by Marie Landry
My anxiety returns as we fall back into silence. I park in the driveway behind Mom’s compact SUV, taking a brief moment to admire Emilio’s car. I don’t know much about cars, but the sleek and shiny vehicle is fancier than a lot of the cars around town, and likely pricier too.
As we approach the house, Jasper makes a disgruntled sound. “I should have thought to have you stop somewhere on the way so we could pick something up for your mother,” he says. “It’s rude to arrive empty handed.”
There’s the Jasper I know how to handle. I’m humbled and honestly kind of mind-blown that he’s opened up so much to me in the short time we’ve known each other, but for some reason I feel better equipped to handle stiff Jasper versus somber Jasper. “She won’t mind, I promise. It was a last-minute invitation, and I guarantee you she won’t expect anything or think you’re rude.”
The concerned furrow remains in place between his brows, making it impossible for me to hold back a smile. As I knock on Mom’s door, I wonder if I should have warned her about Jasper. That may sound unkind, but Mom is used to me having a certain type of friend—outgoing, confident, chatty. She’s probably expecting an older version of Evan, who’s warm, open, and funny. I’m not sure what she’ll make of Jasper and his formalities. Am I being ridiculous? Usually when I have to ask myself that, the answer is yes.
I don’t have time to dwell on it before the door flies open. Mom greets us with a wide smile, ushering us inside. All my worries dissolve as I’m enveloped in the familiar glow of the front hall and the smell of Mom’s cooking, soon paired with the scent of her perfume as she wraps me in a hug.
“I’m so glad you could come over,” she says, giving me a squeeze before kissing my cheek and releasing me. Her face is flushed with pleasure—and probably a few glasses of wine. I sweep my gaze over her, taking in her beautiful form-fitting emerald dress, bare feet, and gold-painted toenails. When my gaze returns to her face, her bright, curious eyes are taking in Jasper.
“Mom, this is Jasper Perry. Jasper, this is my Mom, Lydia.”
“Jasper.” Before I can stop her, Mom steps forward with her arms outstretched. Jasper’s wide eyes meet mine over her shoulder as she wraps her arms around him. “I’m so glad to finally meet you. We’ve known Gwen forever, and Evan has become like a part of the family since last year.”
Much to my surprise, Jasper puts his arms around my mom. Is it weird that I’m jealous? Even weirder that I want to step in as they release each other and get in on the Jasper hugging action?
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Stewart.” Jasper smiles warmly at my mom. Smiles. Warmly. My brain malfunctions at the sight.
“Oh, please, call me Lydia.” She loops her arm through his and guides him further into the house. I stay rooted to the spot until Mom glances over her shoulder and calls, “Coming, sweetheart?”
I traipse along behind them, a reel of Jasper’s smile playing in a loop behind my eyes. I’ve barely seen him smile in the time I’ve known him, and he’s certainly never smiled like that in front of me. Mom introduces Jasper to Emilio, who greets him with a hearty handshake before stepping around him to grip my shoulders and kiss both my cheeks.
“I’m so glad we’re finally able to spend some time together,” he says, his light Spanish accent making the words sound lyrical. “Your mother is very important to me and I would like for the three of us to have a good relationship. Four of us,” he amends, tilting his head in Jasper’s direction.
“Oh, Jasper and I are just friends,” I say quickly. “But thank you, I appreciate that. I’m looking forward to getting to know you better.”
Mom pops up beside Emilio, her hand resting in the center of his back. “Why don’t you kids have a seat and we’ll go get the dessert and wine?”
As Mom and Emilio disappear into the kitchen, Jasper says quietly, “Can’t remember the last time someone referred to me as a kid.”
“The really funny part is she’s only, like, fifteen years older than you,” I tell him as he sits in my favorite armchair while I take the couch seat closest to his chair.
His eyebrows inch up. “I assumed she was young, but not quite that young.”
“You know how people—often flirty older men—will say ‘I bet you get mistaken for sisters all the time’, which is usually a compliment to the mother but leaves the daughter rolling her eyes? Well, we get that a lot, and I take it as a compliment. My mom is gorgeous and looks at least a decade younger than she is. I just have to hope I’ve inherited her genes.”
I glance over my shoulder toward the kitchen when I hear the low rumble of Emilio’s voice followed by a girlish giggle from my mom. The sound makes me smile. When I turn back, I catch Jasper watching me, his lips curved slightly.
“I don’t think you have to worry about that.” Before I can process his meaning, Mom bustles into the room carrying a tray with four bowls. Emilio enters a moment later with another tray, his holding four small glasses and a crystal decanter of amber liquid.
Mom hands out dessert, explaining it’s homemade vanilla ice cream that she made in the new ice cream maker Emilio surprised her with, topped with dulce de leche courtesy of Emilio. After the wine has been poured and passed, Mom sits beside me on the couch and Emilio takes the armchair on the other end of the coffee table.
I’m pleased—and relieved—when conversation starts flowing naturally. Emilio surprises me by asking both Jasper and me insightful questions about our lives and jobs. I let Jasper do most of the talking since I’m sure Emilio already knows all about me from Mom, plus I’m always curious to learn more about Jasper. I’m also quite content to sit back and enjoy my sinfully delicious dessert while listening to the easy conversation around me.
The conversation isn’t the only ‘easy’ thing, either. The level of familiarity and comfort between Mom and Emilio gives me a strangely bittersweet feeling. I’m genuinely happy for her; she deserves to have love and romance in her life, someone who adores her and will take care of her the way Emilio obviously does. But that ‘end of an era’ feeling keeps niggling away at the back of my brain. I’m nearly thirty-five and Mom is in her mid-fifties, yet I can’t deny the part of me that’s sad at the idea of having to share her after all these years.
“Your mom and I were talking about the possibility of you joining us for Thanksgiving,” Emilio says after the third time he’s topped up my wine glass. Jasper stopped after one glass and offered to drive since he has to get his car from my apartment anyway.
From the corner of my eye, I see Jasper sit up straighter. Shit. I hadn’t told anyone about Mom going away with Emilio for Thanksgiving. “While I appreciate the offer, the two of you should go ahead as planned. I’m sure you had a romantic getaway in mind, and I don’t want to be a third wheel.”
“We can do a romantic getaway anytime,” Emilio says. He glances at Mom with so much affection, it makes my breath catch. “It would be a good chance for us to spend time together.”
“You’re so sweet to want to include me, but I actually made my own plans for that weekend when Mom told me you asked her to go away.” Blame the wine for lubricating the lie and making it an easy one to tell. After seeing how in love these two are, how they can barely keep their eyes—or their hands—off each other, there’s no way I’m going to put a damper on their first weekend away as a couple, even if that weekend is a national holiday. “We’ll find other things to do as a trio after Thanksgiving. I want the two of you to go and enjoy your time together, guilt free.”
The way Mom smiles at me with love and pride shining in her eyes, tells me I did the right thing.
When we leave an hour later, Mom wraps me in a tight hug while Jasper and Emilio talk about a small town in Northern Ontario they both love. “I really like Jasper,” Mom whispers. I must tense in her arms because she adds, “I know you’re just friends, but don’t you think there’s potential for something more? I think you’d be good for each other.”
I don’t have a chance to
respond before she releases me and turns to hug Jasper. I vaguely hear her making him promise to come back again as Emilio embraces me. “It was so nice to spend time with you tonight,” he says, placing a kiss on each of my cheeks. “I’ll look forward to doing this again.”
We linger for another couple of minutes over goodbyes, with Mom giving me another hug while Emilio claps Jasper on the shoulder. When we step outside, the air has cooled considerably. This is the first time it’s really felt like autumn. I pause and take a deep breath, inhaling the damp, earthy scent that’s part of what I love about this season.
Since I only thought to grab a cardigan before leaving my apartment, the chilly air makes a full-body shiver roll through me. The force of it—likely paired with the four glasses of wine I just drank, plus the two I had earlier with my pizza—makes me tip to the side. Jasper steps in to steady me. Without thinking, I loop my arm through his as we walk to my car.
He guides me around to the passenger side, where he frees his arm from mine and holds out his hand. I place my hand in his, noticing how long and thin his fingers are. My mind conjures up images of Jasper’s hands on my body, but those lovely fantasies are dashed when his fingers close around mine and squeeze. “I need your keys,” he says quietly.
“Oh. Oh! Right.” I laugh and start digging around in my purse, glad I have an excuse to duck my head and hide my embarrassment. “Thanks for offering to drive. I’m not usually a big drinker, but it was nice to indulge a bit. Or I guess a lot would be more accurate.”
Jasper smiles slightly as he takes the keys from me. Something about Mom and Emilio must have put him at ease because his smiles seemed to come with less effort tonight. I might have to figure out ways for us to hang out with my mom and her boyfriend more often.
He opens the passenger door and waits for me to get in before closing it and striding around to the driver’s side. With the key in the ignition and the car still off, he meticulously adjusts the seat, steering wheel, and mirrors. Despite knowing it’s necessary, seeing as he’s taller than I am, it makes me cringe; I’m very particular about these things and I’ll likely spend way longer than required adjusting them back the next time I drive.
When we finally set off, I’m not surprised Jasper goes the long way so we pass his childhood home once more. For a long time after Mom and I moved to Cambridge Street, I’d ask her to drive past our old house whenever we were close by. To my tween self, that house represented the last place we were a family of three. It wasn’t until a year or so after we moved and my dad had less and less to do with me that I realized how painful the reminders were to Mom. I had romanticized my memories and thought of us as a happy family when that wasn’t actually the case. At least not in the years leading up to their divorce. I stopped asking her to drive by the old house after that.
Jasper has legitimate happy memories of his childhood home, though. While I thought of my family as a unit, it was often Mom and me alone at home while Dad worked late and eventually started having an affair that led to him leaving. From everything I’ve heard about the Perrys from Jasper and Evan, it sounds like they truly were a family unit. Solid. Endless, unconditional love.
“How do you feel about how tonight went?” Jasper asks.
I blink away the picture of my childhood home and the melancholy that tries to creep in. Mom and I were happy. Are happy. We’ve had a great life together, and the fact she’s in a relationship now doesn’t change that. “Good. I’d only seen the two of them together briefly before. Even though it was obvious Emilio really liked my mom, tonight made the depths of his feelings clear. It was almost surreal seeing her happy and in love. But good surreal, you know? She deserves it.”
Jasper nods, keeping his eyes on the road. “They make a lovely couple. They seem to…fit.”
“They do. I’ve thought that about Gwen and Evan too. I know people don’t need someone else to complete them because we’re all whole people on our own, but they do seem to complete each other.”
“I agree. I always thought the concept of someone completing another person was strange, but I’ve come to see the description fits some people. They belong together. Which is another strange concept.”
“What, belonging?”
“Yes. Such a simple word for a complex thing with different meanings. I’ve never quite felt like I belonged. I’m slowly developing a sense of belonging with my siblings, but I’m not quite there yet, and I know that’s largely on me.” He sighs, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel and shifting in his seat. A quick glance at the speedometer shows him going the exact speed limit because of course he is, it’s Jasper. I smile to myself.
Another sigh and then, “I’ve certainly never felt like I’ve belonged to anyone. I know some people see that as archaic, much the same as the idea of someone else completing you. But I don’t think I’d mind belonging to the right person. Lately I’ve been surrounded by people who seem to fit together. Malcolm and Sherée, Evan and Gwen, Hugh and Ivy. Even your mother and her beau. Lina and Hadley are single, but they know who they are, they have things they’re passionate about.”
I open my mouth to tell him I understand. Even though I’m lucky to have something I’m passionate about and good at, I still feel like there’s something missing. Lately, I’ve been thinking that something is love. The words stick in my throat, though. For whatever reason, Jasper has found a safe space in me and seems to find it easy to open up. I want to do the same with him, but the more time I spend with him, the more I like him and not just in a friendly way.
I’ve been determined to keep my heart safe, especially after what happened with TJ, but I can’t help wondering what it would be like to belong to Jasper and have him belong to me. To have nights like this become the norm—pizza and wine, time spent with family or friends, deep conversations mixed with companionable silence. We already have mutual friends and, after seeing him with my mom and Emilio tonight, it’s not a stretch to imagine we could belong together.
There’s just one small problem: I don’t think Jasper sees me as anything more than a friend. The question is: could he? He said himself he doesn’t date, and it’s hard to picture him flirting. Maybe he’s simply oblivious and needs a push. Or…maybe I should set my sights on someone else. Someone with fewer entanglements to make things less awkward if we didn’t work out.
Jasper glances over at me, making me realize I haven’t responded yet. He’s going to regret pouring his heart out to me if I keep spacing out like this. “It’s not too late to find something you’re passionate about,” I say. “And I get what you mean about belonging. I have that with my friends and family, but haven’t felt it with a man.”
“And you want to?” he asks.
“Yes.” So much.
We lapse into silence again. My brain is buzzing with thoughts I can’t quell. When we turn onto my street, Jasper says, “Your mother and Emilio are going away for Thanksgiving?”
“Yep.” I aim for a bright, easy tone, hoping this doesn’t become a thing. “Thanksgiving has never been a big deal for Mom and me, so it’s fine. The Village is closed that weekend, which means Cravings has to be closed, so I’m looking forward to some time off.”
Jasper pulls into my building’s parking lot and parks in my designated spot. “You told your mother you have plans for the holiday weekend?”
The question has the casual curiosity I’ve come to expect from Jasper. If it were anyone else, I’d think he had caught my lie to Mom and Emilio and was passing judgment. “Technically yes. My plans are to stay in my pajamas and do as little as possible. I told them I made real plans so they wouldn’t feel bad and change their plans for me.”
He nods in a slow, thoughtful manner as he turns off the car and hands me the keys. He climbs out and is already around to my side by the time my brain catches up and I scramble out of my seat.
“It’s not a big deal,” I tell him, shivering once again as I’m hit with the damp night air.
Jasper ge
ntly adjusts my cardigan so it’s wrapped tighter around me, the material covering more of my bare neck. “I didn’t say it was. You, however, sound like you’re trying very hard to convince me—or perhaps yourself—that it’s ‘no big deal’, as you say.”
I let out a little huff at his words. “Okay, fine, maybe you’re right. I’m honestly not upset, but I’m afraid if anyone else knew—especially Gwen—they’d feel sorry for me, and I don’t want anyone’s pity. With that being said, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell Gwen and Evan about Thanksgiving, and let me tell them when I’m ready.” Which might be never, although he doesn’t need to know that.
Jasper seems to realize he’s still lightly gripping my cardigan, and he yanks his hands away as if he’s been burned. “Okay. I’ll keep this tidbit of information to myself.” He takes a step back, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his lightweight jacket. It’s probably wishful thinking, but maybe I’m not the only one who’s affected by our proximity.
“Thanks for hanging out with me tonight,” I say, quickly changing the subject before he tries to convince me I should tell my friends about Thanksgiving.
“I should be thanking you,” he says. “I keep intruding on people’s lives—first Malcolm and Sherée, now Evan and Gwen. Gwen is far too kind to say anything, but it occurs to me I’ve made a blunder in coming to Bellevue when I should have stayed in Toronto and learned to grow accustomed to my own company.”
There he goes, tugging on my heartstrings again. Despite knowing he’s not trying to gain my sympathy and he’d hate evoking pity in anyone, I do feel for him. He’s got this child-like innocence I find incredibly endearing and refreshing. I may enjoy my own company and be able to find plenty of things to fill my time, but I know what it’s like to be lonely.
“Not a blunder,” I say, my lips twitching around the words. “Gwen and Evan enjoy having you around. And so do I.”