Page 11 of A Very Oceanport Christmas
Besides, he looked happy as he started singing along to the lyrics--if what he did with his mouth could be called singing. He was horribly off-key. For the sake of the little one in his belly, I hoped he never planned to sing lullabies to the baby.
"What are you smiling at?" Sam asked.
"Nothing," I lied instead of telling my best friend that the mental image of him with a newborn in his arms did funny things to me.
4
Sam
My cell phone rang as we entered the home decor store within the mall. It wasn't the first time that day either. I had several missed calls from both Paps and Dad, from this morning and late last night. Knowing I couldn't ignore my parents indefinitely, I hung back near the entrance of the store and picked up. "Hi," I said, and then I took a deep breath, steeling myself. The air smelled like peppermint. Probably something they sprayed around here to get people in a buying mood, but it helped.
"Sam?" It was Paps's voice. Thank God. I wasn't looking to get into another shouting match with Dad right now. "Where are you?"
"At the mall," I said matter-of-factly. "I'm sorry I haven't called, I just... I figured we could all use some time to cool down. I spent the night at David's."
"You could have at least let us know where you were," Paps admonished.
"You don't have to worry about me."
"We'll always worry about you. Maybe you'll understand when the baby's born."
"Maybe." I let my gaze follow David through the store as he studied a display of Christmas lights, only half my attention on the conversation with my paps. It wasn't a large store, sandwiched between a used game store and a perfume store in the back of the second floor of the mall, far away from where everyone was flocking to take their kids to see Santa. There was only one shopkeeper, a girl my age who was hurriedly going back and forth between aisles to stock products. She kept glancing back at the till as if someone might suddenly be there waiting for her to ring them up even though there were hardly any customers about.
"What are you doing at the mall?" Paps asked. "If you need things for the baby, I'm sure we can ask around to get some things that people are no longer using. I'm sure Mark and Ben will have a bunch of clothes left over from the twins and--"
"We're shopping for Christmas decorations," I cut in, because I didn't even want to think about all that stuff yet, even though Paps was right. I was going to needa lotof things. My stomach churned. Maybe I should take a look around while I was here. Just to get an idea of what I was going to want and how much it was going to cost.
"Christmas decorations?" Paps asked as if he'd completely forgotten that we were mere weeks away from the holiday.
"We're going to decorate the ice cream parlor," I explained.
"I see..." Paps said in that tone of voice he had when he thought he was on to one of my plans, even though I wasn't plotting anything. "Will you be staying with David tonight as well or are you coming home?"
Good question. I hadn't actually thought about it. "I don't know yet."
"Well, just let us know when you do, okay? Your dad and I would like to see you again before the baby is born."
"You will! I'm basically right across the street." I glanced toward David again, who was studying a couple of colorful ornaments that hung off the branches of a fake Christmas tree, a forlorn look on his face. "I gotta go," I said into the phone. "Talk later, okay?" And with that, I ended the call before my paps could protest. Rude, I know, but I didn't want to let David do all the shopping by himself when I'd come here to help him.
David's gaze flickered to me as I approached. "We used to have one just like this," he said, pointing at one of the ornaments of the tree. It was a fragile-looking figure of a reindeer. Painted ceramic. "I accidentally broke it when I was a kid," David said before I could ask. "My mom loved that thing. I thought I was gonna be in so much trouble." He laughed, even though his lips never turned up into a smile. "She didn't scold me, though, she just looked a little sad, so I drew her a picture of many reindeer to make up for it. She told me the picture was better than the figure had ever been. I doubt that's true. I was not an amazing artist at five years old." David kept his eyes on the ornament, but I could tell, in his mind, he was a million miles away.
"Do you want to get it?" I asked.
"What?"
"The reindeer. You wanna buy it?"
"Nah, it's fine." David straightened. "Sorry for zoning out on you."
"It's all right. I get that you miss your mom. She was amazing." She really had been. At least, she'd always saved some of my favorite ice cream for me, even on the hottest day of summer when the ice cream parlor was so busy that they were running out of everything. That qualified as amazing, didn't it? And she'd raised David too, and David was pretty great. Without thinking about it, I rested a hand on my belly, knowing that I'd be lucky if I turned out to be half as good at parenting.
"It's just not gonna help anything," David said. "C'mon, let's get this over with." He walked deeper into the store, and I followed.
* * *
We leftthe store with four huge bags full of various decorations. Lights, garlands, ornaments, candles that smelled like gingerbread...
"Let me carry that." David tried to grab one of the bags I was holding, even though he was already carrying his share.
