Page 11 of To Save Him

“Writing?  Are you a reporter or a blogger or something?”

We walked across the patio to the back door as I tried to figure out just how much I needed to tell him.  I decided, as I slid the glass door open, that the truth wouldn’t hurt a bit.  “No, a romance author.”

I kept my eyes looking ahead as I walked through and waited for him to slide the door closed.  This was the part that caused the most anxiety—waiting for people’s reaction.  I didn’t talk about my work much…for many reasons.  “As in books?”

“Yes.”  We made our way through the utility room into the kitchen, and I figured there was no reason not to go for broke.  “E-books mostly.  It’s a market that grows more every year.  I got in when indie publishing was in its infancy, and so I’ve gained a steady following.  It pays the bills.”  I was quite relieved that I’d never had to rely on Mel’s sporadic child support payments.  While it was true that I had to keep writing and publishing to make a living (noresting on my laurels, as it were) and it was also true that some books performed better than others, I was able to support my family without having to get another job.  If it ever came to that, I had some ideas, like teaching writing classes in town, but because I’d always downplayed my writing career around town, I might have a hard time selling my “expertise.”

“That’s really cool.  Gabe never mentioned it.”

I smiled, because I knew why my oldest hadn’t talked about it much, and it was definitely something I wouldn’t hold against him.  Besides, at the core, I was still his mother, and I meant more to him in that capacity than any work I might have done.

Brandon continued following me through the house, but we weren’t heading to the living room; instead, we were moving west.  “Let me show you something.”  The hallway just under the stairs led to bedrooms and bathrooms—mybedroom (with its master bath), the main bathroom, and two other bedrooms.  One was a guest room, the bedroom where all visitors except the one standing next to me stayed when they spent the night at my house.  Well, that wasn’t entirely true either.  When the kids had their friends over, they’d stay in the kids’ bedrooms.  But Brandon had been the only one to sleep in Gabriel’s room, and that had somehow felt right.

I talked a little about those rooms and then pointed toward the other bedroom—actually,formerbedroom—at the end of the hall.  “That room there is my office.  Not many people see it.”

“Disrupts your creativity?” he asked as we wandered down the short hall toward the door.

“Um…no.”  Was I going to tell him the real reason why?

Yes.  In spite of the fact that I trusted Brandon and also had nothing to hide, I had many other reasons for wanting to keep my little secret…but I had plenty more reasons for deciding to divulge it.  I just had to figure out how to go about telling him.

I opened the door to the old bedroom converted years ago to be an office.  It was a big room, almost as large as the master bedroom, with windows on two sides, and it had wound up being more perfect for my business/ craft than I ever would have suspected.  I stood aside, deciding to first let the room speak for itself.  In the corner between the two windows was my desk, wedged in the spot where the walls met, my computer—my most important writing tool—perched atop it.  In spite of what all my creative writing teachers of the past had told me, I didn’t worry about windows with open blinds providing a distraction.  Sometimes, my writingrequireddistraction, because my brain needed to mull ideas over on occasion before I committed them to virtual paper.

At its most basic, writing was a habit for me, and a good one—and I’d grown accustomed to my patterns of composition.  Sometimes Ineededa break from typing and plotting.

The chaotic state of the writing part of my brain showed in the room.  First of all, there was no organization in the way the furniture was laid out.  On the other side of one window was a cart with my printer/ scanner/ copy machine—an all-in-one product I’d never regretted purchasing.  I also had an overstuffed chair from an old living room set we’d replaced years earlier.  Off to one side was a DVD player and an old TV with a yoga mat tucked next to them, because I preferred doing yoga in a place removed from the rest of the house.  There was also an old olive drab card table piled high with shit almost in the middle of the room.  The closet doors blended into the wall and next to those doors were a small table with a stereo and CDs and a glass cabinet filled with gifts from readers and editions of my books I wanted to preserve for the ages, as well as other keepsakes, like a name badge from a rare book signing I’d been part of.  But the rest of the room was filled with several book shelves.  One contained a few books about the craft; another was crammed full of my favorite books of all time, while another shelved a few books I intended to read in the near future.  But the final one was stuffed full of copies of my printed books, one copy of each title.

Sixty and counting.

Brandon didn’t notice them at first because the room was pretty cluttered, much like my writing mind.  I had so many characters, stories, locations, and conflicts in my head that it was close to chaos in that part of my brain, which was why sometimes I could only concentrate on a story rather than life problems.  Frankly, writing helped me deal with my divorce and Gabriel’s death as well.  It was therapeutic.

Unfortunately, I didn’t deal with office clutter the way I could the mess in my head.  Once I got a story down in written form and then revised it—turning it from rough draft to something readers would actually enjoy—it became organized and elegant.  My poor office, though, was one stack of crap after another.

I stopped at the bookshelf containing my print stories and laid my hand on top.  “These ones are mine.”

He’d been glancing at the shelf next to it, the one crammed with books by Stephen King, Michael Crichton, Toni Morrison, and the like, but now I had his attention.  “You wroteallthese?  Shit.”

I smiled, nodding.  Yes.  I was proud of my accomplishments.  Who wouldn’t be?  I couldn’t even feign modesty, although I wasn’t going to brag.  “Yep.”

“Sorry about my language.”

I started laughing.  “Oh, there’s far worse in these.”

“Seriously?”  He touched the spine of one.  “Do you mind?”

“No.  Go ahead.”

“Kimberly Grace.”

“Graceis my middle name.  I didn’t want to publish asKimberly Mortonor even underKimberly Cooper…because, even though I’m not ashamed of what I write, this is still a conservative town and I didn’t want my work to reflect upon my kids.”

Brandon had turned a couple pages but looked up from the book.  “I’ve never read romance.  Why would anyone care what someone else read?”

That was a question for the ages, the stuff censorship bonfires were made of, but also a broader topic better left for another day.  I could tell that he actually wanted to know specifically whyI’dmade that choice.

“Lots of people here in Winchester know I write, and a good many of them are familiar with my actual books but…let’s just say that not everyone is open-minded about it.”

Brandon had put down the first book and slid another off the shelf.  “I don’t get it.  What’s so bad about it?  I mean…even Shakespeare wrote romance, right?”

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