#ch: patrick o'connor

[motownfiction]

boxes of childhood toys

When Will moves out of his parents’ house and into Lucy’s basement next door, the first thing his folks make him do is buy her an engagement ring. The second thing they do is make him box up his childhood toys.

“You can’t be somebody’s husband and play with Han Solo,” Will’s father, Pat O’Connor, says as he hands Will some cardboard boxes from the hardware store. “If you’re going to marry Lucy, you’ve gotta leave space battles behind.”

“There are three Star Wars movies in existence now, Dad,” Will says. “If you really think they’re called Space Battles, after all this time …”

Pat clears his throat, and Will gets to throwing the toys into boxes. His dad leaves the room, which means Will is alone with years of playful memories. As he lifts up each one and puts it into the box, he’s surprised by how much one touch can help him remember.

A toy train from when he was three years old and thought it would be fun to be a conductor. When he found out it wasn’t nearly as cute as picture books make it seem, he left that dream behind, but his love for “Mystery Train” lingers on. He sighs and puts the toy into one of the boxes. Maybe Claire is still little enough to like trains. His stomach clenches when he thinks about Claire, his eight-year-old sister, the youngest of the O’Connor siblings. Eight years ago, Will was eight years old, too.

He finds the baseball mitt he never really used and laughs out loud, just under his breath. For as much as he’s always loved running around and playing outside, Will has never been much of one for organized sports. His dad tried to get him to play baseball and football, but it never took hold. He remembers he was more interested in pretending that the glove was like a really big hand, one that was suffering from some sort of rare mosquito bite. That always got a real laugh out of Sam, who also failed to enjoy organized sports. He smiles, thinking about seven-year-old Sam on the baseball diamond at St. Catherine’s, dancing around and singing, “The French are glad to … die for love!” Will’s smile turns into a full laugh now. He puts the baseball mitt in another box. Maybe you can count on your best man to store your best memories, especially when he’s their co-star.

And then, there it is. The inflatable yellow lightsaber he’s been playing with since he was eleven (only five years ago, he thinks, ignoring the rocks in his gut). He knows this is exactly the kind of thing his parents think he should give up. When you’re somebody’s husband, you can’t just move in with your inflatable yellow lightsaber. The juxtaposition is felt. He thinks he could already picture Lucy’s face if he came into her house with that thing under his arm.

Except his picture is all wrong.

Lucy’s not like that spectral wife all these boring men seem to warn each other about. Maybe no wife really is. But Lucy wouldn’t be angry or disgusted or annoyed if Will moved in with his toy lightsaber. She would understand. She might not love the Jedi as much as he does, but she knows what it means to him … knows what it means to him, Sam, and Daniel, how they’re pretty sure they became better friends after they snuck into that galaxy far, far away (nothing Will would ever admit in so many words, of course). And even though he’s about to become somebody’s husband, that’s not all Will O’Connor is about to be.

He takes the inflatable yellow lightsaber and puts it in the third box.

Maybe, he thinks, he knows exactly who will want it.

[latoyarubalcava3546]

Guillermo del Toro's Shape Of Water Is The BAFTAs Frontrunner Thanks To 12 Nods! See The Full List Of Nominees HERE!

Awards season is certainly in full swing.

On Tuesday morning, Natalie Dormer and Letitia Wright announced the nominees for the 2018 BAFTA Film Awards. Now that the Golden Globes have come and gone, all eyes are on the British awards show to see who might be a REAL contender at the Oscars.

Related: Oprah Inspires With EPIC #MeToo Speech!

And the answer??? Guillermo del Toro's Shape Of Water is clearly the current frontrunner, as the drama walked away with 12 nominations. Bravo.

Joanna Lumley was also named the host of the industry event, as Stephen Fry recently announced that he'd be stepping down from the role.

Anyhoo, be sure to ch-ch-check out the complete list of nominations for yourself (below)!!

BEST FILM CALL ME BY YOUR NAME Emilie Georges, Luca Guadagnino, Marco Morabito, Peter Spears DARKEST HOUR Tim Bevan, Lisa Bruce, Eric Fellner, Anthony McCarten, Douglas Urbanski DUNKIRK Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas THE SHAPE OF WATER Guillermo del Toro, J. Miles Dale THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Martin McDonagh

DIRECTOR BLADE RUNNER 2049 Denis Villeneuve CALL ME BY YOUR NAME Luca Guadagnino DUNKIRK Christopher Nolan THE SHAPE OF WATER Guillermo del Toro THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI Martin McDonagh

LEADING ACTRESS ANNETTE BENING Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool FRANCES McDORMAND Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri MARGOT ROBBIE I, Tonya SALLY HAWKINS The Shape of Water SAOIRSE RONAN Lady Bird

LEADING ACTOR DANIEL DAY-LEWIS Phantom Thread DANIEL KALUUYA Get Out GARY OLDMAN Darkest Hour JAMIE BELL Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET Call Me by Your Name

SUPPORTING ACTRESS ALLISON JANNEY I, Tonya KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS Darkest Hour LAURIE METCALF Lady Bird LESLEY MANVILLE Phantom Thread OCTAVIA SPENCER The Shape of Water

SUPPORTING ACTOR CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER All the Money in the World HUGH GRANT Paddington 2 SAM ROCKWELL Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri WILLEM DAFOE The Florida Project WOODY HARRELSON Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM DARKEST HOUR Joe Wright, Tim Bevan, Lisa Bruce, Eric Fellner, Anthony McCarten, Douglas Urbanski THE DEATH OF STALIN Armando Iannucci, Kevin Loader, Laurent Zeitoun, Yann Zenou, Ian Martin, David Schneider GOD'S OWN COUNTRY Francis Lee, Manon Ardisson, Jack Tarling LADY MACBETH William Oldroyd, Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly, Alice Birch PADDINGTON 2 Paul King, David Heyman, Simon Farnaby THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI Martin McDonagh, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER THE GHOUL Gareth Tunley (Writer/Director/Producer), Jack Healy Guttman & Tom Meeten (Producers) I AM NOT A WITCH Rungano Nyoni (Writer/Director), Emily Morgan (Producer) JAWBONE Johnny Harris (Writer/Producer), Thomas Napper (Director) KINGDOM OF US Lucy Cohen (Director) LADY MACBETH Alice Birch (Writer), William Oldroyd (Director), Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly (Producer)

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ELLE Paul Verhoeven, Saïd Ben Saïd FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER Angelina Jolie, Rithy Panh THE HANDMAIDEN Park Chan-wook, Syd Lim LOVELESS Andrey Zvyagintsev, Alexander Rodnyansky THE SALESMAN Asghar Farhadi, Alexandre Mallet-Guy

DOCUMENTARY CITY OF GHOSTS Matthew Heineman I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO Raoul Peck ICARUS Bryan Fogel, Dan Cogan AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk JANE Brett Morgen

ANIMATED FILM COCO Lee Unkrich, Darla K. Anderson LOVING VINCENT Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman, Ivan Mactaggart MY LIFE AS A COURGETTE Claude Barras, Max Karli

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY GET OUT Jordan Peele I, TONYA Steven Rogers LADY BIRD Greta Gerwig THE SHAPE OF WATER Guillermo del Toro, Vanessa Taylor THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI Martin McDonagh

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY CALL ME BY YOUR NAME James Ivory THE DEATH OF STALIN Armando Iannucci, Ian Martin, David Schneider FILM STARS DON'T DIE IN LIVERPOOL Matt Greenhalgh MOLLY'S GAME Aaron Sorkin PADDINGTON 2 Simon Farnaby, Paul King

ORIGINAL MUSIC BLADE RUNNER 2049 Benjamin Wallfisch, Hans Zimmer DARKEST HOUR Dario Marianelli DUNKIRK Hans Zimmer PHANTOM THREAD Jonny Greenwood THE SHAPE OF WATER Alexandre Desplat

CINEMATOGRAPHY BLADE RUNNER 2049 Roger Deakins DARKEST HOUR Bruno Delbonnel DUNKIRK Hoyte van Hoytema THE SHAPE OF WATER Dan Laustsen THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI Ben Davis

EDITING BABY DRIVER Jonathan Amos, Paul Machliss BLADE RUNNER 2049 Joe Walker DUNKIRK Lee Smith THE SHAPE OF WATER Sidney Wolinsky THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI Jon Gregory

PRODUCTION DESIGN BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer BLADE RUNNER 2049 Dennis Gassner, Alessandra Querzola DARKEST HOUR Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer DUNKIRK Nathan Crowley, Gary Fettis THE SHAPE OF WATER Paul Austerberry, Jeff Melvin, Shane Vieau

COSTUME DESIGN BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Jacqueline Durran DARKEST HOUR Jacqueline Durran I, TONYA Jennifer Johnson PHANTOM THREAD Mark Bridges THE SHAPE OF WATER Luis Sequeira

MAKE UP & HAIR BLADE RUNNER 2049 Donald Mowat, Kerry Warn DARKEST HOUR David Malinowski, Ivana Primorac, Lucy Sibbick, Kazuhiro Tsuji I, TONYA Deborah La Mia Denaver, Adruitha Lee VICTORIA & ABDUL Daniel Phillips WONDER Naomi Bakstad, Robert A. Pandini, Arjen Tuiten

SOUND BABY DRIVER Tim Cavagin, Mary H. Ellis, Julian Slater BLADE RUNNER 2049 Ron Bartlett, Doug Hemphill, Mark Mangini, Mac Ruth DUNKIRK Richard King, Gregg Landaker, Gary A. Rizzo, Mark Weingarten THE SHAPE OF WATER Christian Cooke, Glen Gauthier, Nathan Robitaille, Brad Zoern STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick, Stuart Wilson, Matthew Wood

SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS BLADE RUNNER 2049 Gerd Nefzer, John Nelson DUNKIRK Scott Fisher, Andrew Jackson THE SHAPE OF WATER Dennis Berardi, Trey Harrell, Kevin Scott STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI Nominees tbc WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES Nominees tbc

BRITISH SHORT ANIMATION HAVE HEART Will Anderson MAMOON Ben Steer POLES APART Paloma Baeza, Ser En Low

BRITISH SHORT FILM AAMIR Vika Evdokimenko, Emma Stone, Oliver Shuster COWBOY DAVE Colin O'Toole, Jonas Mortensen A DROWNING MAN Mahdi Fleifel, Signe Byrge Sørensen, Patrick Campbell WORK Aneil Karia, Scott O'Donnell WREN BOYS Harry Lighton, Sorcha Bacon, John Fitzpatrick

EE RISING STAR AWARD (voted for by the public) DANIEL KALUUYA FLORENCE PUGH JOSH O'CONNOR TESSA THOMPSON TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET

Congrats to all the nominees!!

[Image via Fox Searchlight.]

[motownfiction]

these eyes

The rest of the Mass goes off without a hitch. Some awkward fourth graders give awkward readings with stilted vocabulary, they take Communion, they sing of Mary, meek and lowly, and then, it’s all over. Students begin to laugh and chat, almost certainly about whatever was happening in their lives before they had to come to church, but Will sees the look in Lucy’s eyes. She’s convinced they’re talking about her. He wants to reach out and tell her that everybody’s probably forgotten about her fall by now, but he doesn’t have time. She darts off to her parents at the back of the church, and his parents sweep him up into a hug.

“There he is!” Will’s father, Pat O’Connor, a tall, muscular man says as he embraces his son with no shame, no regard for the fact that Will is soon to be in high school. “My son, the hero of the day.”

Will wriggles out of his father’s hug and turns bright red.

“It’s not a big deal, Dad,” he says sheepishly. “I was just trying to help Lucy.”

“And you did it so well,” Colleen says, stepping in front of her husband to hug her son. “I thought I’d be able to brag to my friends that you won the essay contest, but you put the crown on Mary! I’ll be able to remind them of that for years. They’ll never be able to judge you or me or any of us again!”

Will laughs because he doesn’t know what else to do.

“Mom, why are they your friends if you’re always competing with each other?” he asks.

Colleen shrugs, almost like she’s embarrassed. Will is too young to realize that she is.

“When you’re older, you’ll understand,” she says. “Or maybe you won’t. Men aren’t like that with each other. Lucy. When she’s older, she’ll understand.”

At the sound of Lucy’s name, Will looks around the church for any sighting of her, any inkling that she was here, even just two minutes ago. But she’s gone. He smiles to himself. That’s Lucy. Fast to disappear to wherever she wants to go. Will kind of admires it.

“I don’t know, Mom,” Will says. “Lucy’s not really like that with anybody. I’ve only ever seen her try to outdo herself.”

Colleen smiles and runs her hand through Will’s hair. He tries to act embarrassed, but he isn’t. Not really. There’s something about being doted on by your parents. It doesn’t get old, even if you do.

“That was a wonderful thing you did for her, sweetheart,” Colleen says softly, a much different tone than she used in the basement this morning during Will’s MC5 solo. “Has she said thank you for it yet?”

Will shakes his head.

“I don’t know if she ever will,” he says. “Not because she’s not happy about it. But because … I know how much it means to her to look good at something.”

He inhales through his teeth, but he’s too young to know why. A long time from now, after about four years of weekly talk therapy, he’ll reflect on the answer he didn’t know how to phrase then: He knows how much it means to her to look good at something because the same thing means a lot to him.

“You’re a sweet boy,” Colleen says. “Are you ready to go home now? Do you have what you need before the weekend?”

“Um, no,” Will says. “We have to leave our backpacks and stuff in our lockers.”

“Go on and get it,” Pat says. “You want us to wait and take you home with the little girls? Or do you wanna ride with Sarah, like normal?”

A tiny smile curls up in the corner of Will’s mouth.

“I’ll ride home with Sarah,” he says.

Pat and Colleen nod at the same time. Colleen steps forward one more time and wraps Will up in a hug and a kiss. By now, he’s done pretending to be embarrassed. It’s too nice.

“You are a sweet, sweet boy,” she says again. “A wonderful, wonderful man.”

As Will walks out of the church and back toward the school doors, he holds his head up high in the bright blue May air. Today is the first day where anybody’s looked at him and called him a man.

About two minutes later, he walks down to his locker in Mr. Pelka’s math classroom, his homeroom for the year, where his locker is located. On his way out of there, he passes by Ms. Dupont’s English classroom. Lucy’s homeroom for the year. And he stops dead in his tracks.

Lucy’s in there, and she’s all alone.

Slowly, Will takes a deep breath and enters the classroom. He makes sure he’s not the one who will fall this time. As he creeps up on Lucy, he can hear her ragged breathing. And as he gets even closer, he realizes that her labored breaths aren’t just happening for no reason. He panics. He never thought this day would come.

Will O’Connor just walked in on Lucy Callaghan crying.

It’s funny, Will thinks, to remember that the person you love is mortal. In weaker folks, he’s pretty sure this would be a deterrent. Weaker folks like to pretend that their loved ones are angels. But not Will. When Lucy cries (something he didn’t even know Lucy could do), he loves her more than he fears her. He’ll love her forever, and it doesn’t scare him at all.

He taps on her shoulder, and she whirls around. When Will sees her bloodshot eyes, he loves her all over again. Loves her forever. She scares him, but not because there are moments when she’s anything less than gorgeous. Even when she’s not gorgeous, she is always beautiful.

“What?” she asks. “Are you gonna brag about saving me?”

“No,” Will says, stepping back, but only a tad, not enough for her to notice. “I just … I saw you alone in here, and I wanted to make sure you were OK.”

Lucy snorts contemptuously and throws her hands up and down, up and down.

“Do I look OK, Will?” she asks. “I fell on my ass in front of the entire school at the May Crowning Mass. I said I’d put the crown on Mary, and I failed. Do you hear that? I failed.”

“You didn’t fail,” Will says gently. “It might not have worked out how you planned, but you didn’t fail.”

“That’s really easy for you to say. You saved me. You covered for me. You got to win, and I got a bruise on my left knee that won’t go away until well into the summer season.”

Will folds his arms across his chest.

“I didn’t win anything by helping you,” he says. “I just wanted to help out my friend. Is that really so bad?”

Lucy sighs, catching tears on the way out. Before either of them know it, the waterworks are back. Will closes his eyes and tries to plot his next move, but it feels impossible. Lucy’s crying turns the floor into It’s a Small World, and Will can’t get out. Worse yet, he doesn’t want to get out. He doesn’t want it at all.

“Look at me,” she says, even though Will’s pretty sure she wants him to forget all about this. “I’m crying! I don’t cry! Why am I crying?”

Will steps forward like he can do anything to help, but he knows better than that.

“I don’t know,” he says. “But if there’s anything I know about you, it’s that you always have the answer.”

Through her tears, Lucy cracks a tiny smile. Will doesn’t know that he’s the only person who could get her to smile through the pain. Years later, he’ll understand, but only in whispers.

“I hate making mistakes,” she says. “I hate making mistakes in front of other people. I know they’re watching. I know they’re listening. I know they’re all just waiting to have something to mock about me, since it’s been so long since the time I scored a goal for the wrong team in gym class. They needed something else, and this was it. This was it! I’ve been trying for years to make sure I never make a big mistake in front of people again, and this was it.”

She begins to cry again, and Will isn’t sure what to do. He just knows he loves her. He just knows that if he could somehow transmit his love for her into her veins, make her see herself through his eyes, that she would stop crying, too. That she would stop trying to impress everyone she ever meets. That she would know that she’s whole – that she’s always been whole.

But he can’t do any of that.

Instead, Will steps closer and takes Lucy’s hand in his, just by the fingertips. She inhales a little too sharply, like the gesture means more than it does. And maybe she’s right. She’s the queen of knowing things other people don’t know. Will gives her a little smile.

“You didn’t make a mistake,” he says. “It was an accident. You just fell. You fell, and I caught you. I made sure you didn’t go down.”

Through her big, glassy tears, Lucy smiles at him. Surely, Will thinks, she can tell he’s been working hard on his metaphors.

He’s not sure which one of them steps closer first. Maybe they do it at the same time. But before long, they’re squeezing each other’s hands and staring at each other like they’re old friends reuniting after a very long time apart. Will takes a long breath and finds himself singing “These Eyes” in his mind. Lucy looks at him like she can hear the same tune. For half a moment, Will swears he can feel her lean in to kiss him (or maybe he leans in to kiss her), but half a moment later, it’s all gone. They snap back apart on opposite sides of the room like magnets who were never supposed to meet. Even through her tears, Lucy stares at him.

Some minutes go by before Lucy grabs her backpack and heads out the door. She doesn’t say anything else to Will, and he knows she doesn’t have to. He doesn’t have to say anything more, either. He knows what he saw. He knows what he felt.

And he’s pretty sure Lucy was right there with him.

Just like he was right there with her.

[motownfiction]

very quick guide to character parents

might as well put this together while i’m thinking about it! the criterion for being included on this list is simple: they have to have made an actual appearance in one of the vignettes. just being named isn’t enough. at any rate, here it is.

mary callaghan: lucy’s mother. beautiful, kind, and eternally loving but with high expectations. generous but firm. can make even the most mundane things exciting. carries socks around in her purse in case she has the opportunity to go bowling. a professor of english who writes about contemporary american literature and gender performance.

john callaghan: lucy’s father. handsome, strong, and compassionate with a wicked sense of humor. stern but forgiving. will put others before himself, almost certainly to a fault. also a professor of english who writes about eighteenth-century england and socioeconomics.

colleen o’connor: will’s mother. cute, well-meaning, and traditional. religious, mostly by habit. high-strung but reasonable. strongly believes that pink and green is the best color combination in the universe, which you’ll know as soon as you walk into her kitchen. a nurse at the biggest hospital in the area.

pat o’connor: will’s father. lanky, pleasant, and exhausted from raising five daughters (and one son, of course). religious, mostly because of colleen’s habits. easygoing like saturday morning (not sunday morning -- not in his house). works for one of the big three. not clear what he does there.

maggie doyle: sadie, sam, and charlie’s mother. fashionable, funny, and charming. full of love and favoritism between her sons (charlie over sam). wished to be an actress when she was young. a true romantic at heart. knows even more music than sam. teaches english and drama at a local high school.

mike doyle: sadie, sam, and charlie’s father. cool, rebellious, and open-hearted. has no favorite child and prays that his wife will one day feel the same. wished to be a musician when he was young. an even bigger romantic than maggie. helpful almost to the point of meddling. works as the landscape hero.

linda deluca: daniel and lola’s mother. adorable, tiny, and outgoing. probably the strictest parent of the bunch. pushy without always realizing it. on the overprotective side but wants to do well by her children. general manager of a local restaurant and banquet hall.

frank deluca: daniel and lola’s father. slim, attractive, and sneaky. absent from his children’s lives even before his divorce from linda. in love with party stores and race tracks. unclear what frank does for a living. dies some time in the 2010s, but his children have been grieving him since the 70s (yes, frank actually appears in one vignette).

[motownfiction]

isn’t she lovely?

The grandparents are the first ones to hold Elenore after Lucy and Will. Colleen wanted to bust down the door and grab onto her granddaughter right away. She probably would have, too, if it hadn’t been for Mary.

“I told everybody we had to give you some space,” Mary says when the four of them finally enter the hospital room. “It’s important to get that private time as a family.”

“Mary, I love you to death,” Colleen says, “but every time you talk, it’s like you’re wearing a big sign that says, ‘I’m an only child!’”

Mary makes a face like she’s going to put her fist through the window. For the first time in a long time, Lucy realizes how much she looks like her mother.

“‘Scuse my mother, Mary,” Will says, giving Colleen a look. “She thinks having a big family is the same thing as having no boundaries.”

“You think I have no boundaries?” Colleen asks. “What about last summer, huh? When you’d go up to your room and put on ‘I Believe When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever?’ We all knew that meant you were making out with Lucy, but did we say anything?”

“No,” Will says, turning redder than ever. “You waited until the day my daughter was born to embarrass me in front of her.”

“She’s a baby, Will. She doesn’t know what we’re talking about. She doesn’t even know how to open her eyes.”

Instinctively, Lucy looks down at Elenore. Just like on cue, she opens her eyes. Blue, just like her mother’s.

“You might want to reconsider that,” Lucy says. “Look who’s looking back.”

Everyone gathers back around Lucy and the baby. Nothing to diffuse the tension like a beautiful baby girl in your arms.

“Do we ever get to know her name?” Mary asks.

“Yes,” John echoes. “Please. Your mother and I have a bet going about what you picked. If I’m right, she has to buy me a Milky Way from the vending machine.”

“What happens if Mom’s right?” Lucy asks.

“Then I have to buy her a Milky Way from the vending machine.”

Lucy rolls her eyes and laughs a little. She looks down at Elenore – the love of her life from here on out – and then back up at the grandparents.

“This is Elenore,” she says, and a chill runs up her spine. “Elenore Callaghan O’Connor.”

“The Callaghan is a middle name,” Will says, undoubtedly to combat the look on his mother’s face (the horror of hyphenating!). “Her last name’s O’Connor. Just the one name.”

“Elenore,” Mary says. “I like it.”

She holds her hand out in front of John, who drops a couple of coins in her palm.

“What name did you think I’d pick, Dad?” Lucy asks.

“I thought you’d go with Emma,” John says. “That’s the last book you were reading.”

“Last isn’t the same as dearest,” Mary says. “I know my daughter, and I know the names she likes best.”

“Thank you, Mom,” Lucy says. “Emma’s not bad, though. I hadn’t considered it before.”

Then, Pat O’Connor claps a proud hand on his son’s shoulders.

“Whadda you think, Will?” he asks. “You still want ninety-nine more of these?”

Will laughs awkwardly.

“I, uh, I dunno, Dad,” he says. “I’ve only had this one for a couple of hours, and I already managed to screw it up.”

“What did you do?” Colleen asks.

Will turns from red to purple and looks down at the floor. Lucy sighs a little too loudly.

“He misspelled our daughter’s name,” she says. “Don’t worry. I think he made it better.”

The relief on Will’s face is incredible.

“Really, though,” Pat says. “How many more of these do you two want?”

Colleen smacks her husband in the arm.

“Patrick O’Connor!” she says. “They’re in high school!”

“Exactly. The damage is done.”

Before they can start to bicker, Will steps in between them. For a kid who used to settle the score with his fists, he’s a surprisingly good diplomat.

“Hey, calm down, alright?” he says. “It’s gonna be a little while before we even think about having another baby.”

“Like a real little while,” Lucy says. “You know we have plenty of other responsibilities. College applications. Jobs. We still have finals next month.”

“I told you,” Will says. “They’re all gonna exempt us. They already said so.”

“And I think, at this stage in our education, that’s a mistake.”

Will sighs. He knows better than to fight with someone who’s just given birth. He looks back at his parents with an awkward, toothy grin.

“Look, we’ll have more kids when we’re ready,” Will says. “Maybe not ninety-nine more, but … I know we both want more. I always kinda wanted four.”

“Mmm, but we talked about that,” Lucy says. “Remember, you get to write the checks, but I’m the one who has to cash them.”

Will’s ears get red again, and he kneels down to whisper to Lucy.

“So,” he says, “which one of ‘em is gonna hold her first?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Lucy whispers back, “my mother.”

“Your mother?”

“Yes. I’m the one in the hospital bed. My family should go first.”

“And give my mother a heart attack?”

“It’ll be, like, two seconds!”

“Alright, alright, that’s fair. Also, you know, I can’t say I don’t love torturing my mom. Just a little bit.”

Lucy smirks.

“What if we call them at the same time?” she asks. “So I can torture my mom a little bit, too?”

Will’s eyes light up like fireworks.

“You’re a fucking mastermind, you know that?” he says. “Nah, I know you do.”

Lucy grins, and she and Will put their heads together. Without counting, they open their mouths and call out at the same time.

“Mom!”

[motownfiction]

am i ever gonna see my wedding day?

Will’s parents take the engagement news a little easier than Lucy’s. Colleen and Patrick O’Connor also fell in love in high school – got married a month after their graduation. They don’t have grand ideas about where Will should go to college or where he should live when he gets older. They have too many kids to write each of their futures in a book, after all.

But even the O’Connors have their druthers.

“I’m just not following,” Colleen, a pretty woman with straight black hair and a raspy voice from years of smoking, says for what feels like the hundredth time all night. “John and Mary gave you their permission to get married?”

“Yes,” Lucy says.

“John and Mary Callaghan?”

“Yes, Mom,” Will says.

“The same John and Mary Callaghan who made their daughter hold one of their hands to cross the street until she was in fourth grade?”

Lucy turns a horrible shade of red.

“It was third grade,” she mutters and stares at the floor. “But I hear your point.”

Will grabs Lucy’s hand and threads his fingers through hers all over again. He still can’t believe she lets him do that. Then again, he still can’t believe a lot of the things Lucy lets him do.

“It took them some convincing, but they got it,” Will says.

“What’s to get?” Patrick, a tall man with gray-brown hair and glasses thicker than Buddy Holly, asks. He has the same gravelly voice that Will picked up around ‘79. Pat O’Connor’s only thirty-seven, but he has the constitution of an eldritch creature. Having six kids before the age of thirty will do that to you. Will looks down at himself and prays to God it doesn’t happen to him.

“What’s to get is that Lucy’s having a baby, and it’s mine,” Will says. “I should be married to the woman who’s having my baby, don’t you think?”

Before either of his parents can say anything, Lucy paws at Will’s forearm.

“Will, honey, don’t you think this feels a little … Medieval?” she asks.

“No, but it does feel a little Leave It to Beaver,” Will says.

“Why would you say that? Do you want our marriage to be like Leave It to Beaver? Because if you do, there’s a certain clip-on earring I’d like back.”

“I don’t want our marriage to be like Leave It to Beaver, but it’s like Burczyk keeps saying in AP Lang, right? We gotta know the audience.”

Lucy turns a strange shade of red, and Will knows he’s got her.

“Nothing wrong with a man being married to the mother of his child,” Patrick says. “Only you ain’t a man, Will. You’re sixteen.”

“So?” Will asks. “How old were you when you knew you were gonna marry my mother over there?”

All eyes on Colleen. She gulps and tries to hide behind her hair. It doesn’t work.

“Mom?” Will asks.

“Well,” Colleen says, “I guess we were about sixteen.”

“Exactly,” Will says, grabbing back onto Lucy’s hand. “You were sixteen. If I had a case, I’d rest it right here.”

“Now, hold on,” Patrick says. “Before you get carried away, as you are wont to do.”

“Love getting carried away,” Will says, and he squeezes Lucy’s hand even harder. “No point in living if you’re just gonna be bored.”

“Me and your mom didn’t get married until we were eighteen. We didn’t need our parents’ permission, and by then, they were happy for us, anyway. We got married because we knew we wanted to, not because our situation was dire.”

“Oh, your situation was dire. At least we got it out of the way.”

Will doesn’t even have to look at Lucy to know how red in the face she is. She drops his hand, and he figures he deserved it. He’ll make it up to her later, he thinks. Somehow.

“Will, watch your mouth,” Colleen says. “Me and your dad … we just want to make sure you’re not rushing into anything.”

“You already rushed into a lot,” Patrick adds.

Will looks over at Lucy, who appears to be dying on the spot. Colleen notices, too, and anchors her gaze toward Lucy.

“Lucy, I hope you know we love you,” she says. “I loved you as soon as I saw you at that birthday party, remember?”

Will frowns.

“She threw a water balloon at me!” he says. “In February!”

“I was seven,” Lucy says. “I just wanted your attention.”

“It was your birthday party. You had my attention.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to make sure.”

When Will looks at her, he’s not sure he’s ever been more in love with her than today. He grabs her hand again, and she gives him the prettiest little smile. In the end, he thinks, that’s how he knows it’s going to work. This is the scariest shit of their lives, but he’s always known how to make her smile.

Colleen and Pat see it a little differently.

“I can’t stop thinking about that,” Colleen says.

“Yeah,” Pat agrees. “Me neither.”

“What?” Lucy asks. “About the water balloon? I’m really sorry about that. It’s just that I was so young, and I had this weird crush on Will that I didn’t understand. I’d never throw a water balloon at him now. Well, not out of spite.”

Will squeezes her hand again.

“Callaghan,” he says quietly, “they’re not talking about the water balloon.”

“Then what are they talking about?”

“We’re talking about how long Will’s had a crush on you,” Colleen says, and now, it’s Will’s turn to die on the spot. “You know he came home after his first day in Ms. Cunningham’s class and told us he was going to marry the new girl, don’t you?”

“And would you look at that?” Will asks. “I was right.”

“Maybe,” Pat says. “Or maybe you can’t let go of an idea you had when you were six.”

Lucy raises her shoulders above her ears – a rare move from her. Will drops her hand again, but this time, it’s to defend her. He stands up from the couch and looks both of his parents firmly in the eye.

“I guess I should’ve known you were gonna say that,” he says.

“How could we not?” Colleen asks. “You cut her picture out of the yearbook and kept it in your dresser.”

“Will!” Lucy says.

“I was eleven!”

“That’s worse!”

“Don’t change the subject,” Pat says. “How do we know this isn’t just some way for you to live out the dream you had when you were a little kid?”

“Dad …” Will starts, but Pat cuts him off.

“It’s a good question. Do you like Lucy now, or do you like Lucy ten years ago?”

Lucy looks up at Will, and for maybe the first time in their lives, she looks scared. She looks hurt. Rage bubbles up in Will’s guts, but he breathes through it. He knows his audience.

“Mom, Dad, did you know Lucy’s favorite color used to be pink?”

Lucy furrows her brow and tugs at Will’s hand. He gives her a look back, and he knows she can read it perfectly.

Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing. You’re gonna like it.

“No,” Colleen says. “I don’t even know her favorite color now.”

“It’s red,” Lucy says. “Or purple, depending on the day. But mostly red.”

Colleen nods. Later, Lucy will learn that she was making herself a mental note that red and purple would be a terrible color scheme for a wedding.

“I knew Lucy’s favorite color was pink,” Will says. “And I knew why. It was because her mom used to make this pie with whipped cream and strawberry Jell-O, and that was her favorite food. She used to bring in a slice of it for lunch if her mom made it the night before.”

“You didn’t even sit with me at lunch back then,” Lucy says. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t sit that far away, either,” Will says. “I was always listening to you.”

“So, you knew her favorite color, and you knew her favorite pie,” Pat says. “Tell me what that has to do with marrying her now.”

“I dunno,” Will says. “I think it does. Because I remember a couple of years later, when her favorite color was purple, and she loved pepperoni pizza. We used to get it in the cafeteria on Tuesdays. They wrapped it in tin foil. She used to make little dolls out of the foil and play with ‘em in the classroom when it was too cold to go outside. I remember once, I asked her if I could have one, too.”

Lucy grins.

“I remember,” she says. “You were Dr. Stud. I asked you what kind of medicine you practiced, and you said, ‘I don’t know, but I’m rich and have 100 kids.’”

“Might’ve cursed myself with that one,” Will says. “But I remember that day. That was the day I figured out how funny Lucy is. And then a couple of years later, I was cool enough to have lunch with her again. I remember I’d sit there with her and just watch her study. She’d read everything twice. I think that’s when I figured out she was a hard worker. And I kinda … I liked her even more once I got that. And … every year, I’d find out new things about her. Some things stayed the same. Some things changed. But everything I learned … I just kept liking her more. I don’t … I don’t think that’s gonna stop. I wanna … I wanna keep learning more things about her, and I wanna do it with her. Not away from her.”

He looks back at Lucy, that hunger for approval in his eyes. She’s smiling at him with all her teeth, and he knows he’s got her.