Tyler blinked, certain he’d misheard. “What?”
“I keep waiting for Jamie to settle down with a nice man and have babies of his own, but in the meantime, we would be happy to watch Rowan.”
Sandra nodded with a fond smile on her face. “Hockey keeps him too busy most of the year, and he’s gotten it in his head that no man will stick around for a guy who’s practically married to his job.”
Tyler’s brain did a little stutter step.So Jamie was a queer professional athlete with soft blonde curls and a slutty mustache. That was…Fuck.
There was no time for that.
What these two women were offering him? It was beyond comprehension. Saying yes to something like this, from strangers? They were strangers, and yet they’d asked Rowan about his sloth.They’d looked him in the eye and engaged with him like they really cared.
And they’d even asked Tyler before offering Rowan a snack.
“What would you charge?” He asked. “For watching Rowan?”
Sandra shook her head. “Nothing. Really, it would be a gift to us.”
“Can I think about it?”
The two women nodded. “Of course. We’ll hold out on posting the apartment for a few days while you decide.”
Tyler thanked them both for the tour, the tea, and the snacks. As he buckled Rowan into his carseat, he looked back over his shoulder at the big, blue house.
It was so easy to imagine it being their home.
He’d pulled out onto the road when his phone buzzed in the cup holder. He glanced down.Mom.
Ignoring the tightness in his chest, Tyler answered, putting the phone on speaker.
“Hey, Mom,” he said.
“Hi, darling,” she responded, her voice full of love and home. “What are you up to today?”
“Mimi?” Rowan called out from the back seat. “Papa, is that Mimi?”
“Rowan, sweetie!” Tyler could hear the smile in her voice. “I miss you so much, bug. Both of you.”
“Where’s Pop Pop?”
Tyler loved Rowan’s name for his dad. It was the same name his sister’s kids used, and fit his thin, sweater-wearing dad to a T.
“Pop Pop is taking the dogs for a walk with Marley and Hazel,” Tyler’s mom said, mentioning two of his sister’s three kids. “Sebby is napping, so I’m getting some cleaning done and thought I’d give you two a call.” Tyler heard the unmistakable sound of water running in the background. Probably the lunch dishes, he thought. “We miss you, you know. I know you felt like you needed to go, but–”
“Mom,” Tyler cut in. They’d had this conversation over and over again, both before and after he’d left Vermont.
His parents were loving, generous people who loved being grandparents. Tyler wouldn’t have survived with a newborn without their support.
But as he’d come out of the haze of learning how to parent an infant, Tyler had come to realize just how much his parents did. Not only for him and Rowan, but for his sister and her three kids. She worked as a pharmacist in a rural hospital, and her husband was a fireman. Between the two of them, they worked long hours and relied heavily on their parents for childcare.
In addition, his parents ran a small bed and breakfast just down the hill from Stratton Mountain Ski Resort, which required constant upkeep. Asking them to take care of Rowan on top of everything else felt like too much.
Tyler had a degree in creative writing, and work experience ranging from coffee shops to a lucrative job as a stripper he’d had during his last two years of college.
Other than helping out at the bed and breakfast, he hadn’t been able to find steady work.
On top of that, he hadn’t been able to escape the gnawing guilt that he was cheating, somehow. That living in his parents’ house, barely working, and relying on their generosity was somehow skipping out on the real work of being a dad.
So he’d left. Packed up his Subaru with trash bags full of their things, in spite of his mother’s insistence that they stay. She’d pleaded with him, reassuring him how caring for her four grandchildren was all she’d ever wanted, but still, Tyler felt like he needed to go.
