In truth, she hadn’t liked the idea that her son had never been to her new home. It just didn’t feel right. Jeremy was sucha huge part of her life, and she didn’t feel one hundred percent at home in a place that held no memories of her son.
“I knew you would want me there, Mom,” Jeremy said, and the confidence in his voice made her feel good. She wanted to be the kind of mother who made her kid trust in her love and loyalty without question or hesitation. “I just meant… is Uncle Shane still staying in your guest room?”
Oh, that made sense. Shane had been staying with Eleanor for a few months, first for several weeks of vacation that had turned into a permanent relocation. He had briefly taken a trip back to San Francisco to retrieve his things, and had, about two weeks ago, finally moved into a small house that, to Shane’s delight, was only a few blocks away from Winnie.
“No, he closed on his new house a few weeks ago,” Eleanor said. “He has zero decorations and about three pieces of furniture, but he is officially not here any longer. So the room is all yours as long as you want it.”
“That sounds great,” he said. “But just to warn you in advance, you’re not going to be able to convince me to stay forever, I’m afraid. There aren’t any colleges in Magnolia Shore, are there?”
“Boston isn’t that far away,” she said… but she was teasing, and they both knew it. She didn’t want to distract her son from spreading his wings and charting his own course, not to mix her metaphors.
“Nice try,” he joked. “Well, I know this is your book club night, so I’ll let you go. I don’t have the details quite yet, anyway. I just had the idea and wanted to share it with you, since I thought it would make you happy.”
“Youmake me happy,” Eleanor said, which was true in more ways than she could count. It touched her though, that her son both knew her scheduleandthought about her happiness.
There were a lot of things she could say about her marriage with Brian that were less than complimentary. They hadn’t made time for one another for a lot of years. She had put a lot of herself on the back burner to support Brian’s career. They hadn’t reallycommunicated.
But they’d done a pretty darn good job raising their son.
“Aww, Mom,” Jeremy said, adopting a whiny teenager’s tone for a moment. “Don’t embarrass me!”
“Nice try,” she said, shaking her head. “You didn’t even talk to me like that when you were in your most difficult teen stage.”
“Yeah, that’s because you weren’t embarrassing,” he said. “You were a cool mom.”
She laughed. “I already said yes to you visiting. You don’t need to flatter me.”
He seemed unrepentant about his teasing. “Love you, Mom.”
Eleanor assured him that she loved him very much, as well, and then the two hung up. A glance at her watch told her that the call had put her a little bit behind schedule for book club preparation. She didn’t regret it, obviously, but she did need to hustle.
She was quickly checking to make sure that she had enough wine glasses set out at the discussion table when the first pangs of concern hit her.
What if her son didn’t think her new life was as wonderful as Eleanor did?
Most of it didn’t worry her. Jeremy would be happy about her close-knit group of friends, and he had inherited his reader genes from Eleanor, so he would love the bookstore.
But…
Jeremy had grown up with his parents together. He had been off to college by the time that Eleanor and Brian had split up. Indeed, one of the main reasons that Eleanor had feltempowered to move away from Indianapolis and start a new life had been because her son was already out of the house.
How would he react to her life separate from that of his father? She’d even gone back to using her maiden name. Would Jeremy feel like that was a rejection, since they didn’t have the same last name any longer?
And, most of all, she worried what he would think about Garrett. In the absence of all other considerations, Eleanor thought that her boyfriend and her son would probably get along. But even grown up, mature kids were allowed to have feelings about their parents getting divorced, and Jeremy had been so understanding this past year that Eleanor figured he was overdue for an emotional reaction.
Once she started worrying, she found that she couldn’t stop.
Because there was Garrett’s perspective to consider too. He only knew the post-divorce version of Eleanor, not the part of her that had parented a child. It was all part of her, but she felt suddenly vulnerable about showing that part to the man she loved. What would happen if Garrett and Jeremy didn’t get along?
She still didn’t have an answer for that question when her friends started filtering in for that night’s meeting. Eleanor pushed her worries away, since she wasn’t ready to discuss them yet. She preferred to think through this a little more before she tried to put it into words, not that she doubted her friends’ ability to comfort her.
She just wanted to know whatshethought before seeking others’ input.
The bookstore hummed with cheerful conversation as Eleanor’s friends trickled in. Miriam arrived first, bringing with her a few bottles of wine and a box of chocolates that she’d purchased from a new candy store that had opened a few townsaway. Eleanor oohed over the selection, as did Diana, who arrived only a few minutes after Miriam.
“Oh, man, these make my contributions look like garbage,” Diana moaned around a mouthful of chocolate.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Eleanor scoffed as she plated Diana’s snack, which was pretzel twists drizzled with chocolate and sprinkled with flecks of freeze-dried raspberries. “These look incredible.”
