My beautiful goddaughter reached my office first, however, rushing into the room with a squeal, so I spun around in my chair and scooped her up in a big hug. “How’s my sunshine?” I asked, getting a giggle in answer. She tried squirming out of my grasp almost immediately, and I knew that snuggle time would be over almost as soon as it had begun. She was such a little perpetual motion machine. I held her tighter, though, my hand raised in The Claw, threatening a massive tickle. “You know what I want to hear. Don’t make me use this.”
Julia’s eyes opened wide and her mouth gaped open, pretending to recoil with fear.
Just then, her twin brother came bounding into the room, appraising the scene and saying, “Uh-oh, Jooya.”
I gave Caleb a wink and flinched my hand at the stubborn little monkey on my lap, psyching her out. But it was enough to make her scream, “Auntie Layla is my favorite aunt!”
She squirmed again, so I released her from my clutches and opened my arms to Caleb for a hug. He was dirty and sticky—like all good little boys are supposed to be—and I buried my face at his shoulder to blow razzberries into his neck. He smelled like watermelon Jolly Ranchers.
“Did Grampa Kenny give you candy already?” I asked.
They both nodded their heads as Caleb said, “Are you gonna cwaw me now?”
I raised my hand in The Claw. “Do I need to?”
He giggled and yelled, “Auntie Waywa is my favewit aunt!”
Caleb could hit decibel levels that didn’t exist on this planet. He’d totally inherited Lisa’s loudness gene. Burn.
“I have trained you well, young patawan.”
I set him back down as Lisa came into the room. “You have to stop teaching them to say that. They have another aunt besides you, you know.”
I shrugged and said, “Yes, but Aunt Penny’s not their favorite aunt,” giving my two favorite tiny humans a conspiratorial look, which made them break into a new fit of giggles.
Lisa just shook her head and said, “You guys know that you should never ever say that in front of Aunt Penny, right?”
They both nodded their heads reverently before running off to destroy my bedroom.
Lisa plopped herself down on my old, padded futon across from my old, well-worn desk. I’d moved back home over four years before and used some of the stuff from my New York apartment to convert Bruce’s room into an office.
I know it seems kind of pathetic that I was thirty-one and living in my father’s house. Not only should I have wanted a bit more privacy for myself, but Dad had a girlfriend, so you’d think that he’d want a little privacy, too.
But we were used to living together. Heck, we’d done it for the first eighteen years of my life. And the fact was, he was spending a lot of his time at Sylvia’s anyway. He actually liked the idea that I was there taking care of things while he was gone. Plus, he knew I was saving every penny for a down payment on a house of my own and didn’t want me wasting my hard-earned cash by paying rent on some random place.
Hard-earned might be an exaggeration, however. I definitely put everything I had into my writing, but I could scarcely consider it “hard work” when it could be done in my PJs.
I was presently, officially, and blissfully a not-so-starving artist. I’d given up on a career in journalism to become an author. I wrote books for a living—mostly fiction—and I actually got paid to do so. It was awesome. I was living out a dream I never knew I always had.
Funny that it coincided with the only other dream I’d ever had (but I’m pretty sure I always knew I had that one).
Back in 2000, I’d called that agent who left me a message the day I was fired from Now! Magazine. Diana Cavanaugh and I just clicked from the get go, and I spent the entirety of that following year writing my first book. It wasn’t quite the factual exposé she’d originally been campaigning for, but it was a good story and managed to find an audience. For my second novel, I actually received an advance, so I took my sweet old time getting that baby out. There were a couple novellas and a few short stories sprinkled in there, but I was currently dabbling with some ideas for my third full-length book.
Lisa was on her third baby, too.
She gave a rub to her lower back, and I could see her baby bump straining against her DKNY sweatshirt. “Ow. Four months in and this one’s already killing me.”
“Don’t complain to me, sister. You’re the psycho that decided to have another kid after a set of twins.”
She ignored my jab and got down to brass tacks. “So, you know what I came here to hear. Tell me about Trip! This is really happening, huh?”
We were both smiling like a couple of loons. “Yeah. Finally.”
An unspoken understanding passed between us at the situation. Lisa knew better than anyone what a long road it had been. She was there from the first minute and had been there for every moment since. She was the one who helped me survive in those first weeks after Trip announced his engagement. She was the one who helped me stay sane. She was the one who got me through that very long winter, kept me focused on the many good things I had to look forward to, didn’t allow me to sink into the crazed depression my mind was begging for.