Free Blurring the Lines by Mia Josephs Page A

someone like her. Having family pizza nights, movie nights… Wow. He missed his family. Thought about his dad’s puzzles, and his mom’s dancing and cooking. He hadn’t missed his family in… Well as long as he’d been able to not think about them.
    “Pizza?” She held a plate toward him and he wondered how many times she’d asked.
    “Thank you.” He took the plate still a little stunned from his realization. This… This every day stuff had never been part of his plan. Ever. And now he couldn’t imagine why.
     
    Chris sat on the floor in the kitchen, just outside the bathroom while Jonah stood on a stool brushing his teeth.
    “Auntie Corinne grew me in her tummy,” Jonah said as he continued scrubbing. “My mom told me.”
    The room spun. Chris coughed twice before finding his voice. “Really? Are you sure?”
    His heart sped up at the realization that this kid might be willing to clue him in to her since she still seemed so closed off. She’d politely asked about lyrics after pizza and dancing, and he’d been vague, wanting the songs to be a little more solidified before he asked her to step in and help. Also not wanting her to think what he’d done was good enough to send him away. And he wanted to surprise her with Saving Grace anyway.
    “Yeah. And I lived with my mom and dad, but my mom and dad was Corinne’s sister and her husband.” Jonah scrubbed some more, toothpaste crawling up the brush toward his small hand.
    Chris watched Jonah’s eyes get huge as he looked in the mirror and scrubbed his molars with his brush.
    “I see…”
    “But they died.”
    Chris’ heart stilled. He’d lost his father a few years ago, and the thought of it sometimes knocked the wind out of him.
    “And so did Corinne’s boyfriend. They were in an airplane that broke. Corinne was going to get married.”
    Chris scooted off the wall and turned to see Jonah better. The grief… He couldn’t put words to the thought of it. “How long ago?”
    Jonah put his toothbrush away. “I think I was three.”
    “And now you’re five,” Chris said calculating timing.
    Jonah grinned, his missing front tooth even more apparent. “Yep. And now you check my teeth. Make sure I got all the sugar bugs off.”
    His body felt weak as he slid over to inspect Jonah’s mouth, and he tried to find some sort of kid-friendly voice. “You got ‘em.”
    “Okay.” Corinne stepped back into the kitchen from the small room behind it. “Laundry is finally started. You get the sugar bugs off?” she asked Jonah.
    Jonah turned to Corinne. “Chris says they’re all gone.”
    She smiled wide, and suddenly the resemblance hit him. The kid was so much paler than her, that they hadn’t even looked similar, but they definitely had the same smile. How had he not seen that first thing?
    “So. You got to play tooth inspector. How’s that helping your writing?” she teased.
    Chris didn’t know what to say. He looked up at this woman, whose presence and strength he didn’t fully comprehend, and thought about what Jonah had said.
    Her face fell. “Whatever he told you, no. No, I don’t want to talk about it. I should have guessed. His mom started the sugar bugs thing. I’m going to read books with Jonah. You write. That’s why you’re here, yeah?”
    Chris closed his eyes briefly, and crawled off his spot on the floor. He should go home. Leave her alone. The brief times when he felt it was okay that he was there, maybe weren’t worth it for how he felt in this moment—like he’d once again broken down walls she wanted up.
    Corinne’s life had been harder than he could imagine, and she was doing a million times better than him. How pathetic was he? He came crawling to her doorstep because he thought his life was over simply because he’d lost his ability to write. He hadn’t lost three people close to him. Hadn’t given up a son, only to have him return… It was as if his insides were toppling over each other in a race to drag him