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tonight was the surprise party she wasn’t supposed to know about. But mothers always knew.
This is where it all began…
She was too smart-mouthed, too opinionated, too busy. She would turn his quiet, comfortable life into chaos.
Don’t worry. Be hippie.
“I’m attracted to you, and I don’t want to be.”
don’t like loud, opinionated women.” “But you like me.”
“It sounds like a great idea, but isn’t that kind of like communism?” she whispered. Elvira laughed softly. “We prefer to think of it as commune-ism.”
Polar opposites did not make solid marriage material.
“I think I’ll have all girls and raise them to believe they can do anything they damn well please.”
“Now there you go being ridiculous again.”
“We can barely get through a conversation without arguing.” “We don’t argue,” she argued.
When I bring whoever the future Mrs. Pierce is here, I don’t want her facing any shadows from the past. I bought this place for her.”
“If I ever get too old for fucking, run me over with your shitty tractor.”
“Word of warning, don’t start conversations with ‘John, I need you,’ unless that’s exactly what you mean.”
“Oh, there you are son. I wasn’t sure if we brought you,” his father said.
“Things were so much easier when you were the one wrong about everything.”
“Knee high by the 4th of July,”
Was she supposed to snuggle up next to him on a blanket, watching the sky explode and not make out with him?
“You’re not going to want to marry me after this, are you?” “God no. You’re not my type,” John promised.
“I can’t catch my breath,” she whispered. “You can have mine,” he promised.
“Repeat after me. Phoebe is always right.”
No, he had to fall in love with the woman he couldn’t keep for longer than a summer, a season.
She’d gone and done it. She’d let down her guard and fallen in love with John Pierce, poet farmer.
This was still John’s land. She was sure of it. The field he’d told her he was leaving fallow was no longer empty. In it bloomed thousands and thousands of sunflowers, reaching their lemon-yellow faces toward the sun.
“You planted me acres of sunflowers because they’re my favorite, and yet you send me off without even a ‘nice knowing you’? That’s a dick move, John.”
“Say it back,”
“How are you going to stand spending your life with such an idiot?” John asked, tracing her jaw tenderly with the tip of his finger. She sighed at the feelings that swamped her at his touch. “You can make it up to me by giving me all girls.”
John didn’t give her girls. He gave Phoebe three boys, each the spitting image of him.
Parenthood is a festering nightmare dotted with moments of truly blissful wonderment.
Seven years in, and he was still the sexiest man on the planet to her. He still felt like home and heaven and everything good and steady in her life.
“Be proud. They’re going to grow into fine men,” Elvira predicted.
It was a benefit of having boys, she supposed. John handled the bulk of the potty-training, teaching the boys the joy of pissing in nature or off the porch. And now he was stuck with the sex ed, too.
“And that’s why high-fiving over sex is immature. A woman isn’t a touchdown or a solid burn on your buddy. If anything, you should fall down and kiss her feet in gratitude,” John said. “Is that what you do to Mom?” Jax asked like the true smart ass he was. “You’re damn right I do,” John told him without a hint of shame.
They were raising good men. And how could they not turn out that way? With John Pierce as their living, breathing example. The man was a miracle to her each and every day and so were her boys.
With a quiet whisper of “thank you,” John Pierce was gone from her life forever.
“It was beautiful and peaceful, and now he’s gone, and I don’t have an anchor.”
Grief called for movement. Anything to keep you going forward one step and a time.
the man trapped with three annoyed redheads.
The youngest daughter crawled over her sister and stuck her head out the rear window. “Maybe we should stick around here for the day?” Phoebe followed the girl’s gaze to where all six-feet-four-inches of handsome Donovan Cardona
Eva and Donovan 🥺
“Are we going to ever be okay again?” Phoebe wrapped him in a one-armed hug. “I know we are.” “How?” “Your dad promised me we would.”
“He was a good man,” she said again, making a neat row of fork holes in the cake. “He made three other really good men, too,” Phoebe said, reaching out and squeezing Joey’s hand. Joey snorted. “Well, two out of three ain’t bad.”
“I’ve never seen that goat before in my life.”
through Franklin, Phoebe finally got the girls she’d wished for.
Life was hard, but that’s what made it so incredibly good. That’s what made her appreciate every second that she had on this earth. Even on the darkest day, there was still beauty to see, still love to find. There was still a beginning to find in every end.
A farmer, a lawyer, and a screenwriter, all running a brewery named after their father. We did good, John, Phoebe said silently, sending the message up to the heavens.
