Tied in Knots: A Tied Together Novella Read Online Free Page A

out the box of his favorite O’s from the cabinet. Both of Ethan’s chubby arms stuck straight out as if a magnet were pulling Ethan and the O’s together. I put him back in the chair and snapped the tray in place. Ryan handed me the box and I poured some of the crispy O’s down onto the tray. Ethan went after them, taking several into his tiny fist and stuffing them into his mouth.
    I smiled at my son and took a mental snapshot of the moment so when he got older, I would be able to tell him how he would wolf down Cheerios like they were the last things on earth.
    I didn’t have any of those memories of my own. My parents couldn’t have cared less to share any special memories with me. I’m sure they fed me and changed my clothes and diapers out of necessity, but there were certainly no loving moments we could reflect back on as a family when I grew older.
    Another aspect I wanted for Ethan that I didn’t have for myself was to have a sibling. Ryan grew up with a sister, but I was an only child. My siblings were the characters in the books I read. I would have imaginary moments were I would go play for hours on the outskirts of the trailer park where I grew up. Huckleberry Finn was my brother, and we would go on wild adventures and fight off villains from outer space. I wanted more for my son, more than I’d had when I was a child.
    When I got into the house, I was met with quiet. Usually there was some type of music playing or the sound of the television in the background. I placed my bag down on the kitchen table and peeked out the French doors that connected to our patio. Ryan sat on the patio with a glass of wine in his hand. He was reading something on his iPad while Ethan was busy in the sandbox. I’d come to loathe the sandbox because I would end up finding clumps of sand where sand shouldn’t be all over Ethan’s body.
    I opened the door, and the cool afternoon breeze swept through my hair. Buds were starting to appear on the trees and our tulips and daffodils were peeking through the soil. I said hello to Ethan, blowing him a kiss, and he held his sand-covered hand to catch the pretend kiss out of the air. I walked up to Ryan, placed a kiss on the top of his head to greet him, and then pulled out one of the wooden chairs to join him at the table. I crossed my legs, my right foot starting to shake back and forth. Ryan’s hazel eyes lifted from the screen to look at me, narrowing as the seconds went by.
    “What bomb are you about to drop?”
    “What makes you think I have a bomb?”
    “Because you’re doing that thing with your foot you do only when you get extremely anxious.”
    “My foot does that all the time.” I pushed my glasses up the bridge of my nose.
    “Now I know something is really wrong because that right there”—he pointed to the bridge of his own nose—“is your tell.”
    “I want another baby,” I blurted out. There went the entire speech I’d planned out for the past two days. Usually, it was Ryan who had to work on his tact skills. Maybe being together with him this long had rubbed off on me.
    I looked at Ryan. His eyes were about to pop out of his head, and his mouth hung open. I was pretty positive this wasn’t what he expected me to say. I waited as the words I had just uttered twisted and turned inside Ryan’s brain.
    “Excuse me?” he finally said.
    “You know, a baby… another one of those.” I pointed to Ethan, who had a handful of sand in his fist and was aiming it toward his mouth.
    “Ethan! Don’t eat the sand!” I called to him.
    “Why, Papa?”
    “Because it has parasites that can make you sick.”
    He wrinkled his nose and turned to Ryan for a more kid friendly explanation.
    “Because it’s yucky,” he said, but his eyes were still trained on me.
    “I could have said yucky.”
    “You don’t know how to kid speak.”
    “I do, too,” I said.
    “What’s this?” He held up his glass of wine.
    I lifted one of my eyebrows. “That’s