Hey Sunshine by Tia Giacalone Read Free Book Online Page B

saw each other in town. Over the next couple weeks, I found myself replaying my brief conversation with Fox at the coffee hut. I still couldn’t get his momentary character break out of my head, but as time went on, I convinced myself I’d just imagined it.
    Annabelle was particularly excited any time she spotted Fox in our travels.
    “Look Mama! Fox is running!” she’d say from the backseat. Or “That’s a big sammich! Will Fox eat it all?” when we saw him leave the barbecue place. One time we saw him in the grocery store, buying fresh fruit and salad ingredients, and I practically had to restrain Annabelle from running up to him to ask fifty questions about the contents of his basket. There was no question who Annabelle got her curiosity from; I wanted to know more about him too.
    * * *
    My daily routine needed a facelift now that Chase was part of it, and fitting him into the already hectic schedule was proving to be harder than I anticipated.
    Between school, work, and Annabelle, I’d forgotten what it was like to have a social life outside of family obligations and play dates. I’d just started Annabelle in a new preschool program so I could work a bit more and have a little time to myself, and on her days off we had dance class and always lots of errands. Chase was busy at the Dempsey car lot and we didn’t get as much time together as we would like but, honestly, most nights I was too tired to even miss him.
    “C’mon babe, can’t your parents babysit?” Chase pleaded one evening. For the second night that week we were sitting in my tiny living room watching TV. I was exhausted and not in the mood to argue. My afternoon had been a disaster between Annabelle’s dinnertime tantrum over the veggies in her pasta and a leaky pipe in the bathroom. I put Annabelle to bed before Chase arrived and lit a few candles to give a semblance of a real date, but his patience for movies and takeout was wearing thin.
    I sighed. “I’ll ask. Maybe Friday?” The football team had an away game on Friday and I knew the diner would be slow. Usually one or both of my parents were on hand for weekend nights because they were our busiest, but football season threw everything off.
    Chase didn’t understand why I didn’t ask my parents to watch Annabelle more often and, admittedly, it probably seemed strange. When Annabelle was an infant there were times when I was scared out of my mind, alone in my little house while she screamed with colic or cried hysterically as she cut a tooth. But “Most Organized” needed to feel like she could do it on her own, without anyone’s help. I appreciated the fact that my child had loving, doting grandparents, but I brought that baby into this world, she was my fiercest joy, and I wanted to experience all of it.
    My deepest anxiety came when I imagined graduate school in New York, a city I was unsure of, where I really wouldn’t have a soul to turn to if Annabelle needed something. Doing it on my own now was good practice for next year. But in the meantime, it probably wouldn’t kill me to loosen the reins just a little, for the sake of my relationship.
    “I finished my final paperwork today,” I told Chase, changing the subject. “Now I just have to send it in and wait for NYU to tell me my fate.” I snuggled closer to him while he scrounged for the last pieces of popcorn in the bowl.
    “That’s great,” Chase said absently, his eyes on the television.
    “Have you decided on a major? Business?” I pressed. I was so excited when Chase expressed a desire to give college a try. He had passed up lucrative football scholarships when he joined the Forest Service, but he had savings or he could enroll at a community college just about anywhere.
    “What? No, I’m still thinking.” He grabbed the remote and started flipping channels.
    When I first told Chase about my decision to apply for the Dramatic Writing MFA program at Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, his support meant the