Free to Love

Chapter 58

Shawn

I went to California for the first week in April to start recording some of the songs I'd written. The album probably wouldn't be completed for a while, but I had six songs that I was pretty confident in.

Joanna stayed in Toronto with Grace and Nolan. I convinced Matt, Ian, and Brian to join me at The Woodshed for part of the week. Ian definitely needed a little break before baby number two arrived late in the summer. I figured the trip could kind of count as a joint bachelor's trip for me and Brian, who was getting married in October.

We'd put a good eight hours in each day working on the music. Teddy, Ziggy, and Andrew were there, too. Sometimes those eight hours were during daylight; sometimes they were at night. There was no telling when inspiration would strike.

It felt really good to take the songs I'd written, polish them up, and turn them into recordings. It had been a long time since I'd felt this creative energy. It was both exhilarating and terrifying. I kept telling myself that if the album bombed because I'd taken too much time off and had lost my touch, I'd be fine. I could still perform. Who was I fooling, though? I'd be crushed if my re-entry into music failed.

When we weren't recording, we were relaxing. We ate and drank more than we should have, but we were all good about exercising. We took long hikes every evening and utilized the gym at the compound. As I got older, I refused to let my body devolve into a dad bod, even if being a dad was my life. I wasn't as sculpted as I'd been in my teens, but I was the same size I'd been at the peak of my career. I took some pride in that.

One morning I was sitting on the porch, slightly hungover, looking out at the ocean. I really wanted to call Joanna, because I missed her so goddamned much. She was teaching at the moment, so I'd have to wait until later to hear her voice. I set an alarm on my phone to remind me when it would be 4:30 in Toronto. That's when she'd definitely be home. I could maybe FaceTime her and the kids.

My feet were propped up on the railing and I absentmindedly stroked my latest tattoo. It was on the inside of my left forearm. I'd gotten it as part of Joanna's birthday present. It was a heart that had been broken and was then stitched back together. The meaning was obvious.

My other gift to her had been a pair of light blue sapphire earrings to match her ring. I figured she could wear them on our wedding day. There's that 'something blue' tradition that I remembered from my sister's wedding, and the earrings fit that nicely.

Joanna and I had a long talk on her birthday night. My parents had taken the kiddos home with them after the party so that we could have the night together.

"Shawn, I'm old," she said as we laid in each other's arms, slowly recovering from a very ambitious round of lovemaking.

"Old people can't do what we just did," I said, kissing her damp forehead.

"I'm pretty sure they can. But I'm being serious. I'm 30. That's so much older than 29."

"You aren't old, baby. Don't think that way."

"My biological clock is ticking," she said quietly.

"It is?" I asked. "Women can have babies into their 40's. Whatever is ticking can't be that clock. Maybe it's a countdown timer to when we get married."

"You're so frustratingly cute sometimes. Here's the thing...I want to have my babies before I get too old. You know? If we want two, that makes my clock tick even louder."

I pushed myself up on my elbow so that I could look into her beautiful face.

"Jo, I'm ready whenever you are. I'm dying to have a baby with you. Seriously, if you don't want to wait until the wedding, we can start trying now. Well maybe not right now since I need a little time to recover," I said.

She grinned. "Really? You're ready?"

I nodded. "So ready."

"I'm on the pill. I'll have to go off it and we'll have to use condoms for awhile. What if we started trying on our wedding night?" she asked excitedly.

"That would mean that we'd have a baby in a little over a year," I said after doing the math in my head. Two previous pregnancies had made me good at that shit.

"I can't wait," she said.

I smiled as I thought of that conversation. I couldn't call my fiancé, but I could text her.

Me: just sitting here thinking of you

Me: thinking about our baby plan

Me: I can't wait to see you as a mom

She didn't reply right away, which was no surprise. She only checked her phone during her planning time or at lunch.

A bit later, Brian joined me. He was clearly more hungover than I was.

"How long have you been up?" he asked as he sat down.

"An hour or so."

"You okay?"

I smiled at him. Not so long ago, my friends had reason to worry about me. These days I rarely had dark moments.

"I'm pretty fucking great, actually."

"Well then so am I," he said with a grin.

"I was sitting here thinking about Jo. I can't wait to get married and have a baby with her. Like I literally get giddy thinking about it."

"I'm right there with you, man. I wish Darcy and I didn't have so long to wait. She was dead set on a fall wedding, though."

"It's crazy that by the end of the year we'll all be married," I said.

We stared out at the ocean for awhile.

"Can I ask you something?" he said.

"Of course."

"Your wedding ring...what are you doing about it?"

I lifted my hand and looked at my ring finger. The ring tattoo had faded slightly, as finger tats often do, but it still clearly said 'Mallory.'

"I'll wear my new wedding ring on my right hand," I said. I'd already given this some thought.

"She's okay with that?"

"We actually haven't talked about it, but she knows my tattoo is there. I can't black it out, if that's what you're hinting I should do."

"You could get a ring wide enough to wear over the tat so it's covered," he suggested.

"When I got the tattoo, I was told that if I wore a ring over it, it would disappear. Ring tats are already problematic, and the friction from a ring would destroy it."

Brian was silent for a minute. "Maybe that's not a bad thing. I mean, there's some symbolism to the band for your new marriage slowing removing the ring of the old marriage."

I stood up and sat against the rail so that I could face my friend.

"Mallory died, Brian. It's not like we divorced and I want our marriage erased from my memory. I still need to hold on to the small bits of her that are left behind. This ring tattoo is one of them!"

Brian looked at me long and hard. "For your new wife's sake, you might have to let go of some things."

"Bullshit. And don't pretend that you have any idea what this is like. You don't! I love Joanna. I really love her. She's my life now and I cannot wait to spend every day with her." I took a deep breath and tried to fight the tears that were forming in my eyes. "But I am always going to love Mallory, too."