Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Aaron
I walk back to my truck, ice crystals crunching under my feet, my shoulders hunched against the cold.
It’s been unseasonably warm this year, so I didn’t wear a jacket when I picked up Colin from school and then took him to his mom’s, which is about twenty minutes from town, though it’s not as far from my place on the outskirts.
The weather turned after I left home this afternoon, though, and the temperature dropped rapidly into the upper twenties.
It’s a surprise when it’s barely dipped below freezing yet this season.
It’s about time. It doesn’t feel like Christmas if it doesn’t snow. Snow means more people at the Christmas tree farm. They like it when it looks like they belong in a snow globe—flakes drifting gently from the sky to settle on the fir and spruce trees growing on my property.
Most tree farms I’ve seen grow their trees in neat, orderly rows, just like a corn farm.
But Dad didn’t like that. He said people prefer to feel like they’re walking into a forest to pick out their perfect tree.
Even if the “forest” is maintained by humans who plant replacements every year and less than a five minute walk from their cars.
Ply them with hot cocoa, cookies, and popcorn, and it’s the postcard-perfect Christmas outing.
Last year, business didn’t pick up until about a week and a half after Thanksgiving, but it was the earliest Thanksgiving could land.
This year we’ve been doing steady business since that first weekend we were open.
I probably should’ve headed home to help out instead of going to the bar, but with the end of the year workload for my accounting clients, the time off last week for Thanksgiving, the upcoming long school break that’ll make working difficult—except Colin will be at his mom’s a lot more this Christmas.
I guess that’ll make it easier to focus on the stragglers getting their tree at the last minute.
The week of Christmas isn’t usually our busiest—that’s the first two weeks of December—but it’s not dead by any stretch either.
I’ve been low-key worried about how I’d handle Christmas break this year.
When Colin was still in day care, they were open every day except Christmas and New Year’s, so I could keep him there and still work my normal schedule, though I usually took a few days off in between the two holidays and kept him home with me.
I was planning on doing that again this year, but the time between school ending and Christmas Day were what I wasn’t so sure about.
My mom’s always willing to help, but she’s also helping with the tree farm, so she’s not totally free either.
But since Colin will be at his mom’s, I don’t have to worry about that, at least.
Once I’m in my truck, I head toward Amelia’s in Inglewood. She just has Colin for dinner tonight, and by the time I get there, it’ll be close enough to time to pick him up. I can drive around Inglewood for a little bit if I need to.
My thoughts inevitably replay my evening with Jenna.
I feel a little bad about how I left, just shutting down and taking off.
But I really didn’t want to get into my history with Amelia.
Especially not with Amy standing there chiming in with her interpretation of events.
Not that she didn’t have a front row seat for basically my entire relationship with Amelia leading up to Colin, I just …
That’s private.
I know there’s still judgment and stigma around the fact that I have a kid with a woman I was never even in love with, much less married to.
Hell, we were never serious about each other.
And as shitty as it sounds, I know Amelia has it worse as a woman.
Still, though, there are people in Arcadian Falls who have no qualms about commenting on how I should’ve married Colin’s mom.
The other part is that Amy’s right. I would’ve, if she’d been even remotely interested in that.
We probably would’ve ended up divorced, though, which is what Amelia had said when I brought it up after she told me she was pregnant.
And besides, there was no point from a legal standpoint.
She insisted on a paternity test during pregnancy.
She said she knew the baby was mine, but that she didn’t want me to ever have any doubts since we weren’t serious or exclusive.
And I’m listed on the birth certificate.
I went to all the prenatal appointments I could and was in the hospital while she was in labor, though I wasn’t in the birthing room since she preferred having a paid doula as a support person.
The nurse brought me in as soon as possible, though, and I got to hold Colin for the first time when he was only minutes old.
And once Amelia returned to work, he became primarily my responsibility.
As much as I never had a particularly strong desire to have children of my own, that little guy grabbed onto my heart from the moment I first held him and never let go.
I couldn’t imagine my life without him now.
We’re an odd family, Colin, Amelia, my mom, and me. But we make it work. We all love Colin, and that’s what counts the most.
While I don’t mind relating the facts of my reality—I’m the primary parent with an amicable relationship with the mother of my child and my mom helps out a lot—getting into the emotional turmoil of the time around Colin’s birth, the reasons why Amelia and I never tried to become something more, and in fact, downgraded our relationship to something more akin to a cordial business relationship to avoid even the possibility of anyone’s feelings getting confused.
Sure, Jenna spilled her guts to me—at least a little. It’s different for her, though. None of that happened here in front of everyone she’s known her whole life while her dad was dying and she was coming to grips with taking over the family business while being watched like a fish in a bowl.
So, yeah, I’m a little extra private, a little extra protective of myself and my son.
And it’s not like we were on a date or something where similar levels of sharing are expected.
And who dissects old relationships for public consumption on a date anyway?
I may not have dated in the last six-ish years, but even I know that’s not done.
Because it wasn’t a date. We just bumped into each other at the bar and started chatting.
Both of us clearly needing to unwind a bit after a long week.
It’s the first week of the Christmas season, which is the most frenzied time of year here.
Sure, the summer’s busy too, but it’s a totally different feeling.
That’s more of a constant stream of different things, whereas ChristmasFest is one sustained effort that requires all of us to contribute to make it great that lasts for four or five weeks every winter.
Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but it’s a lot of work.
I also feel a little bad that I’ve been responsible for making Jenna’s job harder, even though I still maintain she shares a significant amount of that responsibility.
All she had to do—at least for this year—was come in and keep things running how they are.
We have plans and processes in place, and the ball was well rolling when she came on board.
There was no need to change anything this time around.
This was the year to run things how they’ve always been done, get a feel for the event and the people, and then next year, she could’ve started introducing some changes.
How can she say anything is inefficient or not as good as it could be if she hasn’t even seen the event in real life?
And looking at pictures and videos from years past isn’t the same at all.
Still, though. I was perhaps more antagonistic than I needed to be.
And when she said she overheard someone calling her a Grinch, I felt really bad, especially because I might be a little responsible for that.
I know the complainers she was talking about, or at least I’m ninety-nine percent sure I do, even if she wouldn’t tell me their names.
And I’m pretty sure I said something similar to one of them when we were starting up that day.
To know she repeated it to someone else, and within earshot of Jenna …
I’m a dick. And there’s no getting around it.
I’m not sure buying her one drink makes up for the fact that she obviously feels more rejected than welcomed, which is especially shitty when Mara Daniels gave us all a lecture before she started about how we need to make her feel like she’s as important to the success of this event as she really is.
Without someone coordinating everything, we’d all be sunk.
But what can I do to turn that around now?
Nothing immediately comes to mind. I mean, there’s the obvious option of just being nicer to her going forward, but I feel like I’ve already started on that path.
It doesn’t really make up for the last few months, though, does it?
And the more I think back, the more I realize I was a giant asshole to her about the potted trees.
Not just the ones she called me about because they weren’t doing well, but the whole idea from the time she suggested it.
The fact that no one else objected, and in fact Jake Daniels even said, “Why do you sell potted trees for people to use indoors if you’re trying to tell us that live trees shouldn’t be indoors?
” should’ve made me shut up and quit bitching about it.
That question combined with everyone else echoing it made me agree just to shut them up.
But I was still pissy about it the whole time.