“You know you’re the only one I see, idjit.”
“Nice,” he muttered, but disgruntlement gave way to passion when I kissed him. Four months after we had made things permanent, swore the forever to each other, three months after a civil union ceremony that we had at his parents’ place in Half Moon Bay that he invited everyone he knew to, and two months after Carolyn legally made me the guardian of her children that her ex had given her full custody of, still I made the man breathless. I had thought that domesticity would kill my allure, that seeing me entrenched in his life would make me less than hot. But that was not the case. Seeing me in the kitchen at the end of the day, finding me in the backyard watering the lawn, watching me throw the ball for the dog… all those things made the man wild for me. He loved it. And it was amazing.
We were a family, one that I had never hoped to have.
I knew Carolyn was still trying to put money into my checking account that I shared with Cy, but he had it blocked so she couldn’t. I didn’t need her money. I just needed her and her kids and all of them loving me.
I had reconciled the what-made-a-man-a-man part with who I was. Because I was the center of everything. Without me, Cy was different, not the man he was now, warm and loving and free. Without me, the boys didn’t feel protected and grounded and safe. Without me, Carolyn didn’t have a wall to lean on, someone who had her back no matter what. They were all a blessing, especially Cy, but I mattered too, and I wouldn’t give that up for anything.
“Oh dear God, what is that?” Cy whimpered beside me, bringing me back from my wildly roaming thoughts to the here and now of the Easter program.
“It’s a xylophone,” I informed him.
“A what?” Carolyn whispered from the other side of me.
I rolled my eyes. “Micah plays the xylophone and sings. Where have you people been?”
“Are you kidding me?” Carolyn poked me in the arm.
“It’s loud too,” Tristan informed his uncle from the other side of him, putting his hands over his ears. “That’s why Weber makes him practice in the garage.”
“That’s why he’s been in the garage?” Cy asked me.
I nodded as the first notes on the xylophone were struck. The microphone was right there, right where the resounding noise could travel all the way through the crowd and run straight up your spine to the center of your brain.
The lady in front of us said ohmygod, but not in a good way.
The man behind me jolted and kicked my chair. “Sorry,” he gasped, startled.
Carolyn started giggling, Pip climbed out of his seat and into my lap, and Cy turned to me like it was all my fault.
“What?”
“Are you kidding?” He was indignant. “This could damage my cerebral cortex.”
I shook my head. “Probably not.”
“I’m sorry, when did you get your medical degree?”
“I live with a doctor.” I waggled my eyebrows at him. “You pick up a bit.”
Another chord was struck.
“Oh dear God,” Cy whimpered.
“It’s only for the first three songs,” I told him. “Then they switch to maracas.”
He was stunned.
I just made sure Micah saw me when he looked up, and saw me smile. The kid had to be supported, for crissakes.
Before New Year’s, Micah had asked Cy to please pass the mashed potatoes at the table. And Cy had. We made no event of it, and when we made the trip up to see his parents on the first day of the year, having seen them at Christmas a week before, they were shocked to hear him talking like it was no big deal, not speaking any louder or faster or even more, just him, just Micah. His life was settled. If he wasn’t at school or at an activity or with his mother, he was with me. I wasn’t going to die on him, and neither was his mother or his uncle. He had faith in all of us to stick around. His father was gone, but the man had been busy, in more ways than one it had turned out, and the sad part was that Micah didn’t miss what he hadn’t ever had. He didn’t miss the relationship with his father, didn’t mourn the man’s absence. None of the boys did. They didn’t even ask after him, which made me think even worse of the man. I did hope he was happy living in Vegas, though, and I, like Carolyn, wished he would just stay there and have a good life. Ours was perfect; we didn’t need to begrudge him.
The tap on my shoulder brought me from my thoughts. Turning, I looked over my shoulder at a very pained looking, beautifully turned out mother of one of Micah’s classmates.
“Ma’am?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt. Did you say only two songs like this, or two more and then the maracas?”
“Two more after this, then the maracas.”
“Thank you.” She winced. “Aren’t you Micah’s nanny?”
“Yes, ma’am, and you’re Kellie’s mom.”
“Yes.” She tried to smile at me.
“She plays a mean ukulele. I heard her practicing yesterday.”
“Oh, that’s right.” She was trying to hold onto her smile, her forced cheerfulness. “I forgot there’s that too. Thank you.”
I nodded and turned back around as a hand slipped into mine. Looking over at Cy, I found him smiling at me.
“What?”
“I love you.”
“I love you back.”
“I’m still going to kill you for not warning me about the xylophone,” he moaned as a wrong note was gonged. It was really loud, and his eyes got huge.
“That was cute there, doc.”
He growled under his breath.
Two hours and fifteen minutes later, after the last percussion and vocal interpretation, everyone wanted to know why the Easter program had xylophones, maracas, bongo drums, and ukuleles anyway.
“It’s about experiencing and appreciating different cultures and their musical interpretations and gifts.”
“It’s what?”
