by Nella Tyler
Mom slipped into the kitchen unannounced to start working on Christmas breakfast, and I chatted with my siblings and in-laws, telling them about some of the funnier moments, and talking about the holiday party at the clinic, where Amie had—in spite of her injuries—managed to get just drunk enough to kiss every member of the staff under the mistletoe and photocopy her bare ass five times.
The conversation turned back onto Patrick, but I managed to bear up and keep a straight face. I didn’t want to tell anyone that I was pretty sure things wouldn’t work out between us because they were already starting to become a little strained; I didn’t want to have to deal with their commiseration or their questions about what I’d done to “drive another man away.”
I told them about the first date, and about going ice-skating, and how Landon was one of the most cheerful, upbeat kids I worked with. I told them about the mental struggle of deciding whether or not I should even get Patrick a present, and my sisters nodded at the wisdom of me buying a present for Landon and Patrick to essentially share. “Are you sure you want to get involved with a guy who already has a kid? That seems like a lot of baggage,” Evie pointed out as everyone started to wander into the kitchen to start filling their plates with breakfast.
“Well, he’s not divorced; his wife passed away shortly after Landon’s birth.”
“Still, though,” Evie leaned in a little closer. “That can almost be worse; what if he’s comparing you to her?”
“I don’t think he is,” I said quickly. “I mean, it’s been years since she passed away, and after all…she barely had an opportunity to be Landon’s mom.” But Evie had hit on a question that had been running around in the back of my mind for days: what if the reason that Patrick was starting to cool off was because he didn’t think I’d be a good co-parent to Landon?
I could understand why that would be a worry for him; after all, if he got serious about someone he was dating, he would have to make sure that whoever it was would be a good influence on his son. But he’d pointed out so many times that I was good with the kids I worked with, so I couldn’t think of a way that he might think that I would be bad for Landon. I went into breakfast with my family and tried to push aside any thought of Patrick at all; I could only hope that with their curiosity mostly satisfied, my parents and siblings would leave me alone about the man I was dating, at least for the rest of the day. There were way more exciting things to think about, including the presents everyone had gotten; I just hoped that I’d have some kind of answer from Patrick himself, whether it was that he didn’t want to see me anymore or that he did, within a few days.
Chapter Eight
Patrick
I watched Landon scurry into his bedroom with a big armful of toys and chuckled, moving to throw myself onto the couch. Christmas Day had been busy for both of us—but Landon had reserves of energy that I’d lost when I got out of college. “You got a good haul this year, bud!”
“Yeah!” Landon’s voice came to me muffled from the distance between the couch and his bedroom.
“Which presents did you like the best?” I heard a thump—and for a fraction of a second, I was concerned that Landon might have fallen in his headlong rush. The next instant though, I heard the sound of his feet on the floor and he ran out of his bedroom with about three of the new toys he’d gotten.
One of them had come from Joanne’s parents: an eBook reader pre-loaded with about a dozen books on it, with software that would help Landon learn new words and quiz him about the concepts in the stories. “That’s one of your favorites?” I asked, pointing it out.
“Yeah! It has games, too,” Landon explained. He put it down on the coffee table and showed me the next toy; it was a new action figure for his Skylander collection, one that Landon had been wanting for weeks—it had come from Santa. I smiled as he exclaimed over how cool it was and how much more he was going to be able to play.
“Did you put your new toys away nicely?” I asked him. I noticed that the third toy he’d brought out was the make-your-own kite that Mack had gotten him.
“Yes,” Landon said; he looked away.
“If I go in there and look, is that what I’m going to see?” Landon looked down at his feet. I sighed, fighting the urge to laugh at the fact that my son was incapable of lying believably. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s get your toys straightened up and start putting together what you’re going to donate, and then we’ll have some time to play before we eat dinner. How’s that sound?”
“Okay!” Landon grabbed up the toys he had brought into the living room with him and hurried back towards his bedroom. I followed, hating to get off the couch but telling myself that time with my son was time with my son—I got little enough of it as it was.
His room wasn’t a total wreck, but I helped him as he went about straightening it; putting his dirty clothes from the holidays in the hamper, putting his new toys in the trunk and on the shelves where he could play with them, plugging in his eBook reader so it would be ready for him later. I helped him gather up the toys that he wanted to donate to the shelters, too; it was something that I’d done with Landon every Christmas since he was one year old. The idea had been Joanne’s, and it was a small way of keeping her memory alive.
She had said, while she was pregnant with Landon, that she never wanted our son to become spoiled. “I see so many kids who have more toys than they ever play with, and then other kids go without—it’s a travesty.” Joanne’s idea had been that every year at Christmas, we’d go through our child’s things with him, and pick out some toys that were still in perfectly good shape, but that he didn’t play with regularly, and donate those to children living in shelters or orphanages. I’d tried to set a good example by letting Landon help me pick out clothes and other items of my own to donate—including donating old but still working electronics whenever I bought a new one.
By the time we finished, about thirty minutes later, there was a nice-sized box of toys to go to the shelter, and I hunkered down with my son to play with him. One of the gifts he’d gotten—not one of his favorites, but one that was a useful thing nonetheless—was a board game, and I suggested that there was no better way for Landon to learn how to play it than to go through a round of it right away.
We opened up the box and laid everything out, and in minutes Landon was wrapped up in the game; all I had to do was make sure I was paying attention to him and not dawdling when it was my turn to roll the dice or do one of the challenges that came up. “I wonder what Mack is doing right now,” Landon said, letting the dice fall onto the cardboard.
“What makes you think about that?”
Landon shrugged. “I really liked the kite she got me,” he explained, “and I want to thank her.”
“That would be a nice thing to do,” I told him. “Maybe you could make her a card to show her how grateful you are.”
“I will!” Landon picked up a challenge card. “Spin in a circle five times,” he read.
“Well, get to it or miss your move,” I said, grinning. Landon scrambled up and stepped back from the board game on the floor, and spun in a circle while I counted out how many revolutions he made. He tumbled effortlessly back onto the floor giggling.
We talked about how much fun the game would be with some of his friends, but Landon’s comment had brought Mack up in my mind again. I wished I knew how her holidays had gone—she had mentioned something about meddling relatives, her parents and siblings wanting to know everything about her love life. I’d hoped that she’d managed to get through it without feeling weird about our relationship, but I didn’t quite have the courage to call and ask her about how it had been. I’d already decided I was going to wait another day to give her a call, to try and make another effort at mending our relationship.
“Hey Dad,” Landon said, when I started warming up leftovers that we’d brought home from the family get-together for dinner, “we should wait for after the new year to give my toys to the shelter.”
“Why’s
that, buddy?”
I looked up from the microwave to look at Landon at the breakfast bar, coloring. “You’re going to be buying me a lot more presents in a couple of weeks,” he pointed out. “When you lose the bet.”
“When I lose the bet, eh?” I grinned. “I wasn’t sure you were keeping track of that.”
“Yep!” Landon paused in the midst of his coloring and hopped down from the bar stool, hurrying into his bedroom. I shrugged off his behavior and checked on the heating food, trying to make sure I didn’t start a fire in the microwave or melt anything. “See?” I turned around again and saw that my son was holding up a calendar. I frowned for a second, confused—and then realized that every day since he’d made the bet with me to the current day was marked with a big X.
“You’ve been keeping track!”
I turned away from the stove and microwave to examine the calendar in a little more detail. Sure enough, I had a little less than a week until New Year’s Day, which was when Landon had wanted me to find him a new mother by.
“Yep. And I don’t think you are going to win,” Landon told me. “You have six and a half days to find me a new mom, Dad.”
“I know, I know.”
I smiled but I felt a little crushed at the reminder. The one real shot I’d made at winning the bet had been with Mack—and I had no idea where we stood. It was stupid of me to have given into Landon’s wager; it would have been impossible to know that I would want someone in my life—and Landon’s—for the rest of it after only knowing her for less than a month.
“You kept my list, right Dad?” Landon’s eyes looked eager for the toys that he knew he would be getting in a few weeks’ time. I laughed again and the microwave beeped to let me know that the food was heated up.
“I did. So if and when you win our bet, I will be able to get you your list all over again.”
“I’m gonna win,” Landon said with confidence in his voice. “Are you going to ask Mack out again?”
I turned away so that Landon wouldn’t see me cringe. “I don’t know, buddy. She’s pretty busy, and I don’t know what her plans are for New Years. We’ll see how things go in a week or so.” Just saying it made me feel down; I wasn’t sure whether I was more upset at the fact that I had been dumb enough to put a couple hundred dollars on the line in a wager with my five-year-old son, or if I was more disappointed that I hadn’t been able to prove him wrong and give him the mom I knew he was craving—or at least a woman in his life who might eventually fulfill that role.
We sat down to eat up some of the Christmas dinner leftovers we’d had from both Joanne’s parents and my own, talking about what we wanted to do during the week that I would be off for the holidays. I always took off from Christmas Day until the day after New Year’s Day, every year—I wanted to make the most of Landon’s holiday break from school, so I wouldn’t put a strain on my siblings, parents, and in-laws, and so I could reconnect with my son.
As I was cleaning up, while Landon colored another page in his new coloring book, my phone rang. For a second, I thought that it might be Mack—that she might have more courage than I had. Instead it was my sister Jessica.
“Hey, Jess!” I balanced the phone on my shoulder and closed the door on the dishwasher, giving it a nudge to start. “What’s going on?”
“I know I just saw you yesterday, but I swear these children of mine are going to drive me out of my mind and I have got to get out of this house.”
I laughed, glancing at Landon, who was humming to himself. I only had the one kid—Jessica had four. “What did you have in mind?” I asked. It was almost seven at night, and while Landon needed to be in bed by nine, I thought that would give Jess plenty of time to decompress.
“Come by my place, drop Landon off so that he can help my husband drain the energy out of my kids, and you and I will have some sibling bonding time over a nice cup of coffee far, far away from screaming children.”
I thought about it; I would trust Jessica with my own life—and with Landon’s. I’d been friends with her husband for years, and if Landon somehow managed to fall asleep before I could get Jessica back to the house, he could stay the night with no problem. I’d just pick him up in the morning, maybe have breakfast over there before we went out and did anything, or invite their family to come with us.
“I need to get out of my own head for a bit anyway,” I told her. “I’ll get some warm clothes on the kid and we’ll be over in fifteen.”
“You have always been my favorite brother, Patrick,” Jessica told me, relief in her voice. “I’ll see you in fifteen.”
Chapter Nine
Mackenzie
The day after Christmas I made excuses to my family and went into the city; as much as I loved them, I needed a little bit of time away from their questions and comments and concerns about me. So I pretended that I’d gotten a phone call from the office that someone had called out sick, and I would have to go back into the city for a few hours to cover a few of the sessions. Mom and Dad had been upset, but they’d pretended at least like they understood.
Instead of going into the office—which was already closed by the time I’d had enough—I went back to my apartment and did a load of laundry, and then I decided to do a little wandering around the city. I would take the opportunity to return a few of the presents I’d gotten that hadn’t fit, or exchange them for other things. As I was leaving the apartment to head into the downtown area, I started thinking that it’d be nice to check out the after-Christmas sales, too; Lush was having a buy one get one sale, and assuming that it wasn’t incredibly packed with people, and that I could make it there, I might be able to find some relaxing bath things.
I spent some time wandering around, going from one shop to another; I probably should have done more of my trips in the car instead of on foot, but after two days of hanging out with my parents, eating myself almost sick, it felt good to walk steadily for a few hours. I decided that I was going to spend as much time as possible before New Year’s Eve away from my family; as much as I loved them, and as glad as I had been to see them, I didn’t like the questions.
I’d been so sure that telling them that I was dating someone would help matters—that my parents and my siblings would back off a bit, since I had the prospect of a boyfriend. But more and more questions had come up over Christmas.
“What kind of guy is this Patrick dude?”
“Do you have any other guys on the hook—in case the one with the kid doesn’t work out?”
“Is it weird to date someone who you see a bunch of times per week?”
I obviously couldn’t tell them that I wasn’t even sure that the relationship with Patrick was going to go any further than it already had; if I admitted that things had gotten strained and weird between me and Patrick, I’d have to hear a million more questions about what I’d done wrong, and why I was pushing yet another guy away. I truly believed that I hadn’t actually done anything obviously wrong in my previous relationships; I hadn’t picked fights, I hadn’t consciously tried to push anyone away. Things just never seemed to really work out. Guys always tended to expect a girl to stop working or to get serious on a schedule. I’d met lots of guys who had wanted me to want to get married and have kids, and when I hadn’t been serious about them—when I’d been serious about my studies and then my career instead—they’d gotten more and more distant.
I’d thought that with Patrick that wouldn’t be as much of an issue. He obviously spent a lot of time at work himself, and whenever he wasn’t at work he tried to be with Landon as much as possible. I’d figured a guy like that would be able to understand that I had priorities in my life that weren’t him. But now that things had become so strange between us, I had to wonder if I’d been wrong about that too.
The possibility that Patrick had gone cold on me because he didn’t think that I would be a good co-parent for Landon nagged at me even as I made my way through the crowds hanging around different shops. I tried not to think about i
t, but it was definitely a possibility, and if it was the reason that things had gone sour between us, I couldn’t exactly blame Patrick for it. I didn’t know if I would be a good co-parent. Even though I’d wanted kids since I’d been a teenager, I didn’t know if I would be good even with my own kids—much less someone else’s kids, as a parent in their life long after they’d already set up a dynamic with their first parent. I liked kids—I wouldn’t have gone into the specialty that I had if I didn’t—but I knew that it was very different to be around a particular kid every day on an intimate level, instead of only seeing them for an hour several times a week.
I exchanged the presents I’d gotten that I didn’t want, or that were too small—one of the nightgowns that Mom had gotten me was not my taste at all, and the slippers Dad had bought for me, while cute, didn’t fit on my feet. I got a new pair of slippers that did fit, and a nightgown that I liked a lot better—and which was made of nice, warm flannel instead of thin, gauzy nylon. I browsed the makeup counters and sniffed at a few perfumes, but I reminded myself that for the amount of money I was spending, I wasn’t going to get very much use out of them. I couldn’t and wouldn’t wear perfume to work, since so many of the kids had allergies that would be affected.
I made it to Lush and gave into the frenzied bustle going on around me; while I couldn’t justify spending a hundred dollars on a perfume that I would get to use at best one night a week—and that was assuming that I went out at all—I was more than happy to put good money down on bath goodies to enjoy at the end of a hectic work week, especially with the weather being so cold and dry. I grabbed a basket and browsed as much as the press of other customers would allow me to, picking out a few of my old favorites and then moving on to look over some of the newer items. My basket slowly but surely filled up with one item after another: a few bath bombs that I wouldn’t get another chance to buy now that the holiday season was over, a couple of small bottles of shower gel in scents that would be nice, and some lotion.