EXCLUSIVE Father's Day Visit with the cast of
Something So Unscripted by Natasha Madison

“Why do I have to clean up?” I hear Elizabeth yelling from downstairs.

“It’s your brother’s big day,” my father tells her. “It’s a very big day for him and for Evie.”

“Then they should come and help clean up,” she says and I hear the sounds of toys hitting the bottom of the toy chest.

“They didn’t make the mess,” my mother says and I hear her walking up the winding staircase. She walks past my room, going into Joshua’s and then I see her coming back and knocking on my door, even though it’s open and she sees me sitting on the bed. “I got your shirt,” she says, handing me the shirt she had made for this party. She hands me the orange shirt. I unfold it and see that she had them specially made. Of course, she did. I smile and shake my head when I read it.

10 years
Survivor
Cancer can kiss my …

I laugh. “Mom,” I tell her and she comes over to the side of my bed and sits down.

“I didn’t put any swear words on it, since your sister can read.” She looks down and then looks up again. She gets like this every year when I get my results back. She stays really, really close without being overbearing and she takes the extra hug, the extra handhold, or the extra I love you.

“Mom,” I say again and she just shakes her head, looking down, and I know that tears are filling her eyes.

I lean into her and hug her, this time she lets go of the sob in my next, “I love you.” It’s all she says; it’s all she needs to say.

“Dad!” I hear Elizabeth yell from outside my room. “Mom’s crying again.”

I laugh when my mother turns to look at her. “It’s his special day,” she says to her then turns and puts her hand on my cheek. “Get ready. Everyone is going to be here soon.”

I nod at her when she gets up and walks out, talking to Elizabeth. “You aren’t supposed to tell on me,” she says in a whisper.

I get up, going to the window in my room that faces out into the backyard. All I see is orange, orange balloons placed on the tables with orange clothes. Orange chairs. If she had her way, my mother would have changed the blue pool water to orange, but it took a lot of dye and my father said no. Then she came home with spray paint and wanted to spray the grass with it. He took the can from her, kissed her lips, and walked away.

I grab my shirt and change into it, grabbing the orange shorts my mother also bought; it’s easier to just go with it than to argue with her. I hear the doorbell ring, the door opening, and the sound of kids running in. “Where is my nephew?” I hear my Uncle Max yell. “Jack!” he yells up the stairs. I walk out of my room and go to the railing, looking over, and I open my mouth in shock. My big bad ass uncle is standing there in orange shorts, the same orange shirt as mine but it says my nephew kicked cancer’s a.., orange socks, even orange shoes but what gets me the most is that his hair is orange. I look over at my Aunt Allison and she is also decked out all in orange but she has an orange bandana. “What do you think?” he says with his hands out to his sides. “Not bad, right?”

I’m about to answer him when the doorbell rings again and then the door opens. “Oh my god.” I hear my Aunt Karrie say. “Well, at least now I don’t feel bad,” she says, coming in and kissing Aunt Allison on the cheek. “Your brother,” she says and then doesn’t say anything else because he comes in and he looks exactly like Uncle Max. The kids also come in, the boys with their hair sprayed orange and the girls with bandanas.

“You always try to one-up me,” Matthew says, “but I knew this was coming so…” He pulls up his shirt and his chest is painted orange.

“I really hope that washes off,” Allison says, walking to her brother and touching it. “Why does it feel like that?”

“Because it’s hair dye and he sprayed it on his chest,” Karrie says, laughing and the door to my parents’ room opens and they both walk out. My father looks almost like my uncles, except he is wearing an orange hat.

“Oh, good, you’re ready,” my mother says and then Joshua and Elizabeth come out of their rooms. “We need to take pictures,” my mother says, walking down the stairs, saying hello to everyone.

I walk downstairs and everyone gives me a hug; the guys tapping me on the shoulder after the hugs. I walk outside and take in the kids jumping on the trampoline, some on the big inflatables that arrived this morning. Slowly, the backyard becomes full, the entire New York Stingers players are here with their families, everyone wearing some kind of orange.

I’m standing by my dad when I spot her. Evie. Walking into the backyard with her parents, her brother, Brock, already here with his teammates. He now plays for the New York Stingers, trying to break all the records that my family has left behind.

Her long blond hair is blowing in the wind and her blue eyes are roaming around the room till she finds me and she smiles. I walk up to her and give her a hug. She may be a year older but I’m taller now and she reaches my neck. “You’ve grown so much.” I hear Janet say from beside Evie and I let her go to hug Janet and then Darryl. Brock makes his way over, giving everyone a hug.

The day goes on, kids running around, Evie and I sitting down together talking about school, and her talking about which college she wants to apply to. “Everyone, can I have your attention.” I hear my father say loudly and look over at him standing at the top of the patio, my mother next to him with her hand around his waist. Everyone stops what they are doing, even the kids and then look at him. “My wife and I,” he says, looking to her with all the love in the world, “want to thank you guys all for coming to celebrate this big milestone with us.” Everyone cheers. “Ten years cancer free; it’s a huge milestone, a milestone that I prayed for every single night.” He looks over at us. “Here’s to the next ten.” He holds up his drink and everyone else does also.

“Um.” I hear Janet say, walking to the patio. “If I can.” She walks up the steps, standing beside my father and Denise.

“Oh, god.” I hear Evie say from beside me and I look over at her.

“If I can just have a minute of your time,” she says, “I would also like to say thanks to someone.”

The room goes quiet and I look around. “It was ten years ago that this little boy came running into the room where my daughter was lying,” she starts and has to wipe her tears away already. “He was bouncing everywhere that the nurses named him.” And she doesn’t say the name because everyone in the crowd does.

“Jumping Jack!” they shout and now it’s my turn to groan while Evie pushes me with her shoulder.

“This little boy, he became our secret angel,” she says and I look at her confused. “Because with him came something even bigger.” She looks at my mother. “Denise would hold my hand and pray with me everyday. Dr. Steve would come in and try to make me believe it was going to be okay.” My mother wipes a tear from her face. “Then this man walks in, with the same look and disappear despair that I had, the fact that our children were dying, and we couldn’t do a damn thing,” she says and then looks down and then up again. “I said I wasn’t going to cry.” Everyone laughs. “Because of his generosity and the generosity of the Horton Foundation, my girl got a fighting chance.”

“What?” I whisper and look over at Evie. “I knew the foundation helped you, but...”

“Your father gave them the money for me,” she says, grabbing my hand and holding it. I look up at the patio where Janet is still talking, looking at my father who is standing there big, tall, and brave with an arm across my mother’s shoulders, holding onto her, and then to my mother, who holds onto my father, both of them holding each other.

“So, thank you,” Janet turns and looks at them, “for giving my daughter a fighting chance.”

“Here, here,” everyone says and then they walk down the steps into the party where people hug them.

“I’ll be back,” I say to her and walk inside quietly, going up to my room. Sitting on my bed, grabbing the picture that I have on my desk, the one of mom, dad, and me, the day they told me I was in remission.

“What are you doing up here?” I look over and see my mother at the door. I knew she would notice. My mother is my mother in every single sense of the word. She nurtured me, cared for me, scolded me, and most importantly, she loved me.

“Why didn’t you guys tell me?” I look at her and she comes over to me, sitting next to me on the side of the bed. “I had no idea.”

“It’s my fault.” I hear my father from the doorway and it’s again no surprise he knows we are up here. He never lets my mother out of his sight.

“You saved her,” I tell him with tears in my eyes.

“No.” My father shakes his head.

“I’m going to go and make sure everyone is okay downstairs.” My mother kisses me and then walks over to my father and kisses him. “I love you,” she says to him, walking away.

“What you did for Evie,” I start and my father comes to sit next to me.

“I didn’t do anything,” he says and I look at him.

“How can you say that?” I tell him. “You paid for her treatment.”

He shrugs. “It was nothing.”

“Dad, it was everything,” I tell him. “She probably wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for you.”

“I want to think that if the roles were reversed, that someone would have done it for me,” he says. “That someone would have come along and helped me in that way.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask him.

“Do you know that every single year the week leading up to and the three weeks after the date of your remission you grow quiet?” he asks me and I look at him. “That you don’t say two words more than you have to, that you come in here and just be by yourself.”

“I don’t do that,” I say and then I think back and he isn’t wrong.

“The first year we noticed it, your mom would come and sleep with you at night,” he tells me and I look at him.

“I thought she fell asleep in here,” I say.

“Then when you got older and took up more room on the bed, she would sleep on the floor next to your bed.”

“What?” I say, shocked.

“I would have to come in and carry her to bed, but she wouldn’t want to leave you. She would say, ‘He needs to know we’re here for him.’”

“I never,” I say, shaking my head. “I didn’t mean to.”

“We know,” he tells me, “but when you’re a parent, you want to take your child’s pain and carry it for them. When they are sick, you want to be sick for them. It’s just something we do. So, we were waiting for you to be in the right place.”

“I couldn’t ask for a better dad,” I tell him. “There are no words I can say that will justify it.”

“It’s easy when you have such amazing kids,” he says, grabbing the back of my neck, squeezing it and pulling me into him. “You’re the best kid a parent can ask for.”

“Thank you, dad,” I tell him, “for saving her.”

“All I did was give the foundation a donation. What they did after was what saved her.”

“Do you think Uncle Max will let me help at the foundation?” I ask him. “You know, after school or on the weekends.”

“I don’t see why not,” he tells me. “How about we go ask him?”

I nod and get up with him. I turn and hug him. “I can never be you, but I’m going to make sure that I make you proud.”

“You make me proud every single day you live,” he says and we walk back outside to the party, to my family, and to the woman that one day I’m going to make my wife. She just doesn’t know it yet.

Something So Unscripted was a 5 star read for me and will be on Top Pick of 2018 list!

We are so grateful that in honor of Father’s Day Natasha Madison took the time to write this Exclusive Visit with the Cast!!!

After I devoured Something So Unscripted this was scene that I always wondered how it played out…… so a huge THANK YOU to Natasha Madison for writing it for us!

We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did ❤️

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Please note this scene was provided by the author to Shh Mom’s Reading® the text should not be copied or reproduced without permission.