The Things We Leave Unfinished Yarros, Rebecca (reading like a writer .TXT) 📖

They’d been married for a year now, and she was still utterly besotted with her husband.

“I wish you’d let me put in a phone,” he said against her mouth, pulling out of the kiss.

“You’re due to repost back to Martlesham-Heath in two weeks. Are you going to have that kind of extravagance in all of our homes?” She brushed her mouth over his.

“Maybe.” He sighed but rose to his full height as he tangled his fingers in her hair, letting the strands pass through his fingers until they ended just under her collarbone. “Just remember the plan. Get to Mrs. Tuttle next door and she’ll—”

Scarlett laughed, then pushed at his chest. “How about I worry about having the baby, and you go fly the airplane?”

His eyes narrowed. “Fair enough.” He took his hat from the kitchen table, and Scarlett followed him to the front door, where he took his coat from the rack and put it on.

“Be safe,” she demanded.

He swooped in for another kiss, this one hard, quick, and ending with a light nip of her lower lip. “Be pregnant when I get home…if that’s anything you have a say over.”

“I’ll do my best. Now go.” She motioned toward the door.

“I love you!” he called as he walked out.

“I love you!” Only after she’d said it did he close the door.

Scarlett rested a hand on her swollen belly. “Looks like it’s just the two of us, love.” She arched her back, hoping to relieve a touch of the endless ache at the base of her spine. She’d grown so large that even her maternity dresses barely fit, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her feet.

“Shall we write a story today?” she asked her son as she settled behind the typewriter that had a permanent place at the kitchen table and elevated her feet on the nearest chair.

Then she stared at papers she’d begun storing in an old hatbox. Over the last three months, she’d started dozens of stories, but never seemed to make it past the first few chapters before something else popped into her head and she shifted gears for fear she’d forget that idea if she didn’t jot it down.

The result was a hatbox full of possibilities, but not product.

Knock, knock, knock.

Scarlett groaned. She’d just gotten semi-comfortable—

“Scarlett?” Constance called from the front of the house.

“In the kitchen!” Scarlett called back, utterly relieved that she didn’t have to get up.

“Hello there, little one!” Constance came around the table and hugged her.

“Hardly little,” Scarlett argued as her sister took the chair next to her.

“What made you think I was talking to you?” She smiled and leaned toward Scarlett’s belly. “Have you considered joining us, yet?”

“You’re as bad as Jameson,” Scarlett muttered, arching her back again. How was the ache getting worse? “No watch today?”

“As luck would have it, I’m off.” Her brow knit as she glanced back through the kitchen door. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a Sunday off. I’m guessing Jameson can’t say the same?”

“No. He left just a bit ago.”

“What shall we do?” Constance drummed her fingertips on the kitchen table, and Scarlett did her best to look anywhere but the ring that sparkled on her fingertip. How ironic that something so glitteringly beautiful was the harbinger of so much destruction.

“As long as it involves me not moving, I’m all for it.”

Constance smiled, then reached for the hatbox. “Tell me a story.”

“Those aren’t done!” Scarlett reached for the box, but Constance was too quick—or she was too slow.

“Since when have you ever told me a story that was already finished?” Constance scoffed, digging through the papers. “There must be at least twenty in here!”

“At least,” Scarlett admitted, shifting in her seat again.

“Are you all right?” Constance asked, noting the strain on her sister’s face with blatant concern.

“I’m fine. Just uncomfortable.”

“I’ll get you some tea.” Constance pushed away from the table, then put the kettle on. “Were you thinking about finishing any of those stories?”

“Eventually.” Scarlett leaned far enough to steal the hatbox back while Constance stood at the stove.

“Why not write one to the end, then start another?” She took tea out of the cabinet.

Scarlett had often asked herself the same thing. “I’m always afraid I’ll forget an idea, and yet then I can’t help but feel like I’m chasing butterflies, always thinking one is prettier, and never catching one because I can’t commit to the single chase.” She stared at the hatbox.

“There’s no rush.” Constance’s voice softened. “You could always type up your ideas like a briefing summary so you don’t lose them, then go back to the butterfly you’ve chosen to chase.”

“That’s an excellent idea.” Scarlett’s brows lifted. “Sometimes I wonder if I just enjoy the beginnings, and that’s why I never seem to move past them. The beginnings are what make everything romantic.”

“Not the whole falling in love part?” Constance teased, reclaiming her seat.

“Well, that too.” She raised a shoulder. “But maybe it’s really the possibilities that are easy to fall in love with. Looking at any situation, any relationship, any story, and having the sublime ability to wonder where it will take us is a bit intoxicating, really. There’s a rush every time I load a blank sheet of paper. Like a first kiss from a first love.”

Constance gave her engagement ring a quick glance before tucking it under the table in her lap. “So you’d rather keep loading the paper than finish it?”

“Perhaps.” Scarlett rubbed at the spot just beneath her ribs where her baby often enjoyed testing the boundaries of her body. “I don’t know if this baby is a boy or a girl. I think it’s a boy, though I can’t explain why. But in this moment, I can imagine a boy with Jameson’s eyes and his reckless smile, or a girl with our blue eyes. Right now, I’m in love with both, basking in the possibilities. In a few days—at least I’m