I can’t keep my eyes from widening.
“What did you just say?”
He must not hear or care for the outrage in my voice because Joel’s too busy heading out of the room toward God knows where. In a handful of seconds, he’s returned with a huge bag.
He sets the bag on the coffee table and begins pulling out items. The first of which is a wooden carved pumpkin that’s been painted gold, followed by two more similar pumpkins, slightly smaller in size.
Joel then proceeds to pull out a few candles and their respective holders.
“I didn’t know if you’d prefer actual candles that burn or those new electric ones everybody’s in love with these days.” He grunts and rolls his eyes. “Anybody with any sense knows real candles are better than those imitation, wanna-be candles.
“Since you don’t have young children or any pets, the real candles aren’t in too much danger of being knocked over or falling from them running around.
“Thus, I chose to go with the real candles for your place. One of them is even pine-cone scented. You know, to set the ambiance. Like, in one of your vide—” He stops and clears his throat, running his hand along the back of his neck.
I can’t even process everything he’s just said as I take in the array of Thanksgiving decor he’s pulled out of this bag.
“Did you go shopping for all of this?” I finally ask.
“Most of it,” he replies while still sorting through the items and setting them out as if to display them for me.
“What about the decorations out front?” I ask, referring to the Thanksgiving display on my front porch that I discovered as I took my first venture out of the house this morning when Meghan drove me to the doctor’s.
“Most of those I had at the house. They go with what I bought. And the wreath on your front door.” He juts his head in the direction of the door.
“Which I never asked Meghan to get. Or for you to help her hang.”
Joel stands to his full height, cocking his head to the side. I would laugh at his seemingly genuine confusion at my tone, but then I glance down at the items he’s brought.
“You might as well take them right back to the store because I have zero intentions of putting them out to display.”
He frowns. “Of course you don’t,” he shocks me by saying. “You’re injured. You can’t hobble around here putting up Thanksgiving pumpkins.”
Sighing, he shakes his head as if I’m the one who’s not understanding what’s happening here.
“But, well …” He looks over his shoulder back at the kitchen island. “Perfect.”
“What are you …” I trail off as I watch him saunter over to the island with the pumpkins and candles in hand.
I remain speechless as he not only wipes down the island, ridding it of any crumbs, but then proceeds to place the golden lace runner along the length of the island, before putting three of the pumpkins at the center.
He then places candles at either side of the end pumpkins, completing the holiday-themed center piece.
“What?” I gasp as he then goes over to the dining table and does the same thing with the remaining decor.
I don’t know for how long I sit there and watch him, but by the time he’s finished, both the kitchen and dining areas are dressed up and ready for the holidays.
“Perfect,” he says just under his breath. Almost as if he’s speaking to himself.
I watch his profile as he assesses his handiwork.
A sudden memory from years ago pops into my mind. It was two days before Thanksgiving and Rick’s parents were scheduled to come into town to stay with us. I had been up all night with Meghan who’d caught a nasty bout of the flu.
While she’d slept during the day, I ran around to the stores to get all of the groceries and ingredients for our Thanksgiving meal, medicine for Meghan, and new bedding for the guest room since Rick’s mother was very sensitive to the thread count she slept on.
I was exhausted by the time I got home. Yet, the house still needed to be decorated for our guests. I’d already bought the decor but just needed to put it all out.
When I asked Rick, he huffed and puffed and told me he didn’t have time for that. What did he have time for? A late afternoon golf game with some colleagues from the office.
