Chapter Six
Jax opened one cupboard after the other in what seemed to be a futile search for a colander. One of the few downsides of sharing
a house the way she and Harris did was his refusal to put things back where they belonged. If he’d had a different spot he
preferred she would have been totally fine with the change. The problem was Harris never put items back in the same place.
One week the masher was in with the cutlery, the next it was tucked behind the frying pans.
“Any thoughts on the colander?” she asked.
“Try in the pantry, Mom,” Xander offered helpfully. “When Dad’s in a hurry, he shoves stuff in there.”
She opened the pantry and after a quick search found it sitting on top of several cans of soup.
“That man,” she murmured, thinking the colander was the least of it. She was still in shock about the proposal. Just as startling,
she’d discovered that Shawna had made quick work of informing the world about her engagement. Both her kids already knew,
although her daughter’s excitement was significantly larger than her son’s.
Gentry came in from the half bath and held up her hands. “I’m done, Xan. Your turn.” She walked over to Jax. “I’ll set the table, Mom. Then I can help with the salad.”
“Thanks, sweetie.”
They were having chicken salad made with their favorite chicken nuggets from the place by the boardwalk. She’d stopped there
on her way to the house. Harris wasn’t a fan of any kind of salad, but she and the kids liked the crunchy vegetables and fruit
she always put in. She’d already mixed up a quick batch of biscuits that were baking in the oven. In the summer they substituted
grilled corn on the cob for the biscuits.
Jax set out sweet peppers, jicama, radishes, grapes and pineapple slices. She left the lettuce for Xander to rinse and tear
up. Gentry was starting to practice using a knife in her prep work. So far Jax was only giving her easy things to cut like
the fruit while keeping the trickier vegetables for herself.
“How was school?” she asked as her daughter collected forks and napkins for the table.
“Good. After dinner can we go online and look at bridesmaid dresses? I don’t know what they look like.”
“Sure, but you don’t get to pick them. The bride does that.”
“Are they always the same? Because what looks good on one person might not look good on another.” Gentry frowned. “I’m a lot
younger than Shawna’s friends and I don’t have—” She glanced over her shoulder, as if making sure Xander was still out of
the room. “I still don’t have boobs, Mom. What if the dress looks stupid on me?”
“Shawna seems like the type of person to take that into account,” Jax told her. “Sometimes the dresses are all the same color
but they’re different styles. I’m sure her friends have different body types. You’ll be the youngest, but that doesn’t mean
the dress won’t look amazing on you.” She smiled. “You’ll have the advantage of youth.”
“You mean she’ll be the baby,” Xander said with a grin as he returned to the kitchen.
“You’re just jealous because you’re not going to be in the wedding.”
Xander shook his head. “No way. That’s a girl thing. I wouldn’t want to have to dress up like that.”
“Maybe Shawna will want you to be a ring bearer,” Gentry said. “You can wear shorts and a jacket and carry the ring up to
Dad.”
Xander looked horrified. “I don’t want to do that. Mom, do I have to?”
Jax shook her head. “You’re too old to be a ring bearer and even if you weren’t you’d get a say in participating. You can
sit with me instead.”
He exhaled in exaggerated relief. “I don’t think I’m going to like the wedding. Adults kissing is gross.”
“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.
“You think we fought a lot?” she asked, as guilt and shame battled with regret.
Gentry nodded. “You’d yell at Dad and he would yell back. It stopped when you got a divorce.” She frowned. “I don’t know if you get along better or if you just don’t spend as much time together. But when you were married, it was bad.”
“Sometimes I’d get scared,” Xander admitted. “I’d have to go sleep with Gentry.”
“How didn’t I know this? I’m sorry, guys. Your dad and I never wanted you to be uncomfortable.” She thought they’d been careful
to keep their fights away from the children, but apparently they’d messed up. She hated thinking of either of her kids being
so scared.
“We were in a bad place in our marriage and we weren’t getting along, but we shouldn’t have let you hear us. That was a mistake
and I’m sorry for it.”
“We’re okay, Mom,” Gentry told her. “We have friends who are upset their parents are getting a divorce, because they’re scared
of all the changes. But it wasn’t like that with you and Dad. You took care of us. We like that we get to stay in the house.
It makes us feel secure. And you get along so much better now. The divorce was actually a good thing for our family.”
Xander nodded. “Don’t worry, Mom. We’re fine.”
She hugged them both. “You’re growing up so fast,” she said. “I don’t like it.”
They all laughed. Over the next few minutes they got dinner on the table. After sitting down, they said grace, then started
to eat. Jax chatted along with them, but a part of her mind was focused on what her kids had said about her and Harris fighting
all the time. That wasn’t how she remembered things, but she trusted what her children said. She ached for how they’d been
caught up in circumstances they couldn’t control. The blame was on both her and Harris. But accepting responsibility didn’t
change the past. They were both good people—how had they allowed themselves to let down their children? She supposed it was