Chapter 13 Fable
Fable
“Light meat or dark,” my dad asked Guy, carving knife hovering over the massive turkey.
It had almost been too large to fit in the oven, but it was still going to be a stretch to feed us all.
This wasn’t my mom’s first rodeo, though, and she’d made plenty of side dishes too.
Nobody would ever leave her house hungry. Not on her watch!
Guy glanced at me, trying to gauge what the right answer might be, but then shrugged. “I’m easy. Whatever nobody else likes.”
Dad chuckled, shaking his head. “Oh, you’re a smart man. The members of this family would throw down over a drumstick. You don’t want to get caught in the fray.”
My brother and sister both tried to deny it, but their wives were nodding sharply, wide-eyed in warning.
With Dad carving up the turkey, the rest of us started passing serving bowls around the table, divvying up the stuffing, green beans, candied yams topped with marshmallows, and little buns tied into knots so they were shaped like doves, with cloves for eyes.
Molly, my brother’s youngest kid, started kicking the bottom of the table, shouting, “Canbabies!!” making grabby hands for the bowl of cranberry sauce.
As her uncle, I dutifully started scooping some onto her plastic plate, loving the absolute mess she promptly made, sticking both hands into the sauce and bringing it to her mouth and missing most of it.
“Oh, sweetie.” Andrew made a face, but he was laughing. “I see laundry in my future.”
This was just the kind of chaos you could expect from an Everly family dinner.
There were eight adults, plus four kids—soon to be five, with my sister now six months pregnant, though I still wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t twins—and my parents’ golden retriever Padawan under the table looking for scraps like a four-legged Roomba.
When my plate was nearly full, my mother moved from her chair to hover over me, reaching over my shoulder to add a sprig of rosemary and a couple whole cranberries to the edge as a garnish.
I opened my mouth to ask what she was doing, but she wasn’t done yet.
She kept fussing, even going so far as to take a napkin and clean up the gravy around the edges.
Soon everyone around the table grew quiet to watch her work.
Finally, when there was a long enough pause for me to think she might be done, she turned up the overhead light to full brightness. She stared at me expectantly. “Well?”
“Well, what?” I asked, my gaze darting around the table. Was I missing something?
“Aren’t you going to take a picture of your food?” she asked, a little exasperated. “For your blog. And if you want my recipes, you could add those for your followers. I’ve already printed out copies for you to take with you.”
“Mom, I only have 17 followers.”
“So? Don’t you think they might be curious to see what you’re eating? Whether it’s a thousand followers or just one, there is still value in what you do.”
My insides felt all warm and gooey. I had no idea she felt that way about my blog. She sounded almost… proud of me.
Guy nudged me with his elbow, offering me a private smile. “Take the picture. Besides, you have 18 followers now.” And then he winked at me, and my heart absolutely melted.
“You followed me?” I gasped, clutching my chest, where my heart was beating with a rhythm that felt a lot like love, love, love.
“Of course I did. I can’t wait to see what kinds of recipes you come up with for maple syrup.”
“Oh yes, me too!” my mother chimed in. Instead of bringing the customary bottle of wine to dinner, Guy had brought a bottle of syrup—obviously.
In this moment, I felt… whole. And while I knew that my family had never meant to add pressure on me to be more than I was—more successful in my career, richer, smarter, luckier in love—I’d just always felt a bit like a disappointment.
With Guy by my side, I felt more confident, more settled than I ever had before.
But I was still the same me, really, and I realized that maybe that pressure had never come from my family at all. Maybe it had come from me.
I took Guy’s hand under the table and laced our fingers together, giving them a squeeze. Guy smiled at me and squeezed back. I would cling to this feeling for as long as I could.
But first, I had some foodie pictures to take!
I stared down at my phone where the Uber’s approaching dot showed they were only a couple minutes away. My throat tightened until my breath was nearly a wheeze, the threat of tears making my eyes sting. It was time to go home.
Part of me regretted wasting some of what little time we had on dinner with my family, but… it had also been kind of amazing. My family was loud and brash, full of strong opinions, and meals with everyone were always a special form of chaos, and yet Guy had fit in like he’d been born there.
Except he hadn’t been, thank gods, because that would’ve made him a blood relative, and after everything we’d done together—ew. No.
Guy stood forever warm at my side, and I leaned into him, burying my face in his chest. He brought his arms around me, holding me close. “Hey, I know it’s still a few days until Christmas, but I got something for you.”
I pulled back and peeked up at him, feeling raw and vulnerable. “You did?” I asked in a tiny voice.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a little package, wrapped in one of the lodge’s cloth napkins. “It’s nothing, really. You don’t have to open it now.”
“Of course I’m going to open it now! Is it a puppy?” I teased, before peeling back the napkin to uncover a small brown bag, tied with a satin ribbon, and inside the bag… I gasped. “Guy! Is this what I think it is?”
Even beneath his beard I could see his blush as he shrugged, self-conscious. “That depends on what you think it is. It’s not a puppy.”
I laughed. “It’s a nutmeg grater!” Sure enough, besides the narrow grater, there was also a bag of whole nutmeg.
“I just thought, um… nutmeg goes really well with syrup, so maybe if you’re baking…”
I threw my arms around him, and he immediately caught me. “It’s perfect,” I gushed. Pulling back slowly, I admitted, “I got something for you too, but I’ve changed my mind. It’s stupid.”
“I promise it’s not,” he said, tugging on a lock of hair that had escaped the beanie.
Staring down at my shoes, I mumbled, “I didn’t even wrap it.” Then I reached into my pocket and pulled out his gift.
Guy stared down at the gift in my hand, his face slack. Did he hate it? I couldn’t tell. Why wasn’t he saying anything? Finally, he choked out a few words in a voice that sounded strangely tight, even a little emotional. “It’s a beaver.”
“I know it’s dumb. I just saw it at the lodge gift shop, and for some reason, it made me think of you.”
He swooped down and picked me up, squeezing me so tight that the breath left my lungs for a second.
“It’s not dumb,” he whispered by my ear, and when he put me down, his eyes were glassy.
He took the little stuffed beaver from me and rubbed his thumb along its velvety tail. “I will love it forever.”
This man was so much more than met the eye. He was warm and kind, thoughtful, funny… and even though I’d said this would be a fling, tell that to my heart. The pull I felt was more intense than any connection I’d ever had.
I had this incredible urge to stay here with him, even though I knew he was getting on his own plane later tonight and heading to an entirely different country.
We had no choice but to say goodbye, but maybe it didn’t have to be forever.
I would die with regret for not shooting my shot, so I cleared my throat and went for it.
“So, uh, maybe, would you want to trade phone numbers?” I asked.
Before I could even finish the sentence, Guy had blurted, “Yes!” and was digging out his phone and passing it to me. He was a bit like an eager puppy, and there was an intense feeling of relief coming off him in waves. Looked like I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t ready for things to end.
Just as I was texting myself from his phone, the Uber pulled up, and with it, a wave of grief pressed down on my shoulders. I blinked back tears. “Well, I guess this is goodbye.”
Guy took my face between his warm palms and dropped his forehead to mine. “I don’t want to say goodbye to you, Fable. Our story isn’t over yet. So how about, I’ll see you soon.”
I wanted to believe that so very much. So many words tried to force their way out, but it was like they were choking me, my throat a bottleneck. Thank you for making this trip perfect. I’ll miss you. I love you. But instead of saying any of them, I just nodded and said, “Okay. Soon.”
The Uber driver honked, waving through the windshield to hurry me up. I stepped back from Guy, forcing myself to walk away. “Oh! Your toque,” I said, yanking it off to pass it to him, but he shook his head.
“You keep it. Looks better on you anyway.”
I would never need it in California, but I hugged it to my chest anyway. I needed every piece of him I could get.
As soon as the car had rounded the first turn and Guy disappeared from my life, I finally let the tears fall.
In fact, I bawled the entire way to the airport, through baggage check-in, security, and boarding.
The woman seated next to me on the plane passed me a tissue, and I forced myself to calm down and take a deep breath.
We’d promised to stay in touch, but that was just what people said to people they met on holidays. I was just a fun distraction for him, a convenient bedwarmer. Guy would probably forget about me in no time, once real life had taken the shine off.
I rubbed at the hollow sensation that was expanding in my chest. I had a feeling I wouldn’t recover so easily.