Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
A squeal from across the room snared Cam’s attention. Walsh held one twin in each hand above his head, laughing up at his little girls. Tonight he and Kerris announced they were expecting another baby. Kerris was still in her first trimester, but not too long after Jo delivered their son, Kerris would add to the growing Bennett-Walsh brood. Walsh handed Brooklin off to Unc, and the two men settled onto the couch, tickling the girls and talking foundation business.
Cam had mastered the trick of disappearing long ago. Even though it was his party, and even though he was supposed to be at the center of the celebration, solitude was a hard habit to break. While all eyes weren’t on him, he decided to slip away.
He settled onto the gazebo bench, enjoying the early spring evening and the subtle rush of the river breaking the quiet. Music drifted down from the doors opened off the rear veranda. Cam smiled at the first strains of Al Green’s “Love and Happiness.” That would be Jo’s doing. He promised himself at least one dance with his wife before the night ended. That was probably her way of luring him back among company.
An image, as much apparition as memory, seized Cam’s mind, retrieved from some long-neglected alcove in his head. Mama dancing around their tiny apartment, cooking macaroni and cheese from the box. She’d set the pot to boil and then pulled Cam from the couch to his feet. And they’d danced to Al Green’s gritty-smooth, somber voice singing about love and happiness. Mama’s face, the color of toasted honey, had glowed, healthy. Happy. Free from the demons that in just a few years would chase her into the shadows. Force her to her knees and onto her back. Maybe Cam had blocked this memory, so sweet and pure, of Mama before the drugs because it was too painful to remember what he’d lost and what she’d been before. She’d cared once. Maybe that’s why it had hurt so much when she stopped.
Dr. Stein had advised Cam he needed to forgive Mama as a part of his healing process. She’d urged him to write Mama a letter. Cam thought it was ridiculous, until he sat down and couldn’t write one word to release Mama from his anger and bitterness. But here, on a perfect spring night, on his birthday, with Al Green reminding him of those better days, he could. He did.
Cam had never been a religious man, but in that moment, this gazebo was his church. Al Green, the impassioned preacher. That song drifting through the quiet night—his hymn. And his soul underwent a conversion from dark to light. He forgave Mama not because she’d asked, but because he needed to do it. For his unborn son. For the bright spot he and Jo had adopted from Haiti. For his wife, whose love existed beyond dimension. Who had loved him when he hadn’t even loved himself.
“I figured you’d be here.” Jo climbed the few gazebo steps until she stood in front of him, waiting for him to pull her close.
Cam set his hands on her hips and traced the muscles in her legs through the loose linen pants.
“You’re no fun pregnant.” Cam pushed the tunic up to expose her small baby bump.
“I beg your pardon?” Jo pushed her fingers through his hair and caressed the back of his neck.
“You’re not even fat.”
Her chuckle rumbled through her belly, vibrating under the kisses he dusted over the smooth skin.
“I’m fat enough, buddy.”
Cam gave her a sheepish look over the swell of her stomach.
“I want another one.”
Jo’s indulgent smile dropped along with her hands.
“Cameron Mitchell.”
“Joanne Elizabeth.” Cam pulled her to sit on his knee. “Not right away.”
Jo looped her arms around his neck, laying her head against his.
“Oh. You had me going for a minute there.”
“Of course I didn’t mean for you to get pregnant again right way.” Cam offered her a hopeful look. “Like what—four, five months after this one? Is that enough time?”
Jo sat up and looked at him like he’d sprouted horns.
“You’re serious.”
“I’m very serious.” Cam rubbed the little incubator his son was in. “I want as many bits and pieces of you running around here as possible. Come on. Give me another baby, Jo.”
“Can we have this discussion after I have labored twenty hours with this one?”
“You won’t be in labor that long. As active and fit as you are, it’ll be a piece of cake.”
“Says the man who only had to ejaculate.”
“You shouldn’t say words like ‘ejaculate’ when you’re on my lap. The power of suggestion is, well, powerful.”
Jo leaned in, whispering against his lips like the river might be listening.
“Didn’t we just do that before the party, you insatiable man?”
“I’m insatiable?” Cam pulled back, disbelieving eyebrows elevated. “I was minding my own business, shaving and getting ready for my birthday party, when this naked woman accosted me in—”