Chapter 16 #2
‘It’s been almost a year,’ my mom says. ‘I think that’s plenty of time.’ She gets up from her chair. ‘Hello, I’m Harriott, Mia’s mother. And that’s my husband, Walter.’
Martha shakes my mom’s hand. ‘Welcome to Haydon Falls. I’m Martha, Jason’s mom, and that’s Carl, his dad.’
‘Good to meet you.’ Carl shakes my mom’s hand, then goes around the table to shake my dad’s.
‘Sorry I can’t get up,’ my dad says. ‘Had hip surgery awhile back and I’m still taking it slow.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Carl says. ‘I had heart surgery last summer. I’m still running slower than I used to.’
‘Heart surgery, huh?’ my dad says. ‘You have a heart attack?’
Carl nods. ‘I did. Got to the hospital and had surgery a few days later.’
‘You have that surgery where they saw you open?’
‘Dad,’ I say, feeling embarrassed. He loves talking about health problems and procedures. He didn’t used to. It started when he retired and needed something to talk about. ‘Maybe Carl doesn’t want to talk about his surgery.’
‘He doesn’t mind,’ Martha says, waving her hand toward him. ‘He tells everyone about it.’
‘Why don’t we see if we could move to a larger table,’ my mom says. ‘So you all could join us.’
‘Yes, let’s do that,’ Martha says. She catches the hostess going by. ‘Ann, do you mind if we take the table in back? We’d all like to sit together.’
Ann smiles at her. ‘It’s all yours, Mrs. Kanfield. Just go ahead and go back there. I’ll get the plates.’
‘Thank you.’ Martha goes around the table. ‘Follow me.’
We all get up.
‘Guess we’re all having breakfast,’ Sawyer says, smiling at Jason.
‘Guess so.’
As everyone moves to the larger table, Jason pulls me aside. ‘You see why I didn’t want to do this?’ he whispers. ‘Now my family thinks we’re engaged.’
‘At least they seem happy about it,’ I say, trying to stay positive.
‘Mia, this is a disaster and it’s only going to get worse. Your parents are already pressuring us to get married before the baby arrives.’
‘That doesn’t mean we’re going to. I’ll talk to them. I’ll explain that we’ll be picking the wedding date, not them.’
‘What about Boston? They’re acting like we should be going there, picking out a house. Soon!’
‘I’ll talk to them about that too.’ I hold onto his arm. ‘Jason, relax. They’re just excited. Did you see how happy they were when I told them we were engaged?’
‘Your mom was. Your dad looked like he wanted to kill me.’
‘He just has to get to know you. He takes awhile to warm up to people, especially men I’m dating. We need to get back to the table.’
‘Yeah, before they have the whole damn wedding planned,’ Jason mutters.
I know he’s stressed about this, but it would’ve been even more stressful if I’d told my parents he’s the father of my baby and we aren’t even dating.
At least now they think we’re together. I haven’t yet figured out how I’ll tell them we broke up, but I’m taking this a day at a time.
I’m sure I’ll come up with something by the end of August when I move back to Boston.
‘We were just talking about your living arrangement,’ Martha says as Jason and I sit down at the table. ‘Harriott was saying Mia’s summer job can be done from anywhere.’
‘It doesn’t make sense for you to stay in Madison,’ my mom says to me. ‘You need to move here and be with Jason.’
‘Oh, no, I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ I say. ‘I already have my apartment in Madison. I don’t want to find an apartment here and sign a lease just for the summer.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ my mom says. ‘You’d live with Jason.’
‘Before I’m married? But Mom, you always said—’
‘To not live with a boy before marriage,’ she says. ‘But given the circumstances, with you two expecting a child, your father and I won’t object to you living with him.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ my dad says. ‘I still don’t think it’s right.’
My mom glances at him, then back at me. ‘Have you and Jason discussed this?’
‘Yes, and we—’
‘Agree it’s a good idea,’ Jason says.
I stare at him. What is he doing? We didn’t agree to this.
‘We haven’t moved in together yet because we didn’t want to upset anyone,’ he says, ‘but if everyone’s okay with it, then we’re good with it too.’
I’m still staring at him, but he won’t look at me.
‘Your apartment is far too small for the two of you,’ Martha says. ‘You should find something larger.’
‘They could live in the Carson house,’ Brody says.
‘That’s an excellent idea,’ Carl says. ‘It’s a house we got with some land we bought,’ he explains to my parents. ‘Martha’s nephew works construction and fixed it up last fall. It’d be perfect for them.’
‘It’s a beautiful old farmhouse,’ Martha says to my mom. ‘You’ll have to come see it.’
‘Perhaps after breakfast,’ my mom says.
They make plans to go there, insisting Jason and I go too. To our new home. The house we’ll be sharing for the summer.
Why did Jason agree to this? Did he think he had to, to make our story more believable? I don’t know why else he’d agreed to it.
This whole thing was a bad idea. The engagement was just supposed to be a little white lie to help my parents accept the pregnancy.
But now Jason’s family knows and soon the whole town will.
Whenever we go out, we’ll have to act like a couple.
What was going to just be a day or two of pretending to be engaged is now going to last the whole summer.
I really messed this up.