Home for the Summer- Chapter Ten

The day of my birthday, I woke up feeling bad. It was a rainy August day, which was fine by me, but it didn’t shake the feeling I held inside. Usually, my birthday didn’t make me happy, more just upset. I would realize I was getting older by the second, and feel pressured about where I should be by now. I knew girls that were already married, I knew people who owned entire businesses by now. But I was 19, and I had just lost any sense of direction I once had.

But my bad feeling could only be expressed for so long, as Gretchen and Johnny soon hopped onto my bed, tickling me awake and showing off the breakfast in bed they delivered to me. 

“We got funnel cakes from Jack’s place for tonight, all your favorite snacks…” Gretchen smiled. “Happy birthday, Summer.”

“Yeah, happy birthday you old fart.” Johnny snickered.

“I am not old!” I argued.

“Fine, you’re aging.”

“If the weather clears up we can go to the beach, but we can hang out and open gifts for now if you want.” Gretchen explained. “I’m kinda glad it’s raining, I’m not feeling too great.”

“Do you need anything?” I sat up, finally standing to take my breakfast from the bureau.

“No, I’m fine. It’s your day.” She smiled and went on her way, likely to the bathroom. Johnny stayed though.

“She’s been nothing but weird since she was crying all day.”

“I know. I think she’s finally coping with it all… she bottled it all until she couldn’t, and that day was when she just couldn’t take it anymore.” I kept my voice hushed – she didn’t need to hear my commentary on her emotion. “And I think my thing with Jack only reminds her more.”

“Maybe it does. But she wants you to be happy, I know she does.”

“I can’t be happy if it’s hurting her.”

“Something tells me it’s not that that’s hurting her.”

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t know.”

I bit into a chocolate waffle, taking the coffee Gretchen had brewed for me and walking to go sit on the porch. I liked listening to the rain there, feeling the earth grow cool and calm around me.

I remembered my birthday last year. It was pretty tearful, as I was leaving for college that day. It wasn’t hard to recall Gretchen’s tears as she drove me to the airport, and what was once my last hug from Johnny. I wished I didn’t remember. This year the departure date was in another week.

“Morning, birthday girl.” Jack walked up to our sidewalk, coming closer to the door and taking down the hood of his raincoat.

“Good morning.” 

He took a seat in the chair next to me. “I have a gift for you.”

“I don’t feel like opening anything.”

“I can open it for you… if that’s what it really is. Which I doubt.”

“I’m just not feeling anything today.”

“That’s alright.”

It took a while for either of us to come around and hold a conversation. I think he could sense I wasn’t feeling up to it, and he didn’t want to push me too much. After maybe 20 minutes of enjoying the silence, Gretchen came out to find me.

“Oh, Jack, you’re here!” Gretchen exclaimed. “You guys should both come inside!”

“I’m good here.” I replied nonchalantly.

“You’ll catch a cold – get inside.”

So I went inside, closely followed by Jack, as Gretchen led me to the kitchen island, where there were an array of gifts.

“Seriously, I told you guys not to bother.” I rolled my eyes, still smiling because I was thankful.

“You don’t just have a birthday and not get anything.” Johnny rounded the corner to join us in the kitchen.

I sat on a stool, opening the first one, which was from Johnny. I unwrapped the brown paper package to reveal a picture frame. What was funny about it was that I had taken the photo, and the photo was not of our family or anything – it was just Jack. Jack, that night at the Beachwood, where he saved Gretchen from falling off a countertop and didn’t manage to fall in love with her. 

“That picture of me is ridiculous,” Jack claimed, playfully taking it from my hands, “I don’t know why you even took it.”

“I wanted a reference. To paint you off of.”

“Did it turn out well?”

“It ended up as just a sketch.” I turned my attention toward Johnny. “Thank you. I mean, no thank you for stealing the photo from my collection but thank you. It was very thoughtful.”

“You’re welcome. Now you can keep it on your bedside table.”

I knew he was referring to how Gretchen kept a photo of Sam on her bedside table, which was a sweet sentiment, but I wasn’t like that. I didn’t need to be reminded of Jack all the time, especially when I went away to college again. I had enough of that in my head already.

“Do mine next, Summer.” Gretchen seemed a bit more excited than she should have been. But I obeyed her request, taking the blue bag with my name on it from the line and reaching inside it blindly.

My hands felt at a warm fabric, pulling up what I quickly discovered to be a sweatshirt. It was folded in such a way that you could see it had a design on it, but you couldn’t tell what it was.

When I pulled back the sleeves, I could see what it said – it read “Star’s Ranch” in the normal sweatshirt font. I didn’t get what she was trying to do or say by it. She was usually a great gift giver.

“Congratulations.” Gretchen said.

“What?”

“Congratulations. You aren’t going back to California. You’re going to college here.”

I think to anybody else that would have been bad news. But to me, that was just what I had hoped for. I leaped up from my seat, getting her in a hug more aggressively than I had intended.

“Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome.” She sighed. “I got you one more thing too, but it’s not quite so exciting.”

I took the blue box that had been next to the bag. I genuinely had no idea what it could be – the box was small and everybody knew I wasn’t really into jewelry or anything. I also hadn’t wanted anything small enough to fit in that box.

But I opened it anyway, taking the lid off to reveal what looked like a medical bill. I was kind of nervous before I looked closer at it. Gretchen was pregnant.

It was then that all the pieces fit together. Now it made sense why she had been so upset the other day, why she had been up so early and why she had been so off. It even made sense that she was associating with all those bad guys. But it was still unbelievable.

“You’re joking.” I scoffed.

“I’m not.”

“But how-”

“Doesn’t matter.”

I hugged her tight again, now even happier that I was able to stay at home. I wanted to be here for my family even more now, for my new little niece or nephew.

“Go on, show your brother and Jack.” Gretchen continued, passing the paper to both of them.

“Wow!” Johnny jumped probably a foot in the air. “I’m gonna be an uncle!”

It was so crazy to me that I hadn’t figured it out. And while I was concerned about things – like who the baby’s father was – I knew that if Gretchen didn’t mind however it happened, then I shouldn’t either. I knew how heartbroken she was when Sam died, how she felt she could never love again, and how she never thought she’d have a child. Her greatest skill was home-making, and her nest would be empty soon if it weren’t for this.

Gretchen also knew the perfect time to break out funnel cake. She pulled a tray of four or five out of the oven that she had been warming up – that explained the sweet smell invading my nose – and we all rushed for the opportunity to have one. Well, Jack didn’t, but that made sense since he probably helped to make them.

I took one on a plate and dumped a lot of powdered sugar on top of it before going out to the back porch. It had stopped raining now, but it was still gray and chilly enough for a sweatshirt.

“I didn’t know you enjoyed sitting on your porch so much. I would have gotten you a rocking chair or something.” Jack cracked himself up but only a little – I laughed too – as he joined me on the porch swing I sat on.

He passed me a new sketchbook and a pack of film without so much as a glance.

“Jack-”

“I know it isn’t much, but you aren’t quite easy to shop for.” He smiled at his lap.

“Thank you.”

“And I know my gift isn’t quite as good as finding out you get to stay back from college, or that your sister is pregnant, but I thought it would do.”

“No, it’s just as good.”

“You don’t have to lie to me, Summer.”

“I mean it.” I took his hands in mine and looked into his eyes. “I wouldn’t lie about it.”

Slowly, he leaned into me and we kissed. I heard Gretchen and Johnny applaud behind us in the window, as they had been observing us the whole time. They sure loved to embarrass me, didn’t they.

“Wherever the McClemore family goes, I want to follow.” Jack sighed.

“You can. I want you there too.”

I already loved my family, and now Jack was a part of it too. And that was all we needed – all I needed to top off a summer of dreams ending and beginning; the summer of my life.

The End.