Chapter 3
When Callie returned home, she found Ariel, Taylor, and Erica in the living room, chatting and sipping tea. Erica was holding Dot, who was asleep against her chest.
“No, I agree with you Tay, I just… I guess, I’m just stressed about the whole thing.
But yeah, I still think we should wait,” Ariel said in a hushed tone as Callie entered the room.
The moment her children spotted her; a hush fell over them.
Taylor gave a stiff smile and Ariel’s voice cracked a little when she said, “Oh, hey, mom! I didn’t realize you were home already. ”
“I just walked in.” Callie gave them all a dubious look. “What were you guys talking about?”
“Nothing,” Taylor replied with a shrug. “Just work stuff. Nothing exciting, that’s for sure.”
“Work stuff?” She glanced at Ariel, who didn’t currently have a job as far as Callie knew.
“You were talking to them about their work stuff or…” Her daughter didn’t respond right away, so Callie elaborated.
“I only ask because you were saying something about ‘waiting’ and I was wondering what you’re waiting for.
” This wasn’t the full truth. The real reason she was asking was because she knew they were hiding something from her, and she was desperate to know what it was.
“Oh, uh—” Ariel cleared her throat and then her face brightened.
“Taylor and Erica were talking me through some legal jargon from this contract I was recently sent. I wanted to make sure that I fully understood what I was agreeing to before I signed it. And that’s what I was saying I wanted to wait for.
I wanted them to have a chance to go over the paperwork before I agreed to anything. ”
“What kind of contract?”
Ariel looked down at her lap shyly. “Um—well—it’s just this thing I’ve been working on. Remember when I told you I was getting into some creative projects lately?”
Callie nodded.
“One of them might actually be going somewhere,” she said vaguely.
“Or rather, it already has gone somewhere.” Ariel pushed her shoulders back and smiled wide.
“I guess the secret is going to come out eventually, so I might as well tell you, although I originally wanted to wait until the contract was signed and things were more official.”
“Just tell her,” Taylor said. “What’s the point in keeping it a secret anymore?”
“Yeah, tell me.” Callie nodded, taking a seat on the couch next to Erica. “I want to know what’s going on in your life, honey.”
“It’s a children’s book,” Ariel said with a shy smile. “I wrote and illustrated it. It’s the first in a series—or at least, that’s what I’m hoping it’ll become. Right now, I’ve only been given a book deal for the first one, but—”
Callie gasped. “You’ve got a book deal?”
“Once I sign the contract, yes.”
“Oh my gosh, Ariel! That’s amazing!” She jumped to her feet and threw her arms around her daughter. “I’m so proud of you. Why didn’t you tell me you were writing a book?”
“I didn’t tell anyone,” Ariel admitted. “But I’m telling you now.” When they parted, Callie beamed at her daughter, overjoyed that a good secret had been revealed for a change.
“But why keep it a secret at all?” Callie’s smile faltered, recalling her own secrets and how they were not ones worth celebrating. “This is such wonderful news!”
Ariel shrugged. “I just wanted to wait and see where this all went before telling anyone. At first, it was only a hobby. I got back into making art and then created these little cartoon characters. Next thing I knew, I was giving them speech bubbles and dialogue!”
“Ooh, I want to read it so bad.” Callie sat back down on the edge of the couch, eager to hear more. “Do you have a copy with you?”
“Sort of,” Ariel said. “It’s just pages I printed at home and bound myself at FedEx, but it’ll give you a good idea of what the final book will look like. I’m still working on the cover though. That’s been taking me forever to get right.”
“They’re letting you do the cover all on your own?” Erica asked. “Sometimes with marketing material like that, they want to have a lot of input.”
“Don’t I know it,” Ariel scoffed. “I was given an offer a few months back by this publisher I thought I’d love working with, but when I read the contract and some of the notes from their editor…
I realized they wanted to change almost everything.
They were going to take a lot of creative control from me, which wasn’t something I wanted to give up.
It was risky, but I turned them down and waited for someone else to come along. ”
“Wow!” Pride blossomed in Callie’s chest. “That’s so brave! Weren’t you afraid to turn them down though?”
“Terrified!” Ariel chuckled. “Several weeks after that, I thought I’d said no to the only publishing deal I was ever going to get. But then, this new agent responded to my query letter, and I like to think it was fate. These people are letting me have a lot more creative freedom. I think.”
Erica frowned. “You think?”
“Well, that’s one of the things I wanted you and Taylor to help me with. I trust the literary agent I’m working with, she seems to really believe in my vision, so I’m not worried she’s trying to screw me over or anything, but I originally thought that about the last one, so…”
“It’s good to have a lawyer look over any contract before you sign it,” Callie said, nodding in agreement. “And since you have a couple of outstanding lawyers in your own family, there’s really no reason not to.”
“Exactly,” Taylor agreed. “We’re happy to help.”
“I’m also going to send it to a friend of mine who does copyright law,” Erica added. “Just to be extra cautious. She might catch a few things Taylor and I would otherwise miss since this isn’t our primary expertise.”
“Thanks, guys,” Ariel said, blushing a little. “It means a lot that you’re being so supportive.”
“Were you worried we wouldn’t be?” Taylor asked, tilting his head.
“No… I just… It’s been hard sometimes believing in myself. I’ve never done anything like this before, and I keep waiting for someone to tell me that I’m doing it all wrong and to just quit.”
“Imposter syndrome," Callie said, snapping her fingers, happy she remembered the term. “I read a whole article about how your generation—and especially women your age—struggle with imposter syndrome. But what you forget is that anyone who has ever written a book was once a beginner.”
Ariel smirked. “That’s true. At some point in time, even Steven King was writing a book for the first time and probably had no clue what he was doing.”
“Steven King?” Taylor laughed. “Since when are you a King fan?”
“Oh, I’m not,” Ariel clarified. “His stuff is way too scary for me. I just know he’s written about a million books, so he’s likely pretty confident in his abilities. But who knows? Maybe he’s just as hard on himself as the rest of us.”
“Well, there’s no need to be hard on yourself.” Erica grinned. “You did it! You got a book deal! Meaning you’re the real deal.”
“This is so exciting!” Callie clasped her hands together. “We should celebrate! I have a bottle of champagne that I bought for Thanksgiving, but I think we should go ahead and open it right now. I’ll have your dad pick up another one before Thursday. Where’s Mallory? Does she know the good news?”
“Yeah, I told her about it earlier,” Ariel said. “But she’s not home. She said she had to run into town, but I’m pretty sure she’s hanging out with James again.”
“Really?” Callie raised a brow. “Now that’s interesting.”
“I agree.” Ariel stood up in tandem with her mom. “But we can’t tease her too much about it or she might stop hanging out with him just to spite us. C’mon, I’ll help you with the champagne.”
The two of them walked into the kitchen. Erica followed behind them, shaking out one of her hands.
“You decided to end your baby-duty shift?” Ariel asked.
“I had to. I didn’t want to wake Dot,” she said. “But the way she was sleeping on my shoulder kept me from moving my arm for a while, and it fell asleep. I handed her off to Taylor.”
“You did?” Ariel laughed. “Does Taylor even like babies?”
“I think so,” Erica said. “At least, he didn’t seem to have a problem with taking Dot.”
“Of course he likes babies!” Callie clicked her tongue. “Why wouldn’t he?”
“I don’t know.” Ariel shrugged. “He never seemed too interested when my kids were that age.”
“That was a long time ago.” Her mom went to the fridge and pulled out the champagne bottle that was buried behind the stockpile of food items for Thanksgiving.
“And I bet he wasn’t disinterested. He probably just didn’t know how to interact with a baby.
It can be intimidating to hold a newborn when you’ve never done it before. ”
“I think Ariel’s right though,” Erica said. “Taylor likes kids, but he’s never been the type to fawn over a baby. Maybe it’d be different if it were his own baby. Who knows?”
Ariel shot her mom a look, like she was trying to discern something. Callie gave her a scrutinizing look back, wondering if Ariel knew about Taylor and Erica’s struggles to conceive. Would he have told her? He seemed so dead set on keeping it private.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re all talking about me?” Taylor called from the living room. His voice was followed by the sounds of the recliner creaking and footsteps approaching. “Or are the whispers about Mallory and her new man, because if that’s the case, I want in on the gossip.”
“Your ears were burning, weren’t they,” Erica said when her husband entered the room. “We were just debating whether or not you like babies.”
“Who, me?” He frowned. “I love babies! Who doesn’t like babies?” At that, he tickled Dot’s stomach and made her laugh. “What’s not to like?”
“You were never that affectionate with my babies,” Ariel argued. “And you never asked to hold them or anything.”
“I’m sure I did!” he insisted. “But if I didn’t, it was probably because there was always a long line of people ahead of me who wanted to hold them.
Between you, Chris, mom, dad, and Mallory, I never really got the chance.
But that doesn’t mean I didn’t like your kids when they were babies.
I remember Becca was super lively. She laughed at almost anything I did. ”
“I remember that.” Callie grabbed some flutes from the cupboard and started opening the bottle. “All you had to do was look at her and she would laugh.”
“She laughed at men in general,” Ariel said.
“Which of course, I found very funny. Chris wasn’t thrilled, but it was better than Micah, who used to pull on Chris’s tie when he’d come home from work.
We used to joke that he was trying to strangle his daddy, but looking back, that was a little dark…
” She let out a soft laugh. “But that’s what those early years of parenting will do to you—you have to find the humor in everything, or else it gets overwhelming. ”
“Well, I’ll have you know,” Taylor went on, “that I can do more than just make a baby laugh. Erica and I have been babysitting for a couple of our friends back home. Apparently, I’m very good at guessing what a baby’s cry means.”
“It’s true,” Erica confirmed. “It’s like he has a sixth sense or something.”
“Now that would be handy.” Callie laughed. “I would’ve killed for something like that when Mallory was a baby. I never knew what she was crying about and honestly, I don’t even think she knew what she was crying about half the time.”
“It will definitely come in handy if we end up adopting a baby,” Taylor said. “Although, we’re probably not going to put any age restrictions on our application, so we could end up with a kid of any age.”
Callie nearly dropped the bottle, she was so surprised to hear this.
“Wait…” She looked at Ariel, who seemed unphased. “So, you told your sisters that you were looking into adoption?”
“Yeah, we did,” Erica said. “The topic of babies just kept coming up since Dot was often in the room with us, so we decided it’d be weird not to tell everyone.”
“I didn’t know you already knew, mom,” Ariel said. “That’s why I was confused earlier when Erica mentioned something about Taylor being different with his own baby.”
“Wow, you guys really were talking about me.” Taylor scoffed. “Now I want to know what you said.”
Erica leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
Callie felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
It was chalking up to be a great day. Not only had she worked things out with Sasha, but Ariel was on her way to signing a book deal, and Taylor was no longer hiding anything from his siblings.
For the first time in weeks, she felt like she could truly take full breath.
“Oh, I’m so glad everything is out in the open.” She bent over the sink and carefully twisted the cork out of the champagne. The bottle popped and the champagne overflowed. She poured everyone a glass, and once they were all holding their flutes, Callie held hers up in the air.
“To new adventures and to—to things working out!” she said. Everyone clinked their glasses together and sipped. Callie smiled at them all and hugged her son. “Oh, honey, I’m so happy for you. I know it was disappointing when you found out you were sterile, but—”
“What?” Ariel said, choking on her drink.
“Gee, thanks mom,” Taylor said with a curt laugh. “I hadn’t shared that part yet.”
Callie’s eyes widened. “Oh, my goodness, honey, I’m so sorry! I had no idea. I just assumed that you’d mentioned the reasons you and Erica were adopting instead of—” She stared warily at her son and daughter-in-law, wishing she could turn back the last thirty seconds.
“It’s okay.” Taylor shook his head, laughing some more. “We were going to tell Ariel soon enough, and now you’ve taken the burden off of my shoulders.”
“Yeah, it’s really not a big deal,” Erica added. “We were sick of keeping it a secret anyway. They say secrets will send you to an early grave and honestly, I believe it. The stress is never worth it, if you ask me.”
Callie took a big sip from her glass and gulped. “That’s probably a good philosophy to live by. But I still feel awful. That was your personal business, and I just announced it to the world without a second thought.”
“Please don’t worry about it.” Taylor gave Dot to Ariel and walked over to hug his mom. “It’s better that everything is out in the open, don’t you think?”
Callie smiled as convincingly as she could. “I do, yes. It’s better this way. Absolutely.”
Now she only had her own skeletons to worry about. Had she buried them deep enough in her closet? And even if she had, was it time to uncover them?