I loved everything about the house. I loved the smells, the good quality furniture that was worn… but in the best way. The photos on all surfaces, documenting the life that seemed so full of love.
I envied it, but I also ached to replicate it. To start that kind of life with Rowan.
“Nora?”
I blinked at Jill who was standing in front of me with a wrapped box.
“This is for you, honey.”
I stared at the box, wrapped expertly, with a bright red bow.
“Me?”
She nodded, smiling warmly.
I took it from her, holding it in my lap awkwardly.
“Rip it open,” Calliope called from across the room.
Rowan’s hand found the back of my neck and gave it a squeeze.
“But it’s wrapped so beautifully.” I ran my hand across the smooth paper.
“Which only makes it more fun to rip open, don’t you think?” Jill’s eyes twinkled mischievously.
I tore the paper to reveal a silver box, one that looked antique with intricate designs carved into it.
It was heavy, solid and seemed one of a kind.
“It’s lovely,” I told Jill sincerely.
“Oh, the box is nice, but it’s what’s inside that counts.”
Inside the box were tabs of paper with recipes written in a sloping script.
“My grandmother was a baker,” Jill explained as I leafed through the sections. “Neither of these two are interested in baking.” She nodded to her daughters.
“We’re interested in baking,” Calliope argued.
“Eating it doesn’t count,” Jill returned.
Calliope shrugged and returned to the cookies she was eating.
Me, I only half heard this. There was a staticky ringing in my ears.
“I know it may be a bit old fashioned,” Jill said to me.
I shook my head quickly, both to respond and to try to shake away my tears. “It’s the most special gift I’ve ever gotten,” I whispered, unable to speak louder.
I cleared my throat and looked up at her. “I don’t come from a family where precious things are passed down.”
“Now you do,” she countered with a warm smile.
Now I did.
As if it were that simple.
And maybe it was.
Conversation resumed easily once we sat down for dessert, everyone singing my praises over the variety of things I’d made. I might’ve gone just a little overboard.
“It’s good your bakery is hundreds of miles away,” Kendra rubbed her belly. “Otherwise, I’d be in trouble.”
“I still don’t like that you’re so far from us,” Jill grumbled, her brows furrowed.
“Mom, we’re less than three hours away,” Rowan returned, hand still on my thigh. He was eating his cake one handed, as he had with dinner too.
“Well, you could’ve just stayed here, taken over your father’s business so the man could retire,” she argued.
Rowan chuckled. “Mom, you know the day Dad retires is the day hell freezes over.”
Jill rolled her eyes. “Nonsense. Your father deserves to spend his twilight years doing whatever he wants.”
“What he wants is to continue working,” Rowan’s father cut in. “You know I’d drive you fucking mad if I was here full-time. You wouldn’t be ready for all that extra energy I’d have to direct elsewhere,” he waggled his brows.
Jill peered at him over her wineglass. “Oh, you think that, do you? Try me.”
Calliope groaned. “Can we not have Mom propositioning Dad in the middle of Christmas dinner? Just once?”
“Oh, be happy that your mother and father have a healthy sex life,” Jill told her.
“I am happy,” Calliope retorted. “I just don’t want to have to hear it all the fucking time.”
I swallowed my smile as they continued bickering good-naturedly.
Conversation flowed easily and in different directions. Sometimes the whole table was involved, sometimes it split off into sections. No subject seemed to be off-limits or awkward. This was a family that was comfortable with everything.
“Oh my god,” Calliope gasped with her mouth full of my lemon meringue pie. “If my brother doesn’t marry you, I will.”
I grinned at her, my cheeks warming at the praise that had also been uttered in similar ways by the rest of the family.
“Nora, you are supremely talented,” Jill gushed, her plate clear and helping herself to my hot chocolate cake. “Your bakery is just what we need here in our town.”
Rowan stiffened slightly beside me. “Mom,” he said, tone warm, but there was an edge of warning.
“What?” she asked innocently. “I’m just saying that there is potential for her business to do wonderfully here, and that would also mean you’d both be closer, so when you have kids, I’m right around the corner to help.”
The possibility of Rowan and I having kids was something we hadn’t spoken about since the birth control conversation, but a topic that I’d been thinking of more and more. Especially while seated around this table.
“When we have kids, you’ll be driving to Jupiter every damn weekend with or without my permission, and you know it,” Rowan replied, not at all perturbed about discussing our future family in front of his own.