Chapter Two
When Hayley walked through the back door into her kitchen after driving home from work, she was stunned to see her daughter, Gemma, tossing a salad while a familiar mouthwatering smell wafted out from the oven.
“Is that—?”
“Turkey meatloaf. Pretty much the only thing I can make.” Gemma laughed as she set the salad aside and crossed to give her mother a hug. “I nixed the twice-baked potato because your glucose number was up at your last physical so we’re cutting down on carbs while I’m home. You’re going to have to settle for a side salad.”
“I love you,” Hayley said, squeezing her daughter tight, not wanting to let go. It had been a tough adjustment after Gemma left for college. Hayley missed not having her around. So she was thrilled when Gemma called from the University of Maine at Orono where she was studying Animal and Veterinary Sciences and told her she was going to spend the month of December living at home while completing a work study program at Dr. Aaron Palmer’s vet practice in Bar Harbor.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Mom, I love you, too, but I can’t breathe.”
Hayley suddenly realized she was still hugging her daughter.
She finally let go and Gemma jokingly gasped for air.
“I’m sorry. I just love having you home. Especially with your brother visiting your father in Iowa for the holidays.”
“By the way, he called me today, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think he may have a little crush on Dad’s girlfriend.”
“Oh, dear God, no! Becky?”
“He couldn’t stop talking about how pretty she looked in her tight red sweater with nine tiny little reindeer embroidered across her mountain of a chest, and how sweet she was to bake him homemade chocolate chip cookies while they watched a James Bond marathon on Spike TV, and how she let him help her brew her family’s apple cider recipe that she shares with no one, but she showed him and only him because she trusts him. The entire conversation was Becky, Becky, Becky!”
“Well, to be fair, he is closer to her in age than his father is! They obviously have more in common.”
Gemma giggled and carried the wooden bowl of salad to the dining room and set it down on the table. “Mom, go relax in the living room and I’ll bring you a glass of wine.”
This whole Gemma waiting on her hand and foot thing was starting to feel suspicious. But Hayley wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt.
She took her coat off, hung it on the rack, and sauntered into the living room where she stopped dead in her tracks. The white pine tree Hayley had bought from the tree farm just outside town stood tall and proud in the corner of her living room. But when she left this morning for work it was naked with no ornaments, lights, or tinsel. Now it was a majestic, brightly lit, fully decorated Christmas tree. There were even a few small wrapped presents underneath it. All of Hayley’s holiday figurines she had collected over the years were carefully placed around the living room. Her dog, Leroy, was in one corner gnawing on a meat bone. Her cat, Blueberry, was stretched out in another corner, exhausted from having torn open catnip sewn inside a mouse made of felt.
She heard Gemma pad into the room behind her. She spun around to see her holding out a glass of wine, a sweet smile on her face. “Here you go. Oh, I almost forgot. I followed one of your recipes and made some blue cheese and pecan stuffed dates as an appetizer. Let me go get them and you can have some with your wine!”
She turned to run out, but Hayley reached out and grabbed her arm. “Hold it right there, missy.”
Gemma slowly turned toward her mother, a sheepish grin on her face. “What?”
“The turkey meatloaf I could buy. Decorating the tree I could almost buy. But presents for the pets and stuffed dates? You’re up to something! What is it?”
“Mom, I’ve missed you while I’ve been away at college, and so while I’m home I want to show my appreciation by making things a little easier on you. I knew you dreaded decorating the tree, especially since Dr. Aaron was here to help you the last couple of years.”
Dr. Aaron Palmer.
The handsome vet she had been casually seeing for the last eighteen months, who broke it off with her last spring. They hadn’t spoken in months. She spotted him at the Shop ’n Save in November, buying a turkey during the Thanksgiving rush, but she veered her cart down the spice aisle to avoid having to say hello. They had promised to remain friends, but it was awkward, and quite honestly, it still hurt a little. Ever since Gemma came home and began working in his office, Hayley believed a reunion was inevitable, but so far she had managed to avoid one.
Hayley snapped back to reality.
Her daughter was trying to change the subject.
She was fast becoming an expert.
Just like her mother.
“What do you want, Gemma?”
“Mother, I am insulted you would even think—!”
“Gemma!”
“I want to go skiing with some friends for Christmas.”
“What?”
“I know it’s awful and we decided I would spend Christmas here with you and I really want to, but . . .”
“But . . .”
“But there’s this really cool bunch of premed students I’m in this study group with, and they’ve rented a cabin in Sugarloaf for the week during Christmas, and they invited me to go along, and of course I said no because I told them I had already promised to spend the holidays with my dear mother who is all alone because my brother is in Iowa and her boyfriend dumped her last spring and she has no one . . .”
“Can we just cut to the chase, please? I’m about to kill myself,” Hayley said, gulping down the glass of wine.
“Well, today I got a call from one of them, his name is Pierre, and he’s so cute and sweet and he’s from Montreal, so he’s got the French thing going for him, and, well, he practically begged me to change my mind, and you know I’m a sucker for a French accent. . . .”
“You told him you’d go.”
“Yes, I’m sorry. It just came out and then he sounded so excited I was going and I didn’t have the heart to change my mind again so I just sort of hung up. But I can call him back, if you really don’t want me to go. . . .”
Hayley knew she had to let Gemma go.
She couldn’t be one of those mothers who held on to her kids for dear life, not wanting them to grow up, live their lives, enjoy new experiences. And since her daughter was legally an adult, she would just ignore the fact that it was a handsome French Canadian with a seductive accent that convinced her to ditch her mother for Christmas for hot toddies and God only knows what else by the fireplace at some remote cabin in the snow-covered mountains.
“Have fun. I’ll be fine.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. There are plenty of people I can spend Christmas Day with . . . like your Uncle Randy and Sergio, or Mona and her family, or Liddy and Sonny! I have endless possibilities!”
“Thank you, Mom! I love you!” Gemma said, enveloping her mother into another quick hug before releasing her and running back into the kitchen. “I have to check on the meatloaf.”
She had already told Randy and Sergio, as well as Mona and Liddy, not to include her in any of their plans because she was going to have some much-needed quality time with her only daughter. But it might not be too late to snag a last-minute invite to one of their gatherings. Or she could just spend the day munching on fruit cake and watching Christmas movies and cuddling with Leroy and Blueberry, who were so disinterested at the moment they didn’t even know she was in the room.
As her buddy Mona often liked to say around the holidays, “Merry friggin’ Christmas!”