by Nella Tyler
“Dad, are you mad at Mack for something?”
I finished fastening Landon’s seatbelt and gave it a tug to make sure it would stay where it was. “No, bud. Why do you think that?”
“Well, before you were always going into the sessions with me,” Landon said, frowning. “You never had to do work in your car before.”
“Things are busier than usual this close to Christmas,” I told my son, starting the car and taking the gearshift out of park. “We’re going to have a lot of days off together, and I want to make sure that I don’t leave anything hanging before I get my vacation.”
“Oh!” Landon considered that. A little flash of doubt—and concern—flickered through my brain.
“Did Mack ask about it?” I pulled out of the parking spot and turned around, wanting to get away from the clinic as quickly as possible without looking like I was running away.
“No,” Landon said simply. “I just wanted to know.” As I drove away from the clinic, I found myself thinking once more about Mack. I had felt so good with her—so at ease, so comfortable. It had been totally unlike the random set-up dates that I’d had with women in the early years of Landon’s life after Joanne passed away. I had had hopes that I could bring Mack into my life with Landon in a way that I hadn’t thought possible with any other woman that I’d met. I smiled to myself, thinking that even Joanne would have liked Mack.
It had been a different time in my life when I’d met Landon’s mother; I’d been younger, more willing to give into the hope and the optimism. I hadn’t even really thought about getting married, one way or the other. Things had just seemed to fall into place with Joanne at first. Everything was smooth sailing, and everything happened naturally. We dated for a couple of years, and then eventually we ended up living together almost on accident—we figured out that we had an equal amount of our things at each other’s places and decided that it just made sense to have them all in one place. When I’d proposed to her, I had done it because it seemed like the right thing to do, because I was convinced that we would spend the rest of our lives together. And for Joanne it was true; she had spent the rest of her life with me.
With Mack I wasn’t nearly as certain of myself. Landon had told me, a few days before—just in passing, out of the blue—that he wished he had a younger brother or sister. It was the day before school let out for the winter break, and he’d seen his friends’ siblings in the classroom, seen their presentations about what gifts they were giving their family members. I’d told Landon that I’d have to find him a new mom before I could make any kind of guarantees about siblings, and Mack’s words about not being sure that she was marriage material, about not being sure if she would ever be in a position to have kids, had floated up in my brain.
As I made my way to the house, I thought about the wager that Landon had made with me, and the Christmas shopping I had already done. It seemed to me that with the way things stood, I was probably going to have to set aside a good bit of money after the beginning of the year to buy my son a second Christmas. I wasn’t sure which aspect of it bothered me more: the fact that I’d been dumb enough to wager almost a week’s pay on being able to find Landon a new mom, the fact that I was almost certainly going to have to play with the budget more than usual in the first month of the year, or the fact that my first real try at finding a woman to bring into my life with my son was failing so miserably. Let’s go with all three, I thought sourly. I pushed the thought aside as Landon asked whether or not we would be able to go sledding that weekend, telling myself that there were more important things in the world to worry about—including the basic needs my son had. I should be grateful that the accident that had caused his injury hadn’t been worse, and I should be grateful that he’d given me the kick in the ass to put myself out there once more. Anything more than that was just gravy. If I couldn’t be happy with Mackenzie, then I would find another woman who was a better fit, and I could pay up to my son—and give him more toys than any kid could possibly play with—with good grace.
Chapter Three
Mackenzie
As I watched Landon hurry out through the waiting room, darting as fast as his injured leg would allow into the cold winter air on his way to Patrick’s car, I sat down at my desk and frowned. I couldn’t quite shake the voice in the back of my mind that insisted that Patrick was going out of his way to avoid me; I could understand being busy heading into the week or so of the holidays—I was doing everything I could to make sure all of my patients were caught up, their files updated and everything the way that it should be—but it seemed more than a little strange that he would stay out in his car, taking calls and doing work, for three sessions straight. It seemed even stranger to not get any real response to the text messages I sent to him. All I got from him was that he missed me—or that something I’d said was funny. I had people in my life who I barely considered friends who had given me warmer responses to messages.
I racked my brain, trying to figure out what I could have said—what I could have done—to drive him away. Had I been too demanding? Had I said something bad about Landon? No matter how I tried to figure it out on my own, I couldn’t come up with anything. I couldn’t ask anyone else either; I didn’t quite trust Amie—in spite of the fact that she was my best friend in the office. I couldn’t talk to anyone else in the office, either. And I certainly couldn’t talk to my family about Patrick. As Amie had pointed out, they would take the situation way more seriously even than I was taking it.
I couldn’t think of anything that I might have done to make Patrick mad; thinking about our dates together I couldn’t even remember a time that he’d looked upset. We’d had sex together a few times, and every time it had been amazing. We’d gone on fancier dates and more casual ones, and every date had seemed to be going even better than the last…right up until they’d stopped. I didn’t know whether I should be taking Patrick’s ghostlike behavior as a sign that I should just drop it, or if he was testing me to see if I was really interested in him—interested enough to make a move, to be proactive about seeing him.
As I wrapped up for the day, I thought about the problem in front of me. I couldn’t talk to anyone else about it; and I had exhausted all of my own ability to figure out what could have gone wrong between Patrick and me. The only thing left for me to do was to try and talk to Patrick directly.
I waited until I was out of the building, heading to my car, and I took my phone out. What if he doesn’t answer your call? What if he just keeps avoiding you? I sighed and pulled up Patrick’s number anyway. If he kept avoiding me—avoiding my calls, and even the text messages I sent—then I would know that he had lost interest. I would just give up on him, and move on with my life. There was way too much good going on in my life for me to beat myself up over losing a guy.
I unlocked my car and climbed in, but instead of starting up the car, I took a deep breath and tapped the call icon. I held the phone to my ear, shivering a bit in the cold, stale air, and listened to it ring: once, twice, three times. It’s going to roll over to voicemail, I thought with a sigh. At least he didn’t decline the call outright.
But instead of the voicemail prompt, I heard Patrick’s voice.
“Hey, Mack.”
My heart beat faster in my chest and for just a second I wasn’t sure I would be able to say anything at all—my brain froze. “Hi, Patrick,” I said finally, taking a quick breath and swallowing against the dry feeling in my throat. “I’ve been—I started to worry about you, since I haven’t been seeing you come in with Landon.” Great job, Mack. You’re really coming down on him hard. “Is—is everything okay?”
“Oh—yeah,” Patrick said, his voice hesitant. “Yeah, everything’s okay, I’ve just been really busy. Busier than usual. Lots of work to do before I go on vacation for the last week of the year.”
“I figured as much,” I said, smiling nervously even though Patrick wasn’t even there, and wouldn’t see me. “I just was starting to kind of…wonder
if things were…you know, okay with us. Because we were supposed to have a date…” I trailed off.
“Yeah,” Patrick said. “I’m sorry about that. I’ve totally dropped the ball—I meant to reschedule with you and then everything sort of…piled up.” I pressed my lips together; I wasn’t sure if even Patrick believed his story. “I’m really sorry I’ve let so many days pass without getting in touch.”
“I understand,” I said, my smile frozen on my face. “I guess—I mean—if you’re too busy to see me…”
“I think I can make some time for you,” Patrick said. “Are you doing anything tonight?” I scrubbed at my face.
“I was just going to get some last-minute shopping done,” I said with a shrug. “Nothing special.”
“I’d love to keep you company,” Patrick told me. “If you’d have me?”
“Sure,” I said. Don’t sound so eager, I added in my mind. “Give me like twenty minutes or so to get home and change out of my scrubs, and let’s meet somewhere.”
“How about 900 North Michigan? That way we can find something to eat too,” Patrick suggested. I thought about it for a moment.
“That sounds good,” I said. “I’ll see you there in maybe like—thirty minutes?”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Patrick said, and in spite of how skeptical I felt I had to admit he sounded like he at least was being honest about that. I finished the call and hurried home, weaving around the rush hour traffic and trying to decide what I could wear for a date like this. I didn’t want to dress up the way I would for dinner or a movie or going to a play; but I didn’t want to look like a slob either. I also wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t freeze my ass off getting to the mall, while not sweating like a pig once I was inside.
I hurried up to my apartment as soon as I parked, wondering what was going on with Patrick and whether it even made sense to go on this date with him. I made a mess of my room going through my clothes as quickly as possible and finally settled on a pair of jeans, a fitted sweater with a camisole underneath it, one of the nicer scarves I owned, and a pair of ankle boots with thick socks underneath to keep my feet warm. I brushed my hair and tucked it into a cute wool cap that covered the tops of my ears, and put on just a little bit of makeup; enough to make me look clean and natural and polished.
I hurried back down to my car and made my way into downtown, jittery and nervous at the idea that I might be late to meet with Patrick at the entrance of the mall. Why am I sweating this so much? It’s not like we’ve been dating for months. We barely know each other. But I didn’t want to let things go without giving it at least one last, final chance. I kept glancing at my face in the mirror, wondering if I’d gone too casual, if I looked too fresh-from-work. I told myself that Patrick knew that I was going to be meeting him almost immediately from work, that he couldn’t rightly expect me to show up looking as though I’d spent an hour on my outfit, hair, and makeup, but I was nervous anyway.
I had to wonder just how much sense it made for me to be this attached to Patrick this soon. We’d gone on maybe five dates over the course of less than three full weeks. That was unusual—before Patrick the most I had seen someone was twice in one week—and it made the way that he was avoiding me even more frustrating. If he’d lost interest, wouldn’t it just be easier for him to let the conversation happen, or tell me that he was too busy to see anyone, or something like that? Or if he wasn’t brave enough to actually end things, at least he could have let it fall by the wayside completely. I replayed the phone conversation in my head so many times I thought I’d never be able to forget it.
I told myself as I finally got close to the mall that I wasn’t going to go into the situation with any expectations at all. If he’s not interested in me anymore, that’s going to be obvious from the beginning. If he is still interested in me, then that will be obvious too. I wasn’t about to sit there and pine for someone who’d already moved on; I’d spent too long being single—and mostly happy—to get all wrapped up in a guy who would rather drop off the face of the planet than tell me he wasn’t interested.
I circled around, looking for parking, watching the time tick down to when I’d agreed to meet Patrick at the entrance to Bloomingdale’s. “If you’re late it’s not like you set a definite time,” I told myself, waiting for the slowpoke in front of me to move their ass. “Besides, he showed up late to the first physical therapy session you had with Landon.” The fact that he’d been on time to every other session—and to all of our dates together—was a separate issue. I took a deep breath and considered texting Patrick to let him know that I had arrived, but was looking for somewhere to park. If he was looking too, then it wouldn’t matter; but if he was waiting for me outside of Bloomingdales, I’d feel bad for the fact that he was standing in the cold while some woman or man waited for someone else to pull out of a parking spot rather than moving on and accepting that they were going to have to walk a little bit.
I finally managed to find a spot and pulled in, throwing my car into park and taking a moment to check myself over. I had forgotten almost completely what it was I even needed to buy; I shook my head at how much stress I was putting myself through for what should have been a very casual, very basic date. I went over the list of friends and family that I had to buy for in my head and tried to remember if I’d already bought for each person and if so, what it had been that I’d gotten. Once more I argued with myself over whether it would make any sense to get anything for Patrick; especially now that I wasn’t sure if he even wanted to see me anymore, it seemed silly to worry about it. “Quit stalling,” I told my reflection. “It’s not going to get any better worrying about it.” I checked my purse to make sure I had my phone, my wallet, and my keys, and I got out of my car.
Chapter Four
Patrick
I spotted Mack as she came to the ground floor entrance of Bloomingdales. I stepped forward, taking in the sight of her: her hair bundled up in a gray knit cap, her curves wrapped up in jeans and a sweater. She looked as adorable as ever, and for a moment all I could think of was how much I wished it could work out between us. Talk to her. Ask her how she feels. She gave you another chance to make it right; don’t waste it. “Mack! Hey,” I smiled, and she saw me finally.
Mackenzie hurried closer to me, her cheeks flushed in the cold, and I thought that I had never in my life seen anyone as simply beautiful as her. Don’t get ahead of yourself. You don’t know where her head is at. You have to find out. I hugged her quickly and gave her a kiss on the lips as soon as she was within reach, and for just a moment, everything was right. Everything felt the way it should. I took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of her hair, her soap.
“Did you have any shopping you needed to do?” Mack pulled back and looked up at me. I shrugged.
“I could get a couple of odds and ends while we’re here,” I said. “Stocking stuffers, little things for some of the kids in the family.” Mackenzie smiled.
“Should we start here then?” She looked around, and I realized that we were obstructing the flow of foot traffic.
“Yeah—before someone yells at us for getting in the way,” I agreed. I took her hand and we walked into Bloomingdales together. “Who do you need to shop for?” Mackenzie looked around as we moved forward from the entrance.
“Mostly my siblings,” Mack answered. “I wanted to get one or two other things for my mom, too.” I nodded, thinking of the things I needed to get a few members of my own family.
We wandered around Bloomingdales, taking in all the holiday frenzy, and making small talk. “Do you have any special family traditions?” Mackenzie looked up from a display of tree ornaments and shrugged.
“Mom makes her special eggnog, Dad roasts some chestnuts. We decorate the tree together—what do you think of this one?” She held up a silvery star ornament, studded with green and red crystals.
“I like it,” I said. “Landon made one kind of like that last year in preschool. Not as nice, obviously.” I sm
iled to myself, remembering the ornament; Landon had taken pieces of Popsicle sticks and covered them in green and red glitter, until there was no wood to be seen anymore.
“If he’d made something out of metal like this, I’d be really shocked,” Mack told me, grinning. “It’s five dollars. Worth it?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Totally,” I said. I watched Mackenzie pick out a few more ornaments, getting my approval for each one, and tried to think about how to come around to the subject on my mind.
We wandered through the store, picking up a few more items each, and then left Bloomingdales to go through the rest of the mall, browsing and taking in the decorations, the other shoppers. “No matter how soon after Thanksgiving I start, I always seem to end up doing my last shopping on Christmas Eve, and wrapping presents at midnight,” I told Mackenzie as we passed a giftwrapping station.
“Me too,” Mack said. “Of course, I’m not alone—my parents always have last-minute things to wrap for their grandkids.”
“So a big late-night wrapping party?” I tried to picture Mackenzie in her pajamas, wrapping presents, maybe drinking some mulled cider or some wine. She could be doing that with you. It was too easy to imagine her with me at my parents’ house, sitting in the living room, drinking wine while we worked on Landon’s presents or some of the others. I’d give her a smaller present—nothing big, just a little something—right at midnight, and then we’d finish up the wrapping and go to bed together.