in the right mindset to pursue alternate options. Regardless of this tidal wave of sadness that came out of nowhere, I am doing better. I went out for New Year’s Eve. I traveled all the way to Houston.
The pads of my fingers touch my lips, and a searing heat fills me as I remember the New Year’s kiss.
Aunt Nora jabbers away, highlighting the options, including freezing my eggs, which seems crazy to me, given my age. It feels like another window I waited too late to open. Something I thought about but haven’t moved on. And now, here I am, driving to Houston and getting kissed by my ex’s brother.
And boy, can Ian Duke kiss. I mean, he’s a Duke brother. There’s no surprise there, really. It meant nothing. He’s a long-time friend. Without a doubt, interested women line up for him, all living a lot closer than Whispering Creek. And besides, there’s an unspoken rule… you don’t date your ex’s brother. It’s just not done. So, I need to wash that kiss right out of my head.
Yes, he might’ve been flirty at times. But the youngest Duke brother has always been a flirt. Even back when I dated Sam, he’d been a flirt.
Ian and I have known each other so long, we’re like siblings. Just like me and Ollie. Which I suppose is why we’d both been a little shell-shocked after the unexpected kiss. Or at least I was.
But it was New Year’s. Everyone was kissing someone. The kiss didn’t mean a thing. And the way my body reacted was just a sign that, if anything, I might need to force myself back to my dating app.
Aunt Nora might push therapy and artificial insemination, but there are other ways to move forward. Dancing in my living room and shaking off the bad vibes, for one. A solid orgasm would also do wonders. But, my god, I don’t want to do the dating app thing. I’d probably need to upload a more recent photo, and that’s an exhausting notion.
