Time

The week after we went house hunting, Jordan decided that he would take the time off work so he can pack and clean his old house. “It’s time to get serious and move out of here,” he told me Monday night when I came home from work. “I’m so tired of living here now.” With a chuckle, he told me that he was too impatient to move onto our new life together.

I’m not exactly sure what he was doing during the day, but when I came home the first couple nights, it didn’t appear that he had really done too much to pack or clean. When I brought it up with him, he became upset and told me that I was being too judgemental. “I’ve been doing a lot,” he told me in a huff before stomping down the hallway with Jenna in his arms.

That night, in bed, was a lonely one. Despite the fact that he was next to me, it was like he was some where else. For the first time since I can remember, he didn’t make a move to hold me. I tried to talk to him, to see what was going on in his head but he refused to even acknowledge my presence.

In the early morning hours, I managed to fall asleep but was soon disrupted by my alarm going off. Crawling out of bed, I noticed Jordan wasn’t next to me. Neither was he anywhere else in the house. I left for work on Wednesday morning, wondering what I said that pissed him off so much that he would be up and gone when he didn’t have to be anywhere.

****

All day long, at work, my thoughts were weren’t where they needed to be. For the first time since I started working at the store, I didn’t really wish to be there and I tried my hardest to avoid customers. “What’s going on with you?” Linda demanded when she found me hiding in the horseshoe.

“I’m just having a bad day,” I tried to push off anymore of her questions but she wasn’t about to let it go.

“Anna, I’ve never known you to hide from customers. They’ve always seemed to be the highlight of your day. What’s going on?”

Staring down at my nails, I sighed. “Jordan and I had a fight – I think.”

“You think?” She sounded puzzled. “How can you not know?”

At her coaxing, I told her of the events that took place the night before and how he was gone when I woke up. “I don’t know what happened, I wasn’t being judgemental. I just asked how his day went and how much he got done.”

Linda was silent for so long, I thought for sure she was trying to think of a diplomatic way to tell me that I was the one in the wrong. I was so sure she was going to tell me that I overreacted and I should apologize to him – it was something I had been told for so many years, what else would I expect to be told?

“Anna,” she knelt down before me. “I don’t know what to tell you, I wish I did.”

Sighing, I told her I understood. “I just don’t want to do anything to ruin what Jordan and I have. I love him so much; I can’t imagine being without…” I trailed off as I realized what I was saying and who I was saying it to. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok,” she flashed me a smile but I knew she was thinking of her dead husband. “It’s difficult to lose the man you love with all your heart,” she admitted. “Although, I don’t believe Jordan is lost to you Anna.”

“No, he’s not.”

“You will talk this out with him Anna. You’ll see that everything will be fine.”

“Yes,” I smiled. “Everything will be ok.”

“Good.” She patted my knee and stood. “I can’t have you falling to pieces when I’m gone – who would take care of you then?”

I didn’t want to think of Friday and Linda’s last day as one of my associates. “I’m going to miss you greatly,” I told her. “Are you sure you wish to leave us?”

“Yes,” she smiled. “My youngest is very excited that we’ll get to spend the days together at ‘school’.”

Even though I was sad that Linda was leaving, I understood her excitement about moving in on to something she had been working on for the last few years, being a child care worker. “I just can’t believe you’d leave all this,” I motioned around with a chuckle. “To go play with kids all day long.”

“Not just play,” she reminded me. “Teach them as well.”

I may have appeared to not want her to go but in actual fact, I envied her. She would get to spend so much more time with her youngest son now, instead of feeling guilty that she wasn’t around for him like she had been for his two older brothers.

****

After work, I just wanted to run home to talk to Jordan but, since it was Wednesday, I had to head over to the high school to supervise for the play. Before I made my way to the school though, I stopped by Jordan’s parents place to see if Jordan had dropped off Jenna and if I needed to pick her up.

“Anna?” Harriet seemed surprised to see me when she came to the door. “What are you doing here?”

I told her I wasn’t sure if Jordan dropped Jenna off with them this morning. “I thought I would stop by and see if I needed to pick her up.”

With a shake of her head, she told me that he did drop her off but already came back to pick her up. “You just missed him,” she informed me. “He came by about 10 minutes ago to get her.”

“Oh,” I tried not to seem too disappointed. “Sorry to have bothered you,” I mumbled as I turned to leave.

Once in my car, I tried to call Jordan but like the couple times I tried him earlier, my calls went directly to voice mail. “Hey Jordy, I just called to remind you that I’ll be at the school for a couple hours. I wouldn’t want you to worry when I didn’t come home. I’ll see you around 5:30. Love you.”

****

“See you later Anna!”

Glancing up from my notes, I smiled and waved at the last group of kids, besides my nieces, to leave. “Great job today,” I called after them. “See you all on Friday!”

When the door closed behind them, I sighed and decided it was time for me to get a move on as well. Gathering all my stuff together, I stood and made my way over to the stage where Cassie and Lindsay were seated with their homework spread out in front of them. “Why don’t you call your dad and tell him I’ll bring you home?”

“Dad wont’ be too long,” Cassie assured me. “Besides, I’m sure you have plans with Uncle Jordy. You know, with the moving and everything.”

“Yeah,” Lindsay jumped in. “Go home, relax and don’t worry about us.” Casting a glance across the stage, towards the back, she told me that Josh promised their dad that he would wait with them until he showed up. “I’m sure dad just has to finish up at work, he shouldn’t be too much longer.”

“Ok.” Hiking my bag up my shoulder, I told them I would see them later. “Tell your dad I’ll call him later, ok?”

The girls nodded but their attention had shifted from me and back to their books. “Have a good night,” I said to them as I turned to leave.

I was brushing a small amount of snow from my car when the double doors of the theatre opened. “Hey!” Josh exclaimed as he hurried over to me. “I was hoping I didn’t miss you.”

“You almost did,” I motioned to my car. “Had to let her warm up a little, other wise you would’ve.”

He made some comment about being happy it was cold. “I was hoping to talk to you.”

“Oh?” I raised a brow. “About what?”

“About…” He trailed off as he gave me a puzzled look. “About the house, of course!” He laughed. “I was talking to Zach yesterday and he told me that this weekend was successful for Jordan and you. I just wanted to know if you liked the house or not?”

“Well, you should’ve been here on Monday,“ I teased. “Then you would’ve heard all about it! The kids somehow found out and it was all they wanted to talk about!”

“Oh come on,” he groaned. “You know I had an appointment Monday, I would’ve been here if I could.” His appointment was with his lawyer, he didn’t really tell me too much about it and I didn’t ask. “So tell me now.”

“We found a house,” I told him.

“That’s it?” His smile disappeared. “You aren’t going to tell me which one? Or if you even liked the house I told you about?”

Before I answered, I took a second to knock the snow off my snowbrush and toss it into the back seat. “Jordan and I really like the house you told me about Josh.”

“Yeah?” His grin was back in full force. “I knew you would like it.” He looked so pleased with himself that it made me wonder why it mattered so much to him, so I asked him.

“Why?” He shrugged. “No reason really, I just heard about it and you were the first person that jumped to mind.” His eyes narrowed, “Why? Did you think I had an ulterior motive?”

“No!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t.” But Jordan did, I thought. In fact, Jordan almost refused to even look at the house Josh told me about because he said that he wouldn’t feel ‘right’ in the house.

“Good, because I didn’t.”

“Good,” I grinned. “Because Jordan and I loved that house so much – we put an offer in on it!” I was so excited; I threw my arms out and hugged him tight. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! It was just what we were looking for! Just walking through the rooms I could see us there. Jenna also loved the house; she even picked out her own room!”

“That’s wonderful!” He squeezed me tight. “Really wonderful.”

****

When I pulled into the drive that night, I sat in my car for a few minutes, just listening to the radio and thinking. I guess, to be honest, I was bracing myself for a huge fight with Jordan because I knew that I wasn’t about to go another minute with him not speaking to me. I wasn’t naive enough to think that Jordan and I were immune to arguing because we’ve known each other for so long but, to be honest, it worried me that we have had little arguments more and more in the last couple months; I was afraid that it was a sign that, even though we were great as friends, being more wasn’t in the stars for us.

“Don’t be silly,” I said aloud. “Don’t over think this or you’ll end up seeing things that aren’t there.”

Gaining some confidence, I quickly shut off my car and hurried into the house, ready to face whatever it was I came across when I got in there. I hoped that Jordan would be in a good enough mood to at least speak to me but I was prepared to have to work for it. I was willing to work for it.

“Ahh-naa-naa!” I was in the middle of hanging up my jacket when Jenna came barrelling out into the porch, throwing herself at me with such force I never expected from her.

“Hey Jenna.” Scooping to swing her up in my arms, I stepped over the boots scattered over the floor and moved into the kitchen. “How have you been Sweetie?” Nuzzling her neck, I told her I missed her so much today. “And so did the rest of the kids at school.”

Jenna pointed towards the table where paper and crayons were spread out. “Oh! You were drawing?” As I scanned the multi colour papers on the table, I tried really hard not to stare at Jordan who was busy around the stove. Jenna wiggled to get down, so I placed her on her chair and she immediately picked up a blue crayon.

With Jenna settled down, drawing a picture, I finally turned my attention to her daddy. “You know,” I started as I made my way in his direction. “If she keeps drawing at this pace, you’ll have to get another fridge.”

Jordan nodded slightly and then paused, “Huh?” He shot me a confused glance over his shoulder.

Shaking my head, I told him it was nothing.

“Oh ok,” he turned back to the pots on the stove and stirred the contents of one with a wooden spoon.

“So?” I glanced around. “How was your day?”

“Good,” he replied as he moved from the stove to grab a large metal spoon from the cutlery drawer.

“That’s good to hear.” I started to ask him how Jenna was for him when he sighed. “Jordan what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” he stated as he turned towards me with one hand holding out the metal spoon and the other one cupped under it. “Taste this and tell me if it seems right to you – it seems to be missing something but I don’t know what.”

For a minute I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. I guess his response surprised me since I was talking about his mood and he was talking about the meat sauce he was apparently working on for supper. “You think there’s something wrong with the sauce?” I asked slowly.

“Yeah,” he gave me a funny look. “That’s what we were talking about…wasn’t it?”

“Well…” I was going to tell him no but I decided to leave it for now. “Sauce, right.” I leaned forward and accepted the sauce that he held out for me. “It doesn’t seem to be missing anything to me.”

“No?” He frowned and took another sample for himself. “Maybe I’m just off tonight.” He shrugged and tossed the spoon into the sink before reaching for me. “I made supper,” he told me as he pulled me close.

“I know,” I chuckled. “I could smell it when I walked in the door.”

“It’s ready,” he said in between the little kisses he pressed against my neck.

“Good, we just have to tell Jenna it’s time to put away her drawings.”
“What?” Jordan’s head snapped towards the table. With a chuckle, he told me that he was going to have to buy another fridge at the rate she was drawing.

****

7:30 that night, Jordan poked his head into the living room. “Anna, we are ready for you.”

“Yeah?” I immediately dropped the book I was reading and hurried down the hall after him, excited for what was to come.

When I arrived at Jenna’s bedroom door, Jordan was just settling down on one of the two bean bag chairs with Jenna’s favourite bedtime storybook and Jenna was waiting to crawl onto his lap. By the time I crossed the room they were both patiently waiting for me to lower myself onto the second bean bag so that he could start the story.

“Ahh-naa-naa, shhhh!” Jenna held a finger up to her mouth as Jordan spread the book open.

Laughing, Jordan told me that, during story time, he was the only one allowed to talk. “Ok,” he glanced down at Jenna. “Are you ready for your story?”

Her little eyes widened and she nodded so enthusiastically, I couldn’t help but laugh. “Good,” Jordan grinned. “Then let’s get started.”

As he began to read Jenna a story she has heard many, many times before I couldn’t help but feel elated that they had given me the chance to be a part of this moment. Every single night up to that point, Jordan and Jenna did their own little night time routine and I was never a part of it. The only thing I did was wait for them to come out of the bathroom to get my good night kiss from Jenna before Jordan took her into her room to read a story to her. I never complained though and I didn’t feel left out because I knew that they needed to bond and father and daughter. Plus, I had time with Jenna while Jordan was working.

I had no idea why they decided that night that I would be a part of story time, all I knew was that Jenna, instead of just giving me a kiss good night, asked me to ‘come for story’.

But I do know that Jenna had to be the luckiest little girl in the world because her daddy was the most amazing story teller ever. I swear that I was dreaming of prince charming and castles as he told the story. And, like Jenna, I didn’t really want him to ever stop reading.

Jordan ended up reading two books to us before Jenna was sleepy enough to put her in her bed for the night. “Night J-Roll,” he whispered as he leaned over to kiss her cheek.

****

Jordan and I were cleaning out the closet in the porch when someone came knocking on the front door. “Are you expecting anyone?” He asked as he climbed off his step stool and made the two steps it took to reach the door. I was shaking my head when he opened the door to see Zach and Mary standing on the front step. “Hey!” He grinned. “This is a surprise! What are you two doing here?” He peered around them and asked if the girls were with them.
“No,” Zach replied. “We left the girls at home – can we come in?”

“Sure, sure.” Jordan moved back and held the door open for them, repeating once again how much of a surprise it was to see them.

“Yeah, sorry for just showing up,” Zach glanced around the room and motioned towards the kitchen. “Do you think we could move into kitchen or living room? I need to talk to you both and Mary really needs to sit down.”

Mary shot Zach a dirty look. “I’ve been sitting all evening!”

“But you were running around all day,” Zach stated.

“Oh for the love of…” Mary rolled her eyes and shook her head before turning my way. “You’d think your brother has never been around a pregnant woman the way he’s acting lately.”

Zach turned to me as well. “And you’d think Mary has never dealt with me being overprotective before, the way she’s acting now.”

“Let’s go into the living room,” I suggested, trying hard not to laugh at the two of them.