Free to Love

Chapter 14

Shawn

Over Christmas, I played most of my new songs for my parents, Aaliyah, and the Everetts. What made this album stand apart from my others was that it wasn't as collaborative; I wrote most of the songs myself and would be doing almost all of the production work. I was taking two trips in January and February to record. I'd be going to the cabin in Upstate New York I'd used for Illuminate, plus The Woodshed in Malibu. Mal and the kids would be joining me for both trips.

The response from my loved ones (and Parker) as they listened to the demos was overwhelmingly positive. It made me feel better about the future of this album. In general, I was feeling so much more excited than I had about the last one. That album had turned out fine, but my focus had not been there. Even though my life was theoretically crazier now, I was in such a happy place that the hustle and bustle of family life wasn't a distraction.

We had a great Christmas. This year, my parents hosted Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, my family came to our condo early in the morning and stayed all day. Between us, them, and the Everetts, it was a full house. I'd been talking up buying a piece of property in the country and building our dream house to Mallory. I think that after Christmas Day she better understood how great it would be to have lots of space.

I wanted some land. I loved the city, and would definitely keep a condo in Toronto, but I liked the thought of sitting on my back porch with the love of my life by my side, watching the sunset after a day of working in the yard. I could picture our kids playing on one of those big wooden play sets, their laughter filling our ears.

Mallory and I exchanged handmade gifts for Christmas. I'd gone to my parents' house four weekends in a row to work in my dad's workshop on an inlaid wood memory box for Mallory. It had been really tricky to get the hinges just right, but I'd done it. She'd bought an old guitar at a thrift shop and had used decoupage to cover it in ticket stubs from my concerts that she'd bought online, and concert photos taken by fans that she'd printed off Instagram and Twitter. It was spectacular. I insisted that we hang it in the foyer so that everyone would see it as they entered our home.

                              ~~~~~~

Mal and I sat on comfortable wooden chairs on the ridge outside the recording studio in Malibu. The sun had gone down but there was still enough light to turn the sky pink. The kids were inside asleep with Andrew keeping an ear out for them. Mallory, of course, also had the baby monitor by her side.

"I can't believe you're done recording," she said as she poured us each some more champagne. She'd pumped so that we could celebrate tonight.

"It's crazy, eh? The whole process went really smoothly," I said as I took a swig of the effervescent drink.

"I'm glad you'll get a little downtime before everything goes nuts prior to the release date."

"I was hoping we could use that time to start looking at land outside of Toronto and maybe come up with a rough idea for the new house."

Mal laughed. "Oh babe, I already have some very definite ideas."

"Hit me."

"I want the guest rooms on the other side of the house from our room. I want the kids to have their own bathrooms so that they can each have privacy as teenagers. I want our room to be soundproofed because of obvious reasons."

I chuckled. "The first and last things you mentioned wouldn't be necessary if you weren't so noisy."

"Well I wouldn't be so noisy if you weren't so good," she retorted.

"You want me to be less good?" I asked.

"No. But I think you could learn to hold back a little when my parents are next door. Or Andrew. Poor guy is probably scarred after spending three days in the room next to ours."