Page 43 of That Reunited Feeling

I shove the phone into one pocket, the damp tissue into another.

Onward.

I return to the coffee table and rub in the polish with all my might. This thing will be the shiniest it’s ever been.

Then something catches my ear, making me stop mid-swirl.

Is that Dylan’s voice? Him laughing?

Can’t be. I left him in our part of the house doing his homework.

There it is again.I could pick out his voice from the far-flung corner of a noisy crowd, so there’s no way I’d mistake it in a quiet house. And it’s coming from a room on the other side of the foyer—the study.

I drop the cloth and polish on the coffee table and tiptoe out of the room, across the black-and-white tiled floor.

There’s another voice too. Tom. And a strum of a guitar.

What the hell?

And there they both are, visible through the crack between the half-open door and the door frame.

They’re sitting together on the sofa, Dylan with a guitar on his lap and his back toward Tom, who’s reaching around to show him where to put his fingers for the chords.

Instinctively my hand flies to my mouth to muffle a gasp. My head swims as my heart swells, my belly flips, and my ovaries ache at the sight of them smiling together, engaged, and focused on a common goal.

It’s the first time I’ve seen Dylan hanging on a man’s words like this. It’s something I’ve dreamed of for him.

Although we lived with Nicholas for years, they never became that close. Possibly because of all the time he was away for work. They got along well, but Nick wasn’t interested in being a father figure. All the parenting was left to me.

And with my mom and dad having totally disowned their young pregnant daughter, and Dylan’s father’s parents being completely absent, there’s been no male role model in his life.

I’ve often wished I wasn’t an only child and had an older brother who could play that part.

But here it is now, right in front of me. The thing I’ve always wanted for my son is right before my eyes.

“Like this,” Tom says, curving his hand around and over Dylan’s, moving his fingers to the correct strings and holding them down. “Got it?”

Dylan’s teeth dig into his bottom lip with concentration, and he nods.

“Okay.” Tom lets go. “Now strum.”

Dylan runs his thumb down the strings, and the guitar emits a tuneless thrum.

“Oh,” Dylan says, turning to look over his shoulder at Tom with disappointed puppy dog eyes.

“It’s okay, buddy.” Tom rubs the back of Dylan’s shoulder, and every ounce of love I ever had for him surges back to the surface. “It’s your first try. No one gets it on the first go. Took me ages. Let’s try this.”

He hooks his hand over Dylan’s again, but this time keeps his pressure on Dylan’s fingers. “Now strum.”

It’s a perfect chord.

“There you go,” Tom says.

“Yeah, but only because you helped me.” Dylan pouts.

“But now you know what it feels like,” Tom says. “Now you know how hard you have to press.”

Dylan takes his hand off the fretboard and examines the tips of his fingers. He smiles and shows them to Tom. “Look.”

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