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Kayce Stevens Hughlett
a book bubble about
Blue: A Novel
Literature & Fiction
Author Insight
Cheerios, anyone?
This tiny excerpt always makes me smile, because it's one of those moments crafted after real life. In my initial draft of Blue, I had Roy passing out after the baby was born. My editor and I both agreed that was a bit cliché, so I began to ponder how we could make Roy a bit more original. Then I remembered a scene from the birth of my first child. My water broke in the middle of the night (almost 3 weeks before the due date). I was anxious to get to the hospital and couldn't figure out where my husband had disappeared to. I found him in the kitchen with a large bowl of cereal. "What?" he said sheepishly. "This could take a long time. I might get hungry." Oh sweet man, you're lucky you lived through that night. 20 years later, however, it came in handy. {smile}
Book Excerpt
Blue: A Novel
“Way to go, Shannon. Oh, honey, this little angel looks just like her beautiful mama. Come on, Jaylene, hand the baby over to Shannon.”
“Hold your horses, Izzy. Give me a minute to clean the mucus out of her nose and cut the cord. Hey, Papa Roy, you want to do the honors?”
Roy, the only man in the room, blinked as if he were the one who’d just emerged from the birth canal.
“Are you okay, Roy? Do you need to sit down?” Izabel looked at him with concern.
“Um. I think maybe I just need a bowl of cereal.” Roy turned his glazed eyes away from the women and staggered toward the kitchen.
“Cereal?” Jaylene and Izabel lifted their eyebrows and spoke in unison, but Roy was long gone.
“He always eats cereal when he’s stressed out,” Shannon murmured, as she reached toward the infant Jaylene had swaddled in a cotton blanket. “It’s a miracle we have any left in the house after the labor I’ve had.”
“Hey, I heard that,” Roy said as he reentered the room, holding a soupspoon and a large mixing bowl filled with Cheerios.
Izabel patted him on the shoulder. “No offense, but your wife did a bang-up job with the delivery. My hunch is she could use a few Cheerios herself.”
Roy hung his head sheepishly, perched on the edge of the bed next to his wife, and offered her his cereal-filled spoon.
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