Page 32 of A Very Oceanport Christmas
Neither David nor his dad were in any mood to celebrate Christmas. No wonder they hadn't fully prepared the store until I'd pushed. But had I pushed too hard? What if I was stirring up all sorts of bittersweet memories by trying to help? "Maybe I need to step back and let them do things at their own pace."
I didn't realize that I'd said that last part out loud until Dad responded. "You can be a little pushy," he said with a small smile. "You get that from me."
"Thanks."
"I don't think David minds," Dad added. "Just be yourself. That's who he fell in love with."
That was surprisingly good advice, considering it came from the man who collected piggybanks in the shapes of zoo animals.
"I'll try," I said.
A few minutes later, Dad pulled into the parking lot near the yard with the tree sale. It took him a little while to find a good space to park the car. Seemed like a lot of people were picking their tree today. A couple of wooden booths selling Christmas ornaments and other trinkets had been erected around the field with the trees and people were strolling the space idly or standing together in small groups to chat. One of the booths had Christmas songs playing on a small radio, the sound tinny yet somehow cheerful at the same time. The smell of fir trees saturated the air.
"All right," Dad said. "Let's find a tree. And then after..." He looked at me again. "Maybe we can swing by a store that sells paternity clothes."
I looked down at myself. Yeah, maybe I did need new clothes. I was wearing the baggiest things my wardrobe had to offer and they weren't going to hold out for much longer. "Think we can find something with an ugly reindeer on it?" I asked. "It's the season, after all."
Dad grinned. "Absolutely. I like the way you think, son."
I grinned right back at him. We had a mission now. Once we had our tree, we would scour Oceanport for the cringiest Christmas sweater the town had to offer. Correction, the cringiest Christmas sweater the town had to offerthat I could still fit into.
What a year.
10
David
Usually I spent my days off catching up on sleep and whatever interesting show I might have missed on TV. When the weather was better, I liked to go out into the woods. A couple of times I'd even tried my hands at fishing. I enjoyed it, even though I never really caught much.
This Monday, though, I had different plans.
It was only a few days to Christmas, and I wanted to make the man I loved a special present this year.
We'd stuffed all the gifts we'd received for the baby shower into the guest room that Sam wasn't using anymore now that he slept in my bed. I let my gaze wander over them. People had been super generous. A lot of the gifts were hand-me-downs their own children had outgrown, but there was a fair number of newly bought things too.
Sam's family had always been like this, giving whatever they could whenever one of their own needed anything.
Sam was out with his parents, picking out a tree for their living room, so I decided to make use of my time alone by giving this room a fresh coat of paint. Dad had gone out to get the paint for me. He'd been amazing throughout all of this. I might not have had a large family, but the one I did have was great. He'd told me that Sam and eventually his baby could stay with us for as long as he wished. We had more room than Sam's parents did, after all, and it had been good to have Sam around to help in the parlor downstairs.
I didn't know if that was what Sam wanted, though. I could only hope.
In any case, I could make the idea more appealing to him by making this place look better.
I started by moving the gifts and the sparse furniture away from the walls and covering the floor in plastic to protect it from paint splatters.
Painting wasn't the most pleasant work in the world, but I kind of enjoyed it anyway. It didn't require a lot of thought, so I could let my mind drift, which was nice. As I applied layers of baby blue paint on the wall with each stroke of my roller, I let myself imagine the future Sam and I might have here. Going out for walks as a family with the baby in the stroller, preparing and eating meals as a family, celebrating all our future Christmases together. They were simple things, but they excited me anyway. I wasn't sure if that made me boring or basic or whatever, but I didn't care either way. I wanted to provide a good life to the man I loved and the child we were going to raise together. There was nothing wrong with that, was there?
If anyone said anything different, I would tell them to go to hell.
Time passed me by as I painted.
At some point, my dad walked into the room, examining my work so far. I'd already painted three of the walls and was halfway done with the fourth. I had no idea at all how long it had taken me, but when Dad offered me a glass of water, I took it gratefully.
"You've really made some progress here," he said approvingly.
"I want to be done by the time Sam gets back."
Dad laughed. "You want to surprise your boyfriend, I get it."
