“They only kiss at the end, so it’s not so bad. Besides, you get cake.”
He brightened. “For real? I’m in.”
He took the lettuce to the sink and began to wash it, before putting each clean leaf into the colander.
Gentry began to carefully slice the pineapple into chunks. “I wonder what kind of dress Shawna will get. Maybe one with a really long train. That would be pretty. Oh, do bridesmaids carry flowers? I’d like that.”
“Usually they do. It can be a smaller version of the bride’s bouquet or something completely different. Shawna will pick her colors for the wedding and everything will coordinate with them.”
“What were your colors, Mom?” Gentry asked. “When you married Daddy.”
“Pale pink and silver. The men wore gray tuxes and my bridesmaids were in icy pink dresses.” The wedding had been in January because it had to be scheduled during the offseason. She hadn’t wanted a fall wedding and didn’t want it too close to the holidays.
“You’ve seen the pictures,” she added.
“A long time ago.” Gentry scooped up the pineapple and put it in the bowl. “Did you keep them?”
“The photo album? Not after the divorce.”
She’d kept a couple of pictures of herself in her dress and a few of the entire wedding party, but had tossed the rest. Yet one more causality of the divorce, she thought.
“Do you like Shawna?” Xander asked.
Jax glanced at him. “I don’t know her. We just met earlier today. She seemed very nice. I look forward to getting to know her better.”
“I guess we’re going to be a family.” His tone was doubtful. “I don’t know how that’s going to work.”
“We’ll be a blended family,” Gentry said. “Everyone is today.”
“So I’ll have two moms?” he asked. “Like my friend Andrew?”
Jax shook her head. “Not like Andrew.” His two moms were a happily married lesbian couple. “Shawna will be...” She hesitated, not sure how to explain. “After the wedding, Shawna will be your stepmother, but that role is more like a friend. Your dad and I will still be here for you, just like always.”
“Can she tell me what to do?” he asked. “And punish me and stuff?”
A thought that made Jax bristle. She wanted to tell him that was a hard no, but knew that probably wasn’t the right thing to say. “We’ll figure that out as we go. Right now everything is pretty new, which makes it confusing. There’s no defined role for a stepparent. When my mom married Taft, Ryleigh and I were excited to have him join the family because we’d never had a dad. If we’d had one, then our relationship would have been different.”
Jax had a feeling she was getting it all wrong, but she didn’t know what else to say. Maybe if she’d had a little time to prepare she could have come up with something that made more sense. She held in a sigh.
“Let’s see how things go in the next few weeks,” she said, keeping her tone neutral. With a little luck, Harris would come to his senses and admit he’d made a mistake when he’d proposed. Should that happen, there wouldn’t be a stepmother issue to deal with.
“And if you have any questions about dealing with Shawna, talk to me or your dad. It’s going to be a new situation for all of us as we learn how to be a different kind of family. You know what happens when you try to master a new skill.”
“You’re probably going to get it wrong before you get it right,” Gentry said with a grin. “We remember, Mom.”
Jax had the thought that however annoyed she was with her ex right now, she and Harris were going to have to sit down and figure out how to tell the kids that Shawna would now be moving into the house on the weeks they were with their dad. A conversation she didn’t want to have at all but Harris had forced her hand.
“I like Shawna,” Gentry added as she finished with the pineapple and moved to the grapes. “She and Dad get along.”
“Yeah, they don’t fight,” Xander added.
The timer went off. Jax pulled the biscuits from the oven and set the cookie sheet on the cooling rack.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“It’s not like with you and Dad,” Xander said. “You know, before the divorce. You fought all the time.”
“That’s not true.” Jax’s response was automatic. “I mean sometimes sure, but not always...” Her voice trailed off as she watched her kids exchange a look of silent communication. She didn’t know what they were thinking, but she recognized the exchange. She and Ryleigh had done it all the time when they were kids. They still did it now.
