Read Online Time of My Life by Allison Winn Scotch - Free Book Online
Authors: Allison Winn Scotch
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IT AGAIN!!!”
And so I did. I did it again and again, and I made little doggies out of balloons, and pulled more coins from their ears, and then I even went to my bag and whipped out a clown makeup kit, painting their faces with strawberry red cheeks and black button noses until the sun slowly faded into the Westchester sky, and fireflies began to flicker around the cavernous grounds of Jackson’s childhood home.
Eventually, Jack and I said our good-byes. Allie wrapped herself around my legs and told me I was the best magician they’d all seen at any party all year. Bentley pulled me into a bear hug, so tight that I could taste the scent of his Cohibas, and even Vivian managed to break her icy facade for more than a glancing second.
“Thank you, dear,” she said, not warmly, but not too coolly, either. “You were quite something today.” She kissed me on each cheek, and I saw the family beaming behind her.
“Anytime, Mrs. Turnhill,” I answered, pulling back to meet both her eyes and her approval.
“Vivian, dear. Feel free to call me Vivian.” She offered an (almost) genuine smile, then tugged her cashmere sweater over her waist to iron out any nonexistent wrinkles and retreated into the house.
“The next time we’re in the city, can we call you?” Leigh asked. Her hands rested on Allie’s shoulders, who was parked at her feet and who gazed up at me, her new hero, with huge, hopeful eyes.
“Of course!” I said with honest surprise and leaning down to kiss Allie one last time. “It would be the highlight of my week.”
Then Jack flung his arm around my shoulder, having forgotten entirely that just hours earlier, when I burst through the door fifty minutes late, he was too annoyed to even spit out a hello. None of that mattered now. Now, we were headed home.
“I DIDN’T KNOW that you knew magic,” Jack says, after we’d climbed out of the bathtub, where he’d scrubbed the clown paint off my fingers and the remaining dirt from playing in the grass from underneath my nails. We are splayed on top of our plaid comforter, and he is rubbing my feet.
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, I suppose.” I shrug.
“But magic? Seriously?” He laughs. “I mean, normally, I’d call you lame, but you did save the day.”
“I did indeed.” I smile. “And you best be careful. I’m skilled enough to make you disappear.”
That’s only the half of it,
I think.
“Just don’t saw me in half,” he says, sticking out his tongue, then crawling up toward the head of the bed and placing himself on top of me.
The truth is that Jack didn’t realize that I knew magic because, in fact, the me he knew
didn’t.
The me he knew couldn’t have been more removed from kids and their exploits, mostly because they reminded me of my discolored childhood and the scars it had laid into me.
And then came Katie. She wasn’t planned. She wasn’t unplanned. She just was. Henry and I spoke in vague terms about children before we got married; he agreed for both of us that we wanted them, and I didn’t disagree enough to argue. I did want children; I was just terrified of the damage that I might do to them. So the easier solution was not to have them at all. But then I fell in love with Henry, an only child who felt lonely like me most of his life, though for different reasons, and it seemed like it was an easy compromise to give him.
After two years of marriage, he urged me to go off the pill. I looked at them with bittersweet fondness and tossed them in the trash. While we weren’t actively trying to shoot his sperm straight toward my egg, three months later, I was pregnant. Nine months later, my life would change in all conceivable (literal and not) ways. Ready or not. Here she comes.
During my pregnancy, I read every last morsel of information that was available to the literate public. If there was a book or an article or a website on gestation (At ten weeks in utero: fingernails develop! At
And so I did. I did it again and again, and I made little doggies out of balloons, and pulled more coins from their ears, and then I even went to my bag and whipped out a clown makeup kit, painting their faces with strawberry red cheeks and black button noses until the sun slowly faded into the Westchester sky, and fireflies began to flicker around the cavernous grounds of Jackson’s childhood home.
Eventually, Jack and I said our good-byes. Allie wrapped herself around my legs and told me I was the best magician they’d all seen at any party all year. Bentley pulled me into a bear hug, so tight that I could taste the scent of his Cohibas, and even Vivian managed to break her icy facade for more than a glancing second.
“Thank you, dear,” she said, not warmly, but not too coolly, either. “You were quite something today.” She kissed me on each cheek, and I saw the family beaming behind her.
“Anytime, Mrs. Turnhill,” I answered, pulling back to meet both her eyes and her approval.
“Vivian, dear. Feel free to call me Vivian.” She offered an (almost) genuine smile, then tugged her cashmere sweater over her waist to iron out any nonexistent wrinkles and retreated into the house.
“The next time we’re in the city, can we call you?” Leigh asked. Her hands rested on Allie’s shoulders, who was parked at her feet and who gazed up at me, her new hero, with huge, hopeful eyes.
“Of course!” I said with honest surprise and leaning down to kiss Allie one last time. “It would be the highlight of my week.”
Then Jack flung his arm around my shoulder, having forgotten entirely that just hours earlier, when I burst through the door fifty minutes late, he was too annoyed to even spit out a hello. None of that mattered now. Now, we were headed home.
“I DIDN’T KNOW that you knew magic,” Jack says, after we’d climbed out of the bathtub, where he’d scrubbed the clown paint off my fingers and the remaining dirt from playing in the grass from underneath my nails. We are splayed on top of our plaid comforter, and he is rubbing my feet.
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, I suppose.” I shrug.
“But magic? Seriously?” He laughs. “I mean, normally, I’d call you lame, but you did save the day.”
“I did indeed.” I smile. “And you best be careful. I’m skilled enough to make you disappear.”
That’s only the half of it,
I think.
“Just don’t saw me in half,” he says, sticking out his tongue, then crawling up toward the head of the bed and placing himself on top of me.
The truth is that Jack didn’t realize that I knew magic because, in fact, the me he knew
didn’t.
The me he knew couldn’t have been more removed from kids and their exploits, mostly because they reminded me of my discolored childhood and the scars it had laid into me.
And then came Katie. She wasn’t planned. She wasn’t unplanned. She just was. Henry and I spoke in vague terms about children before we got married; he agreed for both of us that we wanted them, and I didn’t disagree enough to argue. I did want children; I was just terrified of the damage that I might do to them. So the easier solution was not to have them at all. But then I fell in love with Henry, an only child who felt lonely like me most of his life, though for different reasons, and it seemed like it was an easy compromise to give him.
After two years of marriage, he urged me to go off the pill. I looked at them with bittersweet fondness and tossed them in the trash. While we weren’t actively trying to shoot his sperm straight toward my egg, three months later, I was pregnant. Nine months later, my life would change in all conceivable (literal and not) ways. Ready or not. Here she comes.
During my pregnancy, I read every last morsel of information that was available to the literate public. If there was a book or an article or a website on gestation (At ten weeks in utero: fingernails develop! At
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