Finding Ms. Right Box Set

Chapter 2-3

Crissy was the first in a long line of girlfriends ending with Miranda. Now Michael was married, and his family only lived a short, ten-minute drive from Joanne’s apartment complex. At three in the morning, though, the roads were empty and she made the journey in under five minutes. Just in time, too—when she pulled to a stop in front of their gate, she saw Michael helping his very pregnant wife through the front door. Shelly huffed and puffed like the big bad wolf in that old children’s fairy tale, one hand on her large belly as she waddled towards her van.

Michael had an overnight bag slung over one shoulder and a worried look on his face. “There you are,” he said, skipping the niceties. “Her contractions are—”

“Goddamn!” Shelly cried, shattering the quiet night around them.

Joanne waved them aside. “Go, go, go!” she said, catching the screen door before it could slam shut. “Call me when the babies come.”

Steering his wife towards the van, Michael called over his shoulder, “The kids can get their own breakfasts in the morning. The school bus comes at seven-fifteen—”

Shelly snapped, “f**k the school bus! Get me to the damn hospital already and shut up, will you?”

Joanne smirked, but was wise enough to cover her mouth with her hand before Shelly could turn around and see. “Call me,” she said, stepping onto the screened-in porch.

Michael nodded, distracted. It took another five minutes for him to strap Shelly into the passenger seat of the van, her cursing the entire time. “This is the last one, you hear?” was the last thing Joanne caught before the car door cut off the rest of her tirade.

Then Michael raced around the van to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel. Joanne waved as he peeled out of their driveway, narrowly missing her car. His tires skidded in the gravel, throwing a spray of tiny pebbles that pinged off Joanne’s back bumper. Then, mercifully, he was gone.

Around her, the house was silent. Joanne headed inside, locking the front door behind her. The living room was lit only by a single, low-wattage lamp in the far corner. Setting her briefcase on one end of the sectional sofa, she took a moment to check in on the children. The bedroom was dark, but a night light cast a golden net across the toy-strewn floor and, in the faint glow, she could make out two slumbering shapes in the bunk beds. Her niece and nephew, Ava and Mikey Jr., hadn’t even stirred despite the commotion outside.

The guest room had been converted into a nursery, and Joanne didn’t want to lie down in her brother’s bed, but she wasn’t too tired at the moment, anyway, so she went back to the living room and found the TV remote among the sofa cushions. But at this late hour, there wasn’t anything good on—nothing but infomercials and soft porn on the movie channels. She stretched out on the sofa as she flicked through the channels, all three hundred of them, without finding anything decent to watch. Finally her eyes started to close again, and she clicked off the TV. She could still get a few hours’ worth of sleep before it was time to get the kids ready for school.

Vaguely, she thought of setting the alarm on her iPhone, but her briefcase was on the opposite end of the couch and she didn’t feel like getting it. The kids would wake her when they got up. Or Michael would soon call with news of the babies. She should get her sleep in while she could.

Despite the uncomfortable sofa and the lack of a decent pillow, the next time she closed her eyes, she didn’t bother opening them again. Within minutes, she was back asleep.

* * * *