Page 16 of Below the Far Horizon
“Anyway, he’s coming over for lunch, and he’s bringing his slow-cooker pepper jack cauliflower. I was hoping that we could make sandwiches to go along with it.” Her mother looked a little bit ashamed. “You. I was hoping thatyoucould make sandwiches. I can get up, but I’m not supposed to be on my feet that long.”
“And I wouldn’t want you to be. Of course I can make sandwichesfor your…boyfriend.” She stumbled over the word “boyfriend.” Stumbled badly.
Her mother with a boyfriend?
But wasn’t she just thinking yesterday that she wanted her to have someone? She didn’t want her mother spending the rest of her life alone. Of course she didn’t. But…this was shocking. She supposed she hadn’t put enough thought into how that was actually going to feel. How it was going to look. How it was going to affect her. Her mother…with a boyfriend. That sounded so…weird.
“You’re going to love him. And maybe you should make a couple of extra sandwiches because his son is moving in with him, and he might be coming along for lunch.”
“His son? Do I know him?”
“Oh, I don’t know. When they get here, you’ll figure out whether you do or not.”
That sounded odd. Why didn’t her mom just tell her whether she knew him or not? Which would mean whether or not they grew up in Raspberry Ridge. If they lived there, Grace knew them. It was as simple as that. Unless they’d moved in after she moved out. But Raspberry Ridge was a kind of town where everyone knew everyone else.
Her mother was acting strange for sure.
Maybe she was a little bit embarrassed because she had a boyfriend. A boyfriend, her mother. It was so…strange.
She went to the kitchen and put the sandwiches together, shaking her head and trying to process the idea of her mother with someone the whole time. She tried to focus on whether she should cut them in some kind of fancy way, or whether this was just a casual lunch with her…boyfriend. Her mother had gone into the bathroom, and it occurred to Grace that she might be fixing her hair and making herself look cute for her…boyfriend. Wow, as much as she was happy for Mom, and excited too, it was such a weird thing. Her mom with a boyfriend.
Once her mom came out of the bathroom, she would demand to know who they were. After all, she might want to skip out. There weren’t a whole lot of people in town that she didn’t get along with, but…no one was coming to mind that she wouldn’t want to eat lunch with, except Trevor.
And that wasn’t because she didn’t like him. It was because…why? She felt uncomfortable? He brought back memories she would rather not think about? Or was she afraid that her feelings for him had never really died? That if she spent too much time around him, she’d end up chasing him and begging him to take her back?
She’d apologized for what she’d done to him. She could at least think of that and be somewhat happy, even though she was greatly ashamed at the way that she treated him.
She could have, and should have, done a lot better by him.
“What time are they—” She didn’t get the question out before there was a knock on the door.
She put the last sandwich down on a tray and left it on the kitchen counter before she walked into the living room to answer the door.
She almost closed the door the second she opened it. Trevor and his dad stood there looking at her. Trevor looked distinctly uncomfortable.
“You’re my mom’s new boyfriend?”
“New?” Trevor said before his dad could utter a word. He looked at his dad. “You told me you guys have been together for a while.”
“Well, it’s kind of ambiguous. When you get to be our age, I think new can also mean a while.”
Grace narrowed her eyes. “My mom said this was new.”
“It is,” Don said, nodding his head, as though the faster he nodded, the more true his statement became.
“But you told me a while.”
“That’s right,” Gita said from behind Grace.
Grace narrowed her eyes even further. “Is your father dealing with Alzheimer’s?” she asked, lifting her brows at Trevor. It seemed that Don and Gita couldn’t get their story straight, and one of them could be dealing with the mental issues that came with age.
“I’m perfectly fine.”
“He’s perfectly fine,” Gita said.
Meanwhile, Trevor shrugged his shoulders. “He could be. This has been…very sudden.” He closed his mouth, and then he said under his breath, “To say the least.”
“We just didn’t want to tell everyone right away,” Gita said, walking forward and hugging Don, who, unless Grace missed herguess, looked surprised and then excited. He enthusiastically hugged her back.
