My dad’s eyes filled with sadness, and he went back to his breakfast. Shit. I should probably stop talking about going back. I didn’t want to upset him any more than he already was.
“Do you need anything for the apartment?” he asked me. “I know you’re simple, but there has to be something you can use. You could take one of your mothers cast iron pots if you’d like. We all know she has enough to pass around.”
I smiled at the offer. My mom had a passion for cooking, and although she was simple like me, her kitchen never lacked the latest gadget or cookware. She could have ran a restaurant out of her own house if she had wanted to.
“Sure, Dad. Next time, though. I don’t think I want to be carrying cast iron onto the train and through the city.”
“Sounds like a plan, kiddo. Hey, sorry about the O’Connors. You know how nosy they are. They haven’t changed a bit.”
“Yeah, I could see that,” I said, eating the last forkful of egg before clearing the table. “So, what else do we need to do for the funeral, Dad? I know it’s difficult to talk about, but we need to figure it out.”
“Yeah, I hear you. I spoke with the people over at the funeral home and the casket was delivered. Becky called and said the flowers are all set. She’ll deliver and set them up, so we don’t need to worry about anything. And Bill Palmer is having the high school choir come to the church to sing. So, I think that leaves food for after the funeral and her outfit,” he told me, breathing in a huge sigh when he finished.
“Were you thinking of having the lunch catered?” I asked. “If so, you’re a little behind schedule. Most places need more than three days to prepare.”
“Well, I was thinking of calling Tammy, actually. I thought she might be able to put together a nice spread.”
I’m sorry, what? Tammy, as in Caleb’s mother? As in the woman I referred to as a second mother? AS IN CALEB’S MOTHER?!
“Um, did you want me to call her for you? I don’t think I can do that, Dad. I haven’t spoken to her since Caleb and I broke up,” I stammered.
“No, I’ll call her after lunch or I’ll swing by there on my way to the post office. I have some stuff I want to drop into the donation bin they have set up outside,” he said.
I finished up the dishes while my dad continued to read the paper. I still wanted to know about Caleb and this whole Tennessee business, but I knew it wasn’t the time to bring it up.
“Dad, do you want to go pick out Mom’s outfit now? The sooner we get that settled, the sooner we can relax with all of this,” I offered, knowing it would probably be the hardest part, aside from the actual burial itself.
He nodded and folded the paper, setting it on the chair next to him. Mom’s chair. He patted it and stood up slowly, taking in a few breaths before he pushed his chair in. He motioned for me to head down the hall to their bedroom and he slowly followed.
I sat on the bed, smoothing the holly leaf quilt with my hand. I still remembered the day my mother finished making it. It took her an entire year to complete it, but she had.
“Don’t you laugh at me, Leah Abernathy,” she had said to me, tickling my ribcage. “This will be yours one day.”
Dad must have sensed me fading off into la-la land because he quickly walked to the closet and opened it, pushing the hangers one by one to find Mom’s dresses. He stopped suddenly and turned to face me. Without saying a word, he pulled the dress off the hanger and held it out in front of him. I smiled and stood up, walking toward him. I took the dress from his hands and held it against my body.
“Mom’s Christmas Show dress. I still can’t believe she wore this every single year,” I commented. “It’s so damn hideous!”
We both laughed and I hung it back up.
“There’s no way she is being buried in this thing, even though it should definitely be buried,” I said, laughing too hard at my own joke. That was a trait I had inherited from my dad.
“I think you should keep it,” he told me. “She’d want you to have it.”
We spent the next half-hour looking through my mom’s clothes and remembering so many wonderful things that had happened while she was wearing them.
“Listen, pumpkin, this is rough. I think it calls for some wine. I’m gonna go to the kitchen and grab a bottle and some glasses,” he said.
“Uh, Dad? It’s ten in the morning,” I told him, a little shocked he was drinking so early in the day.
“Okay, so I’ll bring in some mimosas, then. Orange juice or pink lemonade?”
“Pink lemonade,” I answered. Mom’s favorite.
Ten minutes later, he was back in the bedroom with a bottle of champagne, a gallon of pink lemonade, and two mason jars. He plopped them onto the old trunk that sat at the foot of the bed and just looked at me.
“You okay, Dad?” I asked, my right eyebrow raised in confusion.
“You tell me,” he replies, sliding my cell phone toward me. “Your phone was buzzing, so I thought I’d grab it and bring it up to you.”
I picked it up and pressed the home button and the screen lit up. My eyes widened when I saw Caleb’s name on the lock screen. My breathing became heavy, and I didn’t know what to say. I looked back up at my dad, waiting for him to say something.
“Honey, why didn’t you tell me you were talking to him again? Safe to assume things aren’t going well with you and Josh?” he asked me.
“Caleb and I aren’t talking again. As for Josh, we broke up the night before I left to come here. He stopped by my apartment after not hearing from me all day because I forgot to call him to tell him about the message you left me. So, yeah, things were not going well,” I told him.
“Okay, well, that makes sense. Are you okay with that decision? He was a really nice young man, but you’re the only one that can make those decisions for yourself.”
“It was the right thing to do. I loved him—I still love him—but I’m not in love with him, as cliché as that sounds,” I blurted out. “When he came over, he started arguing with me about how I should have told him, and that he was coming with me so he could be there for me. I told him I needed to be here for you, and that I wanted to do it alone. He couldn’t accept that and it snowballed into this huge ordeal. Somewhere in the middle of the fight, I couldn’t get Caleb out of my head. That’s when I knew it wouldn’t work out with Josh. Mostly because we weren’t right for each other, but also because he’s not Caleb. Sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”
“No, pumpkin. It doesn’t sound stupid. It sounds responsible. But you still haven’t answered my question,” he prodded. “Why didn’t you tell me about Caleb?”
“There’s nothing to tell. I quite literally bumped into him at the train station, as you know, and then he called to tell me that Joey asked him to drop a box of mom’s stuff off to me. I missed the call, so he left a message. I haven’t gotten back to him yet.”
“I see. Well, what does the text say? I think you should give him a call back. You’re obviously still harboring feelings for him, and he’s reaching out to you so that must mean something,” he said, trying to sound convincing.
Did Dad not know Caleb was engaged? Engaged to be MARRIED?!
“I’ll text him back, but I don’t think I need to see him. He’s engaged and his fiancée is in town, and I don’t need to be a part of all that,” I said. “Which reminds me, what were you talking about before when you said Caleb was in Tennessee?”
“All right,” he said and poured me a mimosa. “You might need this, so sit back down and I’ll fill you in.”
16
“You were probably too little to remember her, but Caleb’s grandmother used to live with them before his dad died. She was living alone in Tennessee at the time, and Brad’s siblings were still in college, so he invited her to live with him, Tammy, and Caleb. When Brad passed away, she wanted to go back to Tennessee to be with her other kids. So, she moved back home and lived alone in the same town as her daughter. About a year after you two graduated, she became ill. The doc
tors weren’t sure what was going on, but she needed to have someone there to keep an eye on her. Tammy convinced Caleb that it would be good for him to get out of Grace Valley for a while, so he packed up his stuff and moved down there to be with her.”
“I think I remember her. I have the faintest memory of snowman cookies,” I said.
“Yes.” Dad smiled. “She would bake sugar cookies for you and Caleb to decorate, and you always made yours into a snowman.”
I sat on the floor of my parent’s bedroom and picked the skin on my thumb. I wasn’t going to have any skin left by the time I got back to the city. There was so much I had missed out on, and while most of the town was the same, I started to notice how much had changed while I was gone.
“Okay, so he went to take care of her and then what happened? He looked like he was back when I slammed into him in the train station,” I said, annoyed with myself for pushing.
“It’s nice to know the city hasn’t changed your patience level, pumpkin,” my dad teased.
I rolled my eyes and swatted at his knee. I took a big gulp of my mimosa and gestured to my dad to hand me the bottle of champagne to make another one. I lifted the lemonade bottle that was sitting next to me and poured my glass halfway before I handed it back to him. The circumstances sucked, but it really was a lot of fun being with my Dad.
“I don’t really know the entire story, but I do know that when Caleb got there, his grandmother offered to pay for him to go to college down there. Apparently, he walked onto the basketball team and played there for three or four years. I’m not sure how many. Tammy said he didn’t really talk about it too much because it was just filler between classes, when his grandmother was at her doctors’ appointments.”
“I’m not surprised.” I smiled. “I always knew he was destined for bigger things than the community college he had planned on going to.”
“Well, he did go to community college for a year before he moved down there. He transferred his sophomore year and was able to get his bachelor’s and then master’s in an accelerated program.”
Overachiever. I rolled my eyes and my dad laughed at me.
“Don’t be jealous, little girl. You were the one that pushed him to go to NYU with you, remember? You can’t fault the kid for following his dreams after you tried to force yours on him.”
That one stung a little, but he was right. He was always right.
“Fair enough. What did he get his degree in?”
“Secondary education. Social studies to be exact. He wanted to follow in his dad’s footsteps,” Dad told me.
“Oh, wow. And is his grandmother better now?”
“No, pumpkin. She died during the summer after his first year with her. She left him her house and enough money to finish school, so he did. And he’s been teaching down there since he graduated,” my dad explained.
“I met his fiancée,” I told him, my eyes rolling to the back of my head. “She came into Becky’s shop looking for flowers. Apparently, Tammy’s house isn’t good enough for her without fresh cut flowers all over the place.”
“Yeah, I heard,” he confessed. “About the flowers, I should say, not about you running into Brittany.”
“Brittany is her name? Suits her,” I muttered, my jealousy palpable. “She said she was an interior designer. Where would Caleb ever meet an interior designer?”
“I know they met on campus at the University of Tennessee, but I’m not entirely sure of the specifics. I’m sure he would tell you if you asked him.” He winked, knowing this would get me going. Such an instigator.
“Ask him?! Are you crazy? I’m not going to ask my ex-boyfriend how he met his soon-to-be wife. That’s insane. I don’t really even care,” I spewed.
“Mm-hmm, sure. Whatever you say, pumpkin.” He smiled. “Another mimosa?”
“I’m all set, but thank you,” I replied, and he took the remnants of our day-drinking back to the kitchen.
Still reeling from all of this new information, I grabbed my cell phone to text Caleb back. This was going to be good. I was four giant mimosas deep and sitting in a pile of my mother’s old clothes.
Leah: Hi, Caleb! Yeah, today sounds great. Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. I’m here, so just come whenever you want!
Almost immediately after I pressed send, three little dots appeared. He was typing! I grabbed a blouse that was laying on the floor next to me and buried my head in it. PING!
Caleb: Sounds good. See you around five.
“Dad!” I called down the hall. “Can you come back in here, please?”
“What’s up? Everything all right?” he asked, popping his head into the doorway.
“Well, your little mimosa idea gave me some liquid courage and I just texted Caleb back and told him to come on over whenever he wants.”
“Oh. And how do you feel about that?” he questioned.
“How do I feel about that? Like I need another shower and three days to sleep off this regret. Why am I like this?”
He laughed and bent down to pick up the remaining clothes on the floor. He looked at me and gently grabbed my hand. “Leah, it’s only Caleb. You know him. There’s nothing to feel regretful for.”
“He’s isn’t coming until five he said, so I’ll putz around here for a bit and maybe clean a little before I head into town,” I told him.
“Okay, pumpkin. Let me know when you’re going, and I’ll walk over with you. I want to talk to Mrs. Kratz about getting some cookies and desserts made for your mom’s luncheon. Why don’t you think about stopping by to see Tammy? It’ll be good for the both of you,” he suggested.
I nodded and finished putting away my mother’s clothes and everything else that remained on my parent’s bedroom floor. I felt comforted being home, but my anxiety about Caleb was at maximum capacity. I stood up and looked for Gnocchi. A snuggle from him would make this whole thing a lot less awkward.
When I finally found Gnocchi, he was curled up in a ball in my mother’s yarn basket, snoring. I didn’t want to wake him, but it made me wonder what my mother was knitting this week. It was the one trait from my mother I didn’t get. Every time I tried to learn to knit, I stabbed myself more times than I could count and repeatedly tangled myself up. Me and knitting did not go hand in hand.
“Hey, Dad?” I called. “I’m gonna head into town. Did you still want to come with me or do you want me to ask Mrs. Kratz myself?”
“Give me five minutes to get myself together and we can head out. Could you make sure Gnocchi has food and water in his bowl?”
“Sure,” I said and went to the pantry to fill his bowls. I noticed a new rug under his fancy cat bowls. There were little paw prints around the edging and it said, “King of the Pawlace.” It had my mom written all over it. I filled the bowls and put the food back into the pantry closet. I put on my hat and gloves, slipped my feet into my boots, and wrapped myself up tightly in my jacket.
“Okay, pumpkin,” my dad said as he walked into the mudroom where I was waiting. “Ready when you are.”
“Uh, not wearing shoes or a jacket today?” I asked, laughing at my dad. He was standing there, staring at me with a scarf and slippers on.
He started to laugh and grabbed his jacket. He wiggled his upper body until it was on and put on his snow boots.
“I can’t believe I almost walked out in my house shoes,” he said, blushing.
“At least you remembered your underwear,” I teased. “You did remember your underwear, didn’t you?”
We both laughed and started our walk into town. I was nervous to go visit Tammy at the diner, but I knew it would be harder seeing her for the first time at the funeral. I kissed my dad on the cheek, and he disappeared into the bakery while I slowly made my way to Tammy’s.
The diner was completely different than the last time I was there. It used to be an old hole-in-the-wall, but now it looked like someone plucked a small bistro right out of the heart of Paris. It was gorgeous. Instead of the booths that used to b
e there, the walls were lined with small two and four-person tables. There were candles and white linens on each table, and a wire menu holder that also doubled as the housing for the salt, pepper, and sugar. The walls were no longer a dingy shade of brown, but now held beautiful artwork of various flowers and gardens.
“Leah? Leah Abernathy?” Tammy sang from the kitchen, wiping her flour-covered hands on her apron. “My word! It’s been ages.”
I leaned into Tammy and hugged her as if no time had passed at all. She smelled of garlic and coffee. It was an odd but comforting combination.
“Tammy, it’s so good to see you. I wanted to come and see you sooner, but it was hard making my rounds under these circumstances.”
“Sweetie, you do not have to explain anything to me. I am just happy to see your beautiful face again. Come, have a seat. Can I get you anything to eat?” Tammy offered.
“I’ll take a hot tea, thanks. I’m not very hungry,” I said.
“Great! I’ll be right back and we can sit and catch up. Oh, I’m so glad you came in,” Tammy said and snuck around to the kitchen.
This was awkward and comfortable at the same time. Was this my new normal? I hoped I could get used to it.
About five minutes later, Tammy came out of the kitchen with two cups of tea and a basket of scones. Did this woman know me or what?
“Have one,” Tammy said. “You’re always in the mood for a scone, so don’t try to tell me otherwise.
I laughed and took one out of the basket. I was pulling a piece off the end when the door chimed, and in walked the last person I wanted to see.
“Brittany, hello dear. What can I do for you?” Tammy asked, but she didn’t get up.
Brittany sauntered over to the table like she owned the place and we were in her seat. She was dressed to the nines with not a hair out of place. I hated her for no reason other than she was with Caleb and I wasn’t. It was immature and I had no business acting that way.
“I just came to pick up some lunch. Caleb is at home working on something, so I thought I’d surprise him. Is it ready?” Brittany asked. Her voice hung on every last word as if they were going to run away from her.
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