Rough Drafts (4 page)

“What
do you want to do?” Candace asked him.

“I
guess, I should marry her, right?”

Candace
pursed her lips. “Is that what your heart tells you to do?” she asked.

“No,
but it’s the right thing.”

“The
right thing, Jonah, is to stand by Laura and this baby. That, I agree is the
right thing. You shouldn’t marry anyone unless your heart is in it all the way.
Trust me on that.”

Jonah
nodded. He looked across at his mother who had closed her eyes in thought.
“Mom?”

“Hum?”

“I
really don’t know what to do.”

Candace
opened her eyes. “I know. Why don’t we worry about that tomorrow,” she
suggested.

Jonah’s
tears started to fall and Candace moved to embrace her son. “Jesus,” he
groaned. “I can’t do this. I’m crying
on
my mom.”

Candace
chuckled. “If only you knew how many times I wished I could do that very
thing,” she told him.

“Really?”
he asked.

“I
swear. Thank God for Pearl. Now, come on. You know they are all out there
talking about us.”

“Jameson
is going to think I am a total fuck up,” he commented.

Candace
smiled at him. It warmed her heart that each of her children had grown to worry
about Jameson’s opinion. “Don’t underestimate her,” Candace said. “She might
surprise
you.
”

***

“Hey,”
Jameson called into the kitchen where Candace was standing at the stove.

“Hey
yourself,” Candace replied.

Jameson
slipped her arms around Candace’s waist. “How are you doing?” she wondered.

Candace
turned and faced Jameson. “I can’t say I expected another grandchild this
soon,” Candace answered.

“Mm.
Me neither,” Jameson agreed. “Seriously, are you okay with this?”

“No,
not really. That doesn’t really matter, though. He needs us to be okay with
this,” Candace said.

“Us?”

“Yeah,
us,” Candace said. “He’s pretty concerned about what you will think of him,”
Candace told her wife.

“Me?”
Jameson asked in surprise.

“Jameson,
he looks up to you, you know?”

Jameson
frowned. “No, I didn’t. I mean, I love Jonah. I just thought he saw me…”

“I
know what you think, honey. I know it’s strange for you,” Candace sighed. “They
care about you.”

“I
know,” Jameson admitted. “Just, sometimes I don’t know what I am supposed to be
to them. You know?”

“I
do,” Candace said. “Maybe you could go talk to him,” she suggested. She pointed
out back to where Jonah was splitting some firewood. “I think he could use
someone to talk to right now. Someone not his mom and not a sister that will
tease or lecture him,” Candace explained.

Jameson
looked out the window and sighed. “What am I supposed to say?”

Candace
kissed Jameson gently. “Let him talk. Just be honest.”

“You
know, you really are an amazing woman,” Jameson said.

“You
think so?”

“No.
I know so,” Jameson said with a kiss. “Are you going to call Pearl?” she asked
as she reached for her coat.

“No,
she’s spending the weekend with Jeffrey. They need this time. I’ll call her
Monday.”

Jameson
nodded with her hand on the door. “Wish me luck,” she said.

“You
don’t need any,” Candace reassured Jameson. “Wine, maybe,” Candace said to
herself as she watched Jameson make her way toward Jonah. “Luck? No. Wine.
Definitely.”

***

“So?
What do you think?” Michelle asked her mother.

Candace
moved a pot onto the stove and turned to face her daughter. “About?”

“About
Jonah!”

“What
about him?”

“Mom!”

“Shell,
leave
it
be
,”
Candace said sternly.

“Come
on, Mom. This can’t be good on top of all the crap that was on the news last
night about J.D.”

“I
said, leave it, Shell. Where’s Melanie?” Candace tried to change the subject.
She adored her daughter but Michelle was testing her patience.

Michelle
huffed. “She went to the store to get some more beer. She thought maybe Jonah
could use a couple later.”

“Safe
bet,” Candace replied as she returned to her task at the stove.

“Did
you
actually
fire Gollum?” Michelle
asked.

“Yep.”

“Wow.
An eventful couple
of days,” Michelle
commented. Candace turned and glared. “What? What did I say?” Michelle asked.
Candace shook her head. “Mom?”

“I’m
sorry, Shell. I guess I am feeling a little raw.”

“I
can’t imagine why. First, some idiot claims your wife is a druggie and then your
baby comes home and tells you he knocked up some girl you’ve never heard of.
You could have your own soap opera—if they still had those,” Michelle mused.

Candace
rolled her eyes. She couldn’t help but laugh at Michelle. “Do me a favor?” she
asked her daughter.

“What?”

“Go
easy on your brother for now, okay?” Candace requested.

“I
get it. Doing the protective thing.”

“Shell….”

“Okay!
Okay! I promise I won’t tease him….At least, not this weekend.”

Candace
rolled her eyes again. “Thank God, you are so compassionate, Shell,” she
chuckled.

“What
are you going to do about Gollum?” Michelle changed the subject.

“Funny
you should ask,” Candace said. “Why don’t you pour us some wine?”

***

“I
get that it’s New York State. With that much wood, we could melt the polar ice
caps.” Jameson commented to Jonah.

Jonah
let the
ax
in his hand fall into a stump
and smiled. “Needed some air,” he explained.

“Mm.
And some exercise,” Jameson said.

“Yeah,”
he replied. “How’s Mom?” he asked sheepishly.

Jameson
pointed to the nearby woodpile and gestured for Jonah to sit. She pulled up a
log and sat on it to face him. “She’s worried about you,” Jameson told him.

“I
know. I really messed up royally,” he said.

Jameson
shrugged. “Is that really how you feel?” she asked him.

“What?”

“About
your girlfriend having your baby. Does that make you feel like you screwed up?”
Jameson wondered.

Jonah
thought for a moment. “No. I know that it’s not what people expect of me. I
didn’t want it to happen.”

“Okay,
but it has. So, what other people think isn’t really important. How do you
feel?”

“Truthfully?”

“Yeah,
truthfully
.”

“Freaked
out,” Jonah confessed.

“Maybe
that’s why you expect everyone else to freak out,” Jameson offered.

Jonah
shrugged. “I didn’t plan on it. Wouldn’t you be
freaked
out
?”

Jameson
laughed. “Well, there isn’t much danger in that for me,” she pointed out. “So,
I never really thought about it. I guess that would
depend
.”

“On
what?” he asked.

“I
don’t know. If it was your mom, I guess I would be happy, even if I
were
scared shitless.”

“Really?”

“Why
does that surprise you?” Jameson asked. “Don’t get your hopes up there,” she
chuckled. “Your mom is past that point and I don’t have the skills required
anyway.”

Jonah
laughed. “Sometimes, I think it’s just a dream, you know? I’ll wake up and it
won’t be real,” he said. “But, sometimes…”

“Sometimes?”

“Like
before I left,” Jonah began to explain. “Laura spent the night and I found
myself touching her stomach, wondering about who was in there,” he said. His
cheeks blushed a deeper red in the cold.

Jameson
nodded. “Sounds normal to me.”

“It’s
going to cause Mom problems,” he said.

“Nothing your mom
can’t handle,” Jameson assured him.

“I
hate disappointing her,” he admitted.

“I
know what you mean,” Jameson said.

“You?
You could never disappoint her,” Jonah said.

“Oh,
I wish that were true,” Jameson shook her head. “We all fall short sometimes,
Jonah. Or, at least we think we do. You feel like you screwed something up so
you think your mom sees it that way. I know what that feels like. I also know
your mom. She’s worried about you. But then, she worries about you three all
the time,” she chuckled. “I don’t think she’s disappointed. Surprised, maybe.
Disappointed, no.”

Jonah
looked at Jameson seriously. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah.
Geez, J.D., you are a lot to live up to.”

Jameson
was taken aback. “Jonah, why would you even worry about that?”

“I
don’t know,” he sighed. “Forget it.”

“Jonah?”

“Look,
J.D….Marianne has this great relationship with our dad.
Me
and Shell? It just was never that way, you know? Jessica
was…well, I don’t know. She was okay, but she was never around. Neither was
he.”

Jameson
listened intently. It surprised her how Candace’s grown children could seem so
young at certain
moments,
as if she were
thirty years their elder. And then, in other moments act as if she were their
peer. “I don’t,” Jameson began to speak.

“You
are always there,” he said.

Jameson
felt herself becoming emotional. She had cultivated what she thought was a
healthy relationship with all of Candace’s children. Admittedly, she was the
closest to Michelle. Some of that was proximity. Some of it was personality.
When she stopped to think, Jonah had taken to calling her out of the blue in
the last year. She began to run some of those conversations through her mind.
“Jonah?” she began. “When you called me last week…”

“Yeah,
I had just found out,” he said. “I wanted to tell you, but I chickened out.”

“You
could have.”

“I
know,” he said. “That’s what I mean, J.D. I didn’t even think about calling
Dad. I wanted to tell Mom, but…”

“You
thought she’d freak out.”

“No,
not really. I knew she wouldn’t yell or anything. I just didn’t want to see her
look at me like she did that time I got caught with the matches.”

“The
what?”

“I
was seven, I think,” Jonah said. “I found these firecrackers in the barn. I
knew that Pearl had matches in the cupboard over the stove. She thought it was
a secret.”

“Oh,
no.”

“Yeah,
Mom caught me out behind the barn trying to light them. At first, she just seemed
so mad,” Jonah recalled. “When she sat me down, she just looked so disappointed
in me.”

Jameson
smiled. “She was scared.”

“What?
She was pissed.”

“Because
she was scared,” Jameson said. “Jonah, your mom…Well, I shouldn’t tell you
this. She probably should.”

“Tell
me what?”

“Let’s
just say that she loves you in a way I’m not sure you will ever understand. She
worries about you the most, I think.”

“Because
I am the youngest.”

“Because
you are her miracle,” Jameson said. “Her words, not mine,” she clarified. Jonah
swallowed hard. “You would have a rough time disappointing her, and that is the
only way you could ever disappoint me. Not that I get why you would even worry
about that.”

“You’re
like my other mom,” he said. Jameson’s eyes grew wide. “Okay, so maybe it’s
weird. It’s still true.”

“Jonah…”

“Look,
it’s weird for me too,” he confessed. “You’re always there,” Jonah said. “It’s
just different. Maybe I’m not saying it right.”

Jameson
smiled. “For a man of few words, you’ve said a lot,” she joked. “And, for the
record, I will always be here for you.”

Jonah
nodded. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.
I am a little pissed at
you,
though,” she
said. Jonah went pale and Jameson laughed. “I’m thirty-seven. I should not be
having all these grandchildren. Just promise me I can still be J.D. One Nana in
the family is enough.”

Jonah
laughed. “Deal.”

“Good.
Grab some of that wood, Daddy,” she smirked. “Might as well get used to
carrying a load now.”

“Jerk,”
he called after her,

“That’s
Step-jerk to you, Sonny,” Jameson called back as she made her way to the house.
“Never a dull moment in this family,” Jameson chuckled as she reached the door.