Page 55 of 7+Us Makes Nine

“Within the season, sure,” I said.

“Season?” Michaela asked.

“Some fruits and vegetables grow better in certain seasons. For instance, watermelons thrive in the summer, but you don’t want to grow pumpkins until early fall. It takes a certain temperature to grow specific plants, and sometimes summer’s too hot for things while fall is too cold for others,” I said.

“I want a garden,” Dmitri said. “Can I grow carrots?”

“Of course you can. Why don’t we all go out this weekend and get what we need?” I asked. “We can to the store and get soil and seeds. Trowels for digging and gloves for all the bugs that want to bite us.”

“Yeah!” Ivan exclaimed.

“I can’t wait to tell Dad,” Dmitri said.

“I grow flowers?” Michaela asked.

“We can plant however many flowers around the house you want,” I said with a smile.

I finally got the kids off to school that morning without any breakfast. So I made sure they had money for extra large lunches. I made sure they each ate an apple on the way, but I knew it wasn’t as good as a cooked meal. They had way too much fun talking about all of the things they were going to plant in their gardens. We’d stood at the porch doors and talked the entire morning away!

It would be a good activity to teach them a lot of good lessons.

It would also keep us from having to stray too far from the house, given that the restraining order protected the house at all costs.

My phone rang out and I went in search of it. It took a little bit of digging underneath dirty clothes I had yet to wash before I found it. I saw Jace was calling and it made me smile, but then I began to panic.

Why was he calling me in the middle of the day?

“Jace?” I asked. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. I knew you’d be worried if I called.”

“Is there something you need?”

“I need you to come to my office whenever you can. Preferably without the children. I want to talk about this situation, and I don’t like doing it when the kids are home.”

“Let me get this last load of laundry in the washer and I’ll be there, okay? Are you hungry? It’s almost lunch,” I said.

“I’ll have something here for us. Don’t you worry about that. Just come when you can,” he said.

“I’ll text you once I leave.”

Forty minutes later, I was heading up the steps to his office. Like I’d done the first day I met him. I knocked on his office door and he beckoned me to come in, and I saw he was on the phone. I looked at the two massive salads on his desk and smiled. Neither of them had any meat in it. It looked as if my habits were rubbing off on him a bit. And the salad looked phenomenal. Seeds and nuts. Dried fruits and three kinds of lettuce. Red peppers and carrots and radishes and all sorts of yummy things tossed in a dressing that permeated the room and made my mouth water.

“Hungry?” Jace asked as he put down his phone.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I said.

“You never could. Take a seat.”

I sat down and he handed me one of the salads before holding out a soda. I took the caffeine willingly and cracked it open, drinking it as quickly as I could. The carbonation burned, but the caffeine helped me to perk up a bit.

“I’ve got plenty more if you’re thirsty after that one,” Jace said.

“You wanted to talk?” I asked as I reached for a fork.

“First, I want to start by iterating how wonderful you are.”

My eyes whipped up to his face and my brow furrowed.

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