“He says…we’re going to do whatever we can to keep the baby, but I know Carly’s parents want to raise him.”
“No!” She was a little surprised at her vehement reaction, but it was genuine and sharp. “He’s your son, Jonah.”
“Yeah, I know. Dad seems to think we’ll just tell them we want the baby and that’ll be all it takes. He’s, you know…praying.”
She fought a smile at the thought. Her father was alone in his deep faith, but it was one of a million things she loved about him. And another reason her news would gut him. And on top of a custody battle?
“Do you want me to have Dad call you?” Jonah asked. “Or give him a message?”
Not this message. It certainly wasn’t something she wanted Jonah to tell him—in fact, she didn’t want to drop this bomb over the phone.
Sitting up a little straighter, she stared ahead, her brain whirring through the open projects and client issues at Acacia Architecture. Did she have to handle all of them in person?
They had the world’s most efficient office manager and several of the architects worked remotely. Dad was spending the summer in Destin—couldn’t she? Suddenly, Meredith wanted that more than anything.
She needed family. She needed Dad. And from the sounds of it?
“You need me, Jonah,” she whispered.
He snorted. “To come and wrap us all in spreadsheets and a to-do list?”
She ignored his sarcasm, forcing herself back a decade and a half, to a den where two kids playedRock Band, singing and laughing until they hurt. Everything about the Lawson family was different back then, and right this minute?
Meredith just wanted to capture that security and happiness and sense of home. She needed it more than she needed anything. And she could tell Dad her news in person.
That was so much better.
“Is there a place for me to sleep?” she asked.
He didn’t answer and she braced herself for his rebuff, a snarky comment about how she didn’t sleep because she was so busy conquering the world. And then she’d tell him how badly the world had beaten her up today.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice gruff.
“Really?” She was more surprised by his response than the fact that the crowded house had room for her.
“I’d love you to be here, Mer.”
She nearly folded in half. “Then I’m on my way, big brother.”
June 12, 1992
We’re officially BACK at the beach! It’s been so much fun in the two weeks since we got here that I totally forgot to start a new notebook for this year. And let me tell you, this year I am THRIVING.
Well, sort of. Emotionally, yes. Spiritually, absolutely. Hygienically? TBD.
Because let me tell you what’s NOT thriving: the main bathroom that is “just for the kids.” Except…there are six of us, and that includes three fifteen-year-old girls (I’m one by the way) and two eighteen-year-old boys (I don’t even want to know what they do in a bathroom). And of course, Crista, who’s nine but still has tobathelike Cleopatra.
Six kids. One bathroom. One shower/tub combo. No rules. No boundaries. And one sad showerhead that dribbles instead of sprays, and exactly three inches of counter space.
This morning I had shampoo in my hair and one leg halfway shaved when the hot water cut out. Gone. Just ICE. I screamed so loud Eli knocked on the door and asked if I slipped and died.
Kate’s already devised a sign-up sheet (which Tessa promptly ignored), and Eli thinks it’s funny to say he’s “training for the Navy” by taking cold showers, but really he just wants thebathroom first so he can hog the mirror and “perfect his hair swoop.” Boys.
Tessa, though. TESSA. I love that girl to death, but she thinks every shower is full-blown beauty pageant prep that takes forty-five minutes. This morning she played Whitney Houston three times in a row on her waterproof cassette player and came out wearing a robe like she was getting ready to go on a talk show.
When I told her that FIVE of us use the bathroom, I got a hair flip and a reminder that beauty takes time.
Rude.
