(Complete) New Year's Day is a time for resolutions. Jack Harris, still mourning the tragic death of his wife, vows to start living again. Maddie Evans dumps her boyfriend and vows no more meaningless sex.
Jack moves to The Point to live in his pa...
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She slept well after playing mother all day. It made her feel sad because her chance of having a child was slim. Not impossible, but given her personal life highly unlikely. She hadn't worked a full day Saturday in a while but didn't mind, because she had helped Jack. He looked so lost; it was heart-wrenching. She could only imagine just how much he had loved his wife. Maddie had no one to love her so fiercely, obviously or she'd be married with a child or two.
She slept longer than she should have and was still eating breakfast when she was supposed to be outside meeting Jack. She heard a light rap at the door. Jack was standing on the porch.
"Sorry I'm slow this morning. Come on in. I need to get my shoes on."
She watched as Jack looked around. "Wow! It looks the same."
"Not the kitchen. We remodeled it recently." She pointed, and he walked into the kitchen.
Frowning he said, "Were you still eating your breakfast? Finish it, I'm not in a hurry."
"But the kids."
"Rory is perfectly fine watching Emma."
She sat back down but felt awkward with Jack watching her, although he had just eaten his dinner in front of her. She only had a few bites left of her egg white omelet.
"Let's go, slowpoke, what are you waiting for?"
He laughed. "I'll show you I'm no slowpoke."
Maddie liked the sound of Jack's laugh and wanted to get him to laugh more often. She wasn't sure why, but she needed to help heal the Harris family one step at a time.
Jack didn't take off as he threatened to. Instead, he kept pace with Maddie. Just as Peter had, he encouraged her to go a little further. As she slowed to walk home, he called back to her. "I'll see you at story time."
Maddie smiled because she'd be seeing Emma again and Jack too. Even better than she expected, both Jack and Peter arrived for story time. She saw Rory out of the corner of her eye go into the young adult stacks. Rory could keep herself busy through the entire twenty minutes which was as long as the small children could keep their attention. Both Emma and Abbie ran to her, and she hugged them. Emma wasn't happy to share her. "Mad Yee, Mad Yee."
Unable to resist, Maddie picked her up and kissed her. She handed her back to Jack right before it was time to begin. Saturdays differed from during the week when Jack was the only dad. About half the parents were dads and not all were as good at containing their child as Jack and Peter. When she was done, she found them talking in low voices.
Peter said, "I noticed the other one with the blue shirt."
Jack said, "So two of them!"
"Two what?" They both went mute. "Okay boys what were you gossiping about."
Jack said, "We were just noticing all the guys eyeing you."
"Me!"
"Yeah, since you've been running, you've been getting fit," Peter said. "You have some admirers."
