Chapter Fourteen #2
“You don’t have to ask me twice,” he said, his voice dipping low as he leaned in the rest of the way, hoping he didn’t screw this moment up because this would be their first kiss, but he sure as heck didn’t want it to be their last.
The End Ornament
The End. It’s the two most precious words a writer can type.
Find this ornament in the box numbered with a 7.
It should fall right around the middle of your tree on the branches.
The middle of a play is always the intermission, but here’s a secret.
The intermission is for the audience. The characters in the story usually feel like that moment is The End.
Here’s the story.
After Ralph and the crew finished up the theater, my mother paid them to build a tiny home for me and the baby to live in right there in the back of the property. It wasn’t much bigger than a living room, but in that space, I had a bedroom, a bathroom, and a small kitchen. A laundry room too!
While the tiny home was being built, I wrote my first play.
I wanted it to be the theater’s first production and, appropriately, I titled it Santa, Baby because Christmas was coming and so was this ball of joy growing inside me.
I’d come to terms with my first love marrying another woman.
I won’t say it didn’t hurt watching them exchange their vows.
My mother begged me not to attend. I think she worried I might stand up and object to the union.
I didn’t. I stayed quiet, fancying myself a martyr because Ralph would surely pick the baby and me if he knew the truth. Was that what he wanted?
In hindsight, I know that’s all rubbish. I was young and foolish though.
“Thought you wanted to be a star,” Mickey Whatley said one night, taking a seat beside me on a little loveseat in the theater dressing room. Mickey had helped with the construction of the theater and the house. He’d taken to lingering after the work, not in a bad way. His company was nice.
“I am the star,” I said, this silly grin on my face. “I feel like the main character in this play as I’m writing it. I can see everything in my mind. My mind is, well, it’s the stage, I guess.”
“So, if you’re the star in your head in that play of yours, who’s the leading man?” he asked.
Ralph. I couldn’t say that, of course. Ralph was a married man now.
“Listen, Nan,” Mickey said, “I know I’m not some handsome actor. I know I’m just some small-town guy. I can’t give you the world…”
The serious note in his voice caught me by surprise. I remember thinking he was so cocky on that date we’d gone on, but now I saw something different. Had I mistaken his efforts to impress me?
“A baby needs a father figure. A mother needs support.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“I know. You’re a strong woman, Nan. That’s what I admire about you. You’re strong and smart. Maybe you don’t fancy me that way.”
“What way?” I asked.
“The way I fancy you.”
The air was thick. Here I was, pregnant. My feet were swollen. I had reflux. And I was starving. Insatiable. “What are you trying to say, Mickey?”
He looked nervous. Adorably so.
“We’ve been on one date,” I told him. And I’d had my eye on someone else for half of that night. “I may be mistaken, but you are talking nonsense.”
“One date, but I’ve known you our entire lives. Nan, I’ve always liked you.”
“What are you saying?”
I expected him to rise to his feet to look at me, but instead, he dropped to one knee and fumbled for something in his pocket.
“Mickey? What—what are you doing? For heaven’s sake, get up.”
Then he raised a small velvet box toward me. “You and your baby should have a man to provide and protect.” He shook his head. “I know you can do it alone, Nan, but you are a star. I don’t want you to burn out. I want to help you shine.”
My jaw must have been on the floor. “I won’t marry for money.”
“Then marry for love. The possibility of it.” He rose to his feet now, standing a foot taller than me. He was so close, and I felt a flutter. A tiny flutter with the possibility of becoming more.
“You want to marry a swollen pregnant woman?”
“Only if she’s you,” he said, his voice dipping low. This was a very different Mickey than who I’d always assumed him to be.
“You’ll be souring your good name, marrying someone who’s pregnant with another man’s child. I know what people are saying about me. They’re talking.”
Mickey shrugged. “Let’s change the narrative. Give ’em something else to discuss.”
“Like?” I asked, that fluttering feeling growing stronger.
“Like a wedding.”
Time sped up from there. Suddenly, it was our wedding day, and the baby kicked wildly as I stepped into my rose-colored wedding dress.
My mother wouldn’t hear of me wearing white when it was plain as day that I hadn’t saved myself for my wedding night.
She was old-fashioned that way, and said if I did wear white, all everyone would be talking about was that I wore a color that represented purity.
The gazebo was special. Everyone who’d ever married there was still together.
Marriages in Bloom Gardens under that gazebo lasted forever.
“Here Comes the Bride” played and my father walked me down the aisle, which was a series of stepping-stones into the garden.
I held Mickey’s hands, and my heart was full.
Under that gazebo, in front of our friends and family, including Ralph, we made vows and shared our first kiss as man and wife.
Then we danced. We ate. We celebrated. And after all was said and done, we retreated to the honeymoon cottage.
It was expensive, but Mickey’s family had money.
They had clout. And I knew that he would trade all of it for me and my child.
We made love that night, and it was, well, awkward.
I was pregnant after all. It was also special.
I initiated because Mickey was a gentleman.
He was so many things I’d never realized.
Afterward, lying in bed exhausted from it all, he laid a hand on my belly, and I closed my eyes.
Soon, he moved his face to my stomach, and he began to whisper to our baby.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I listened. He was going to be an amazing father to our child.
“You haven’t even done anything yet,” I heard him say. “But even so, you are loved. You are cherished. You are enough, no matter what this life brings.”
I laid my hand on my stomach too, wanting to connect with my baby.
Our baby. In that moment, Mickey became the father, biological or not.
As he fell asleep, I reached for my little pad of paper and my pen and finished my first stage play.
It was the messy story of Santa and Mrs. Claus.
A love story that wasn’t perfect. And as much as I wished I felt differently, the hero in the play that took place in my mind was still Ralph.
I couldn’t help my feelings, amplified by my baby hormones. But I also had feelings for Mickey, slow-growing but real. Love wasn’t what I thought it was. That narrative of there only being one—The One… Maybe there were two. Or there could be.
My hand shook as I wrote these two words. The End. Looking back at my husband, I returned to bed for a new beginning.