Page 66 of The Gingerbread Bakery
‘Too blue for me.’
‘You’ve gotten picky with lights in your old age,’ she teased, nudging him a little with her shoulder. The warmth of her seeped into him. He wished she would stay pressed against him in the dark.
‘I learned a lot about myself while I was away,’ he said. ‘But one of the main things was that I like my Christmas décor understated.’
‘Wow, you really did some deep thinking out there on the road. It’s a good thing you stayed away for so long, I guess.’ And just like that the mood in the car shifted again. Annie moved away from him, back to her seat, and turned her gaze out her window.
Would they ever be able to be near each other without digging up the past?
He’d been joking about the Christmas decorations, but itwasa good thing that he'd been gone so long. He sorted out a lot of stuff while he was away. Learned a lot about himself, what he wanted from life. When he came back to Dream Harbor, it was because he wanted to, not because he was born here, not because he was stuck here, or because it was his only option. He needed to experience life outside of Dream Harbor before he could appreciate life in it.
But if he said any of that, he knew it would come out wrong. That all Annie would hear was that he was glad he left her.
They drove the rest of the way without speaking. The only sounds were the quiet mewing of the cats and the windshield wipers pushing the snow from the window. Sometimes, he wondered that if he had done things differently, would there still be a chance for him and Annie? He didn’t regret leaving but he hated the way he’d left.
ChapterTwenty-Three
Then
‘I’ve gathered you here today to discuss an important matter,’ Mac said, glancing from his mom to his dad. He hadn’t actually gathered them anywhere. He’d waylaid them at the dinner table.
‘Mac, what is this about?’ his dad said, already looking impatient. His father was not a man who liked to be waylaid. Mac rarely ever even saw him sit down.
Mac folded his hands on the table in front of him and then unfolded them and then folded them again. His palms were damp. He’d had a whole speech planned but now, with his mother 's worried face and his father already looking antsy, Mac’s preparedness went right out the window.
‘But first, a gift!’ He was totally stalling but he and Annie had finally tracked down the perfect gift for his mom and now felt like the right time to give it to her. He set the gift bag on the table.
‘An early Christmas present?’ his mom asked. She looked skeptical which, after the gifts he'd given her over the years, she had every right to be.
‘Yep. For you.’ He pushed the bag toward her.
She pulled out the tissue paper that Annie had insisted he put in, saying it didn’t count as wrapping without it, until she got to the hand-carved Nativity scene he’d found at a craft fair. It was Annie who’d noticed that his mom had several scenes around the house, and when he saw this one, he knew it was the perfect gift.
‘Mac, it’s lovely,’ his mom said. ‘Thank you.’
Mac breathed a sigh of relief. He’d nailed it, which was good because now was the hard part.
‘I also wanted to talk to you about… you know… the future. Uh… my future, specifically.’
His mom looked hopeful at that. ‘Have you finally decided to enroll at the community college? They have a great nursing program.’
Mac sighed. He was positive he would be a terrible nurse. He didn’t have his mother's patience or her iron stomach.
‘No, that’s not really what I was thinking…’
‘Well, we could use you for more hours down at the pub,’ his dad said, and the suffocating feeling in Mac’s chest grew. He knew his dad would love it if he worked more hours pouring pints or serving food and eventually take over more of the business side of things, but the pub was his dad’s dream. Not his. At least he didn't think it was.
Mac shook his head. That was the whole problem. Hestill didn't knowwhathe wanted and, faced with the expectations of his parents, he already felt himself slipping into old habits. It would be easy to make his mom happy and enroll in school or to take some of the workload off his dad. Mac liked easy. He liked being liked. He liked it when his parents were happy with him, and his teammates were cheering for him, and his buddies were congratulating him on a game well-played. But this wasn’t some stupid lacrosse game and Mac couldn’t keep picking the easy thing.
He thought of Annie and how hard she was working on getting her business started, how she told him she was taking classes and trying out new recipes and setting up a table at every farmers’ market, festival and fair in the county on the weekends. Mac had never worked that hard on anything in his life.
‘No, that's not what I was thinking, either,’ he said and now he really had both parents’ attention.
‘What did you have in mind?’ his mom asked.
And he knew he owed her an explanation. He owed her a plan. He owed her everything, really, for raising him, taking care of him and making his life incredibly easy for nineteen years. His dad, too. He’d given Mac his first job. He would have given him a job for the rest of his life if Mac wanted it.
But Mac didn’t want it. Not yet anyway. He needed to go somewhere else,anywhereelse. He would never grow into the person he was meant to be if he continued to let his parents do everything for him. He needed to grow up. And he couldn’t do that here. Not with his kindergarten teacher still watching his behavior or his mom’s friends reporting back to her on who he was dating. Or girls like Annie thinking he was just some dumb jock. He was pretty sure he’d changed her mind about that, but still.
