Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
WRAP, WORRY, REPEAT
Annette
“ B
ut you like him, right?” Reese asks as she works alongside me at my kitchen table, wrapping presents, as we’ve been doing since I got home from work.
“ I do!” I pick up Spark and she gives me kisses until I give her neck a good scratch. I hadn’t wanted a dog. But then Dylan and Reese got me this sweetheart for my birthday this year to give me back “the spark” I’d lost—which is how she got her name—and I’ve been a devoted dog mom ever since.
I let out a breath. “ It’s just that I worry he’s purposely hiding things. And I’m not talking about something like secretly needing to sleep with a fluffy eye mask, or loving polka music, or obsessing over reality dating shows. Those kinds of secrets are fine. I mean, I’m not in a hurry to tell him that I have an irrational fear of pigeons.”
“ Pigeons ?”
“ It’s a thing. I’m talking about something big. Which is weird because he seems like the kind of guy who’d head back into the grocery store if he was putting his bags into his trunk and realized he didn’t pay for a candy bar. So it doesn’t make sense, but I don’t know. It kind of freaks me out. Especially after—” Thankfully , I stop myself before finishing. I’ve been careful not to say anything bad to my kids about their dad because I don’t want to sabotage their relationship with him.
But then Reese finishes for me. “—all of the stuff that Dad always hid?”
I look at her, shocked.
“ Mom , I know. I mean, you’re not the only one he hid stuff from.” I must still be looking shocked because she adds, “ What ? Like I was supposed to believe he didn’t show up to my school plays because of a ‘work emergency’ that magically happened every spring on the night of my performance?”
“ I’m so sorry, honey,” I say as I put my little pup back on the floor.
“ Mom , we’re talking about you and Hammy . Not me and Dad .”
I take a deep breath and pull out the next present to be wrapped. “ Okay , then, yes, because of that, it freaks me out. But the strange thing is, I’m not really freaked out while I’m with Hammy . I think because I have so much fun with him and enjoy his company. It’s when we’re not together that it gets in my head.”
I turn the present over on the wrapping paper, measure how much I need, and then start to cut. “ But I don’t think that having Fun Annette ‘come in from the cold’—don’t ask—is a good enough reason by itself to continue dating him. I’ve never been interested in dating just for fun.”
“ And you don’t think you like him enough for it to be more than ‘just for fun’?”
I rub the side of my hand on my forehead before sighing. “ No . I think I like him enough for it to be everything . That’s what scares me.”
Reese’s face lights up at my admission. Before she gets too excited, I bring up my other worry. “ Plus , there’s our age gap to think about.”
Reese nods. “ Mackenzie thinks he’s sixty-four. Twelve years is a pretty big gap.”
“ If I was younger, I might not think it was. But work is important to me.”
Reese gives me a sly smile. “ As it is to all driven workaholics.”
I toss Reese a look. “ It’s not just me. I get the sense that Hammy’s a ‘driven workaholic,’ too. But if he’s sixty-four, he’ll likely want to retire soon. I’m still fifteen years from considering that! If he retired and I kept working for that many years, we’d be living different lives with different goals. Maybe if we’d been married for decades already, our relationship could handle it. But for a new relationship? I can’t see that working.”
“ So , are you thinking of ending things?”
“ No . I don’t know. Yes . Not because of the age gap— Hammy is a hidden gem and worth it, you know? But …after your dad,” I say carefully, “ I swore I’d never date someone who isn’t truthful. If nothing else, I have to keep that promise to myself.”
I give myself a nod. I have to stay strong. I can be strong in this.
My watch buzzes with a text, so I glance down and then look at Reese with wide eyes. “ It’s Hammy —he wants to come over. He really needs to talk to me about something.” I respond with Yes . I want to talk to you about something, also. Tonight is as good as any to put the brakes on our relationship.
Worries start to worm their way in and I look at Reese , who’s in the middle of wrapping a ribbon around a present. “ Do you think he’s going to tell me that he has another family somewhere?”
Then , I pace as panic sets in, and my brain runs through scenario after scenario of what he might tell me. “ Maybe he was a rock star in his twenties and he’s coming to tell me that they’re getting the band back together and he’s about to leave on an extended tour. Or he’s an extreme prepper with an underground bunker packed with twenty years' worth of powdered potatoes and wants me to wait out the end of civilization with him.
“ Oh ! Maybe he’s in witness protection because he was a mob boss who informed on his fellow mobsters so he could settle down after a life of crime.” Why am I stressing over this crazy list of scenarios? If I’m going to end things, none of it matters.
Reese starts laughing. “ Oh my gosh, Mom ! I’ve never seen you like this before! Say what you want, but I think this means you really like him.”
I stop pacing, let out a long, slow breath, and try to calm my heart rate, especially because Spark is getting rather concerned—and a little tired from pacing back and forth with me. “ I know. I’m hopeless.”
“ Hopelessly in looooove,” Reese sings like she’s thirteen and she’s teasing her brother about his first date.
I playfully swat at her with some ribbon. “ It wouldn’t matter. I can’t be with someone who is hiding big things. Now get. He’s on his way over right now.”
Reese walks to the entryway and grabs her coat from the rack and her keys from the side table. “ Okay , but I want an update the minute Hammy leaves. I don’t care how late it is.”
“ I am not calling you the minute he leaves.”
“ No , seriously. Treat it like when I was a teenager and going out— I had to tell you about every date the moment I got home, even if you were already asleep.”
I put my hands on my hips. “ I believe I’m the mom here.”
Reese pauses with one hand on the doorknob. “ And if you wait until morning to report in, I’m going to assume he slept over,” she says in that same singsong voice.
“ Reese !”
“ I’m out,” she says as she opens the door. Just before she closes it behind her, she says, “ Call me!”
I shake my head. Kids .