I left teaching. I couldn’t handle the thought of nosy parents and bragging students and teachers lounge gossip. Besides, it wasn’t as though we needed the money. But I got bored when Jack went back to work, and for the three months he was working, I languished at home, missing my job and my friends and my church. It was like moving to California all over again: all alone in a new place.

Jack was to start a second project after finishing the one he’d begun after our honeymoon, but when he saw what a mess I was, he pulled out and stayed home. For the first few weeks it was wonderful. No responsibilities, no stress, just me and my guy getting used to married life. Then we started getting on each other’s nerves. He was messy. I was nitpicky. He was moody. I was clingy. We exasperated each other, and I began to wonder if we’d made a big mistake. The fears that had almost led me to leave him completely—the fear he’d leave me, he’d find someone better—resurfaced and wreaked havoc for a week or so, and it was then that we decided we needed to find a compromise. Obviously having all the time in the world to spend together wasn’t necessarily the best thing for us.

So Jack started on another film that was scheduled to finish just before our first anniversary. The first part of the process wasn’t nearly as time intensive as the actual shooting, so we still had our evenings and weekends together. I started volunteering at HAP to keep myself busy, and it allowed me to work with Jack on something as well. But once the project began to prepare for shooting, I tagged along to watch.

“It’s ‘Bring Your Wife to Work Month’!” he announced when we arrived at the first blocking session. The crew got a kick out of it, and I tried to make myself as useful as I could, despite the fact that the work going on around me was as foreign as space shuttle construction. But even as I helped out at the catering station, or gave the wrangler a hand, I couldn’t help but feel there was something else I could be doing here. I just didn’t know what it was.

About two weeks into the process I began to see what purpose God might have for me here. One morning as the crew prepared the sound stage, I noticed a young woman with severe, black-from-a-bottle hair hovering near one of the directors, a reporter’s notebook in her pale, ring-bedecked hand. I watched her as she took furious notes, shadowing the director and occasionally dashing away only to return a few minutes later to confer with him or hand something over. It was hot on the sound stage, and I could tell she was uncomfortable in her black turtleneck.