Part Four: Fireworks 🧨
Ms. Coffman sent the text at 8:47 in the morning.
On my way with the kids. See you soon.
No response.
She set her phone down and started getting the children together — shoes on the right feet, Jaylen struggling with his jacket zipper, Destiny’s hair smoothed down enough to be presentable. She checked her phone again at 9:15.
Still nothing.
She smiled to herself, shaking her head.
“Oh my.” She said it out loud to nobody in particular, she figured it out.
“It’s been an hour and no response. They must have had a blast last night.”
She loaded the kids into the car feeling satisfied about that.
When she pulled up to the house, everything looked still. Curtains drawn. No movement behind the blinds.
She walked the kids to the door and pressed the doorbell.
Nothing.
She pressed it again. And again. And a fourth time, holding it just a half second longer than the last one thinking one of them would hear it.
On the fifth ring, the door swung open.
Tyson stood there in a t-shirt and sweats, not quite together, looking like a man that didn’t get much sleep on his wedding night.
Ms. Coffman looked him up and down with a wide smile.
Ms. Coffman: “Well. Good morning. From the look you’re giving, and it’s pointing down you had quite a blast last night.”
Tyson’s jaw shifted. He glanced at the kids pushing past him into the house, then back at his mother-in-law.
Tyson: “Yeah, A blast. With my hand.” (he mumbled to himself).
Ms. Coffman: “I’m sorry, son-in-law? Didn’t catch that.”
He cleared his throat.
Tyson: “Oh — yeah. Blast. Fireworks.”
“Fireworks!” She clasped her hands together.
Ms. Coffman: “Now that sounds like a wedding night.”
Tracy came down the hall right on cue, and she was a in a totally different mood the man who had answered the door.
Dressed, bright-eyed, moving with the full energy of a woman who had slept long and well and had absolutely no regrets.
Tracy: “It is a beautiful morning.” She kissed her mother on the cheek. “Good morning, Mother. How are you this morning?”
Ms. Coffman: “Yeah. Fireworks.”
Tracy turned to pull Destiny in for a hug then stood up.
Tracy: “Fireworks?” “Isn’t that a bit much for the dinner tomorrow?”
Tyson and Ms. Coffman looked at each other.
Then they both burst out laughing and made it seem like it was something else but nothing at the same time.
Tracy looked at them like they had both lost their minds, shrugged, and went to find Jaylen.
They headed out a little while later, all four of them — Tracy, Tyson and the kids — to pick up a few things for the family dinner the following evening.
Nothing major. Just the items that always get forgotten until the day before.
The kids were in the back seat. The windows were cracked. Tyson had the radio on low.
Then the station cut to a podcast — two hosts mid-conversation, on a topic that couldn’t at the right time.
“So the question on the table today is — how often do you actually hear about a married couple not being intimate on their wedding night? Like truly, their actual wedding night…”
Tyson’s started tapping the steering wheel like a drum.
He let a few seconds pass.
Tyson: “What a coincidence.”
Tracy didn’t even look up from her phone.
Tracy: “What’s your coincidence?”
He glanced at her. She glanced back.
Tyson: “Oh you got jokes, You lucky the kids are in here because I want to spank you.”
Tracy slowly lowered her phone.
All nonchalant she turned around to look at the kids on the back seat.
Tracy: “You hear that, kids? Daddy says he wants to spank me.”
Tyson: “Tracy, what the—”
Jaylen : “Why were you being bad, Mommy?”
Jaylen. Eight years old.
The car went silent for exactly one second.
Then they both lost it.
Tracy first, then Tyson right behind her — burst into laughter, the kind that was needed to change the mood. He felt her looking at him out the corner of his eye at the red light and she was already looking at him before that moment.
Laughing at the same thing. Like they always did.
The light turned green.
Tyson reached over to hold her hand.
She smiled and took his hand.
To be continued…