Pictures Of Us. Amy Garvey

      

      “I have a twenty-year-old son named Drew,” Michael said

      “And according to his mother, he wants to meet me.”

      A son. The words didn’t make any sense at first. We had a daughter, Emma. Where had a son come from?

      And then I did the math, feebly, my mind tripping back over the years, and figured it out.

      “Tess?” Michael said.

      I took Michael’s hand, holding it hard even though I couldn’t face him. My gaze was drawn to the line of framed photographs on my dresser—Michael and me, Michael and Emma, Emma alone. Each picture offered its own truth, a testament to love and laughter and family. Even if there were dozens of moments that hadn’t been captured, it didn’t make those happy faces a lie.

      “Tomorrow, okay?” I whispered. “We can talk tomorrow.”

      Because no matter what had happened twenty years ago, history had taught me that there would always be a tomorrow for us.

      Dear Reader,

      The idea of love at first sight, especially young love at first sight, has always fascinated me. Who we are at eighteen is not necessarily who we will be at thirty or forty, and real love is a big commitment to make when you’re still discovering who you are. We all know childhood sweethearts who have found happy endings, but I can’t believe the road is always perfectly smooth.

      Tess and Michael Butterfield are one of those couples. Not even eighteen when they meet, they fall hard and fast for each other. They’re now married with a teenage daughter, and their life together is exactly what they’ve always dreamed about…until an unexpected phone call changes everything.

      Or does it? As Michael and Tess learn together, love isn’t simply a gift—it’s a choice, one that has to be made over and over to keep it strong.

      I hope you enjoy this story as much as I did writing it. These are characters who first spoke to me long ago, and I’m thrilled at the chance to share them with you.

      Best,

      Amy Garvey

      Pictures of Us

      Amy Garvey

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Amy Garvey has worked as a nanny, a video store clerk, a day camp counselor, a journalist, a Bloomingdale’s salesgirl and a romance editor, among other things, but her real love has always been writing. In her opinion, fictional people are usually more fun to spend time with than real people, even though she adores her husband and three kids. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, and when she’s not reading, she’s watching far too much TV, including Supernatural, her latest obsession, and reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Visit Amy’s Web site at www.amygarvey.com, or write to her at [email protected].

      For April and Jess, whose story ended much too soon

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      CHAPTER SIXTEEN

      CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

      CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

      CHAPTER NINETEEN

      CHAPTER TWENTY

      CHAPTER ONE

      MY WORLD CHANGED WITH ONE phone call on a Tuesday evening in May as my family and I were finishing a casual dinner of leftovers and bits and pieces from the fridge. My daughter, Emma, had dumped reheated sauce over a bowl of pasta, and my husband, Michael, had picked at the remains of a roast chicken, then washed it down with a beer. I was scraping the soggy end of a salad out of my bowl and into the garbage disposal when the phone rang and Emma bolted out of her chair to answer it. A fifteen-year-old girl’s response to a ringing telephone is alarming until you get used to it, and I remembered enough about being fifteen to smile at her crestfallen face when she handed the phone to her father. Her swing of dark blond hair fell across her cheek, and she looked bored.

      “Dad, it’s for you.”

      “Who is it?” Michael asked, squinting at the newspaper he’d spread on the table and frowning.

      Emma rolled her eyes. If it wasn’t Jesse, the boy she was crushing on, she clearly didn’t care. “Some woman. She didn’t say.”

      He glanced up then, wrinkling his brow, and took the phone into the living room. I heard his curious “Hello?” before he was out of earshot, and a minute later I heard the heavy thunk of something falling to the floor.

      It wasn’t him, at least—I rushed in to find that he’d stumbled into the ottoman stationed in front of the huge old club chair that I intended to reupholster, knocking a stack of books onto the carpet. But his face was white, blank, his eyes as wide as I’d ever seen them, and as I watched, he sank onto the sofa wordlessly, the slim black portable phone still held to his ear.

      To get the news out of him after he’d hung up took a little while. He insisted that Emma head upstairs to start her homework, a pronouncement that was met with a dramatic pout and more rolling of eyes. She usually studied at the dining-room table, with her books spread out and the wires of her brand-new iPod snaking out of her ears, while Michael and I puttered in the kitchen or sprawled in front of the TV. I never went down to the basement darkroom until after Emma was upstairs for the evening.

      When she was in her room—the phone glued to her ear, I was sure, lamenting the unfair whims of parents to her friends—I replaced the phone in its base and motioned Michael out to the patio. He followed me through the French doors off the kitchen, and I winced as one of the doors screeched shut. The hinges needed oiling, one of dozens of small household repairs we’d both put off.

      The sun had just set, a faint pink-gold smear on the horizon, and our generous yard was bathed in the dusky light of a suburban New Jersey spring evening. Emma’s outgrown swing set crouched at the far end, neglected. I settled in one of the Adirondack chairs facing the lawn, which Michael hadn’t cut lately, pulled my bare feet onto the seat and waited for Michael to settle in the other. Instead, he paced the length of the worn gray flagstones, hands jammed in his jeans pockets.

      His silence was terrifying, and I couldn’t imagine what was wrong. His mother had called just that morning, and at sixty-seven she was sometimes more energetic than I was. Michael’s sister, Melissa, lived in California with her family, but we’d heard from them just a week ago, and if the news concerned my family, I assumed the person on the phone would have asked for me.

      There was nothing to do but wait, though. When Michael’s upset, he turtles up instinctively, and trying to yank him out of the safety of that shell is impossible. With his shoulders hunched and his dark forehead creased in a frown, I recognized the look of my husband of eighteen years deep in contemplation. He could turn an idea over in his head for hours before sharing it. He’d kept me hanging about the living-room paint color for more than a week, and that had involved only a choice between two shades, Velvet Morning and November Skies.

      This was more serious. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Michael’s face so unnaturally pale. I realized I was twisting