She had been feeling a little disappointed that she couldn’t afford to take him on a real vacation to a big amusement park or something else special to celebrate the adoption going through officially. Maybe they could take this trip and spend a few days in the country instead, if that was something Gael was actually interested in doing.
“It’s a shame to get on an airplane just for a wedding,” she said, her resolve slipping away. “Should we look and see what else there is to do in Trinity Falls?”
“Definitely,” he told her, his eyes lighting up in a way that filled her heart.
“Let’s clean up, and then we can get out my laptop and do some research,” she told him.
“What about pie?” he asked plaintively.
“I was thinking maybe dessert afterward,” she said. “Since my belly is still full of dinner. What do you think?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “Mine too. Can we put the radio on?”
“Sure,” she told him.
He scampered off to turn the radio on, instantly filling the kitchen with the sound of Andy Williams singing “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
“That’s a good one,” he said with a smile.
A little knot in Jenny’s chest unlocked at his statement. Last Christmas, he’d still been reeling afterlosing his grandmother. The two of them had spent a low-key holiday getting to know each other very slowly. Gael hadn’t really wanted to do any special Christmas stuff, and she could hardly blame him. It was good to see him excited about the holidays this year.
Jenny got to work packing up leftovers as they hummed along. There was so much extra food that she decided to freeze some of it.
“Do we have enough to have all this again?” Gael asked, looking a little sad as the food disappeared from the table.
“We sure do,” she told him. “We’ll just grab the containers out of the freezer and heat them up.”
Once they had everything packed away, she started on the dishes. Gael carefully carried everything over to her and he wiped down the table and the counters himself.
He was such a sweet boy, a real credit to his grandmother.
“Thank you so much,” she told him when he came over to dry dishes for her. “I’m so lucky that you’re such a big help in the kitchen.”
“What did you ever do without me?” he sighed, making her laugh with his perfect imitation of what she had said so many times since he came to her.
When they were finished, she grabbed her laptop and they sat at the table together, shoulder to shoulder,reading about all the things there were to do in the tiny Pennsylvania town and the surrounding area.
It turned out that there was a farm that was open to the public, plus there were all kinds of holiday activities, and Amish country was right there too.
“How long can we stay?” Gael asked. “I want to do everything.”
“Let’s see what hotel options they have,” Jenny said, biting her lip and hoping against hope that there would be an affordable motel nearby somewhere.
But it turned out that the only real place in town was a local inn that didn’t even have a website.
“Should I call?” Jenny asked.
Gael nodded, his eyes wide with curiosity as she dialed.
“Thanks for calling the Inn,” a lady’s voice said warmly. “I’m Trudy, how can I help?”
Jenny explained that they were thinking of coming for the holidays, and mentioned the wedding.
Trudy hummed to herself as she checked the dates. And it sounded to Jenny like the lady was paging through an actual handwrittenbook,and not a spreadsheet on a computer.
Once she cleared the dates, Trudy gave Jenny a nightly rate that seemed too good to be true. Jenny wasn’t sure what to say.
“That includes meals,” Trudy said, probably taking Jenny’s pause as a hesitation over the price. “But mymenu is pretty simple since I do all the cooking myself.”
