Unexpected Gifts. Holly Jacobs

I know we’re just business associates, but if you want to talk about whatever’s wrong, I’m here.” Before she could deny there was anything wrong, or laugh at the idea of her needing his help, he took the bill and headed for the register.

      She followed him, and handed him a ten, then, before he could protest, dashed out. “See you Saturday,” she called over her shoulder.

      Zac knew he should return to his office at the market, but he felt an uncharacteristic urge not to. So instead, he drove in the opposite direction toward his parents’ house, under the guise of talking to his father about the business.

      The house on East Street was a rambling building. The original one-story heart of the house was built in 1898, and generations of owners had added a room here and a room there, leaving a building with unusual lines. His parents had purchased it forty years ago, a month before they married, determined to fill the seven bedrooms with children.

      They’d waited.

      And waited.

      After waiting ten years, with only their master bedroom in use, they’d decided on adoption.

      Zac was their first child.

      He was only five but he could still remember his social worker, Mrs. Bowler, pulling up in front of the house, with its flower beds and porch swing. He’d been sure that there was a mistake, that the man and woman waiting on the steps had wanted one of the other boys in the group home. But then the woman had knelt down, held her arms wide and said, “Welcome home, Zac.” A feeling of disbelief and hope had filled him.

      It was the same feeling he got whenever he pulled in to the driveway.

      He hurried into the house. “Mom? Dad?”

      He was already almost in the kitchen when his mother called, “In here, Zac.”

      Deborah Keller was a petite, well-rounded woman, with salt-and-pepper hair she’d pulled loosely into some kind of bun thing, and a smile that lit up the room. She swept Zac into a hug.

      He sniffed the sweet scented air. “Cookies? Cake?”

      “Gingerbread, tateleh.” She glanced at the clock. “If you wait about ten minutes, you should be able to sample a piece and let me know if the new recipe is as good as the old one.”

      “You could probably twist my arm into staying.” He pulled a stool up to the counter. “Cessy home yet?”

      “Not for a while. If you have time to wait, I know she’d be thrilled to see you. The house is just too quiet since Layla went to college.” His mom grinned at him. “Of course, if our older children started marrying and gave me grandchildren…” She let the sentence hang there, since he’d heard the entire spiel more than once.

      “Just so happens I had lunch with a lovely woman.”

      “You did?”

      His mom seemed so happy, he felt guilty about misleading her, and added, “Of course, she’s got a boyfriend.”

      “A serious boyfriend, or just some man she’s seeing?”

      He laughed. “I was only kidding, Mom. It’s serious between them, I guess. They’ve been together now for five years.” He’d collected a lot of Eli Cartwright trivia since he met her a few months back.

      “Five years, and they’re still dating?” She shook her head. “That’s not serious, that’s going with the status quo. Why, your father saw me at the fair—”

      “And knew I’d met the woman I was going to marry right then and there,” Abe Keller finished the sentence as he walked into the kitchen. He was a big man. He had a Grizzly Adams look about him. A bit wild. His hair was always unkempt and he went days on end without shaving now that he’d retired from Keller’s and left the business to Zac.

      Zac watched his father walk over and simply place his hand on his mother’s shoulder—he’d noticed years ago that whenever they saw each other it was as if they needed to touch, to reconnect.

      His hand still in place, his father continued the story. “And three months later, I married her. So, why are we trotting out that old story? Did your mom want to set you up?”

      “No. I don’t set my children up. I trust them to find their own dates. Zac was just telling me he had lunch with a woman who’s been dating a man for five years. That’s not a relationship.”

      “Now, Deborah, we can’t measure other’s relationships by ours. If it works for them.” His father shrugged.

      But Zac could, and always would, measure every relationship against his parents’. This is what he wanted. Someone who needed to touch him, even if they’d only been a room away for a few minutes.

      “She’s not the one for me, Mom,” Zac admitted with regret. “But when I find a woman as good as you are, one who’s not dating someone else, you can be sure I’ll whisk her off her feet as quickly as I can.”

      The timer buzzed. His mom busied herself with the gingerbread and his father took the stool opposite him. “So, if you didn’t come to get set up…?”

      “Thought I’d fill you in on the store.”

      The next forty-five minutes passed quickly as he and his dad talked business and his mother bustled around the kitchen starting dinner.

      Then he heard someone enter before any of them saw her. “Zac.” Cessy ran into the room at full speed, still wearing her coat and bookbag, and threw herself full force at him, trusting he’d catch her.

      He stood and did. He hugged his fifteen-year-old sister, Cessy, with her mass of curly brown hair, and her honey-toned skin. She backed up. He was five-ten, and she was almost as tall as he was now. “Stop growing, already, would you?”

      “Poor little Zac, intimidated by a tall, strong woman?” she teased.

      “If I see one of those, I’ll let you know if I’m intimidated.”

      “Hey, you coming to my game on Sunday afternoon?”

      “Wouldn’t miss it.”

      “Good, ’cause May, Dom and Layla aren’t coming in from Pittsburgh. And Seth—” Cessy stopped short and looked at him. No one talked about Seth, who couldn’t forgive their parents for not being enthusiastic about him marrying Allie right out of high school. They’d loved her. The whole family loved her. Still, their parents had wanted them to wait, but Seth and Allie wouldn’t. When she got pregnant, they’d started to mend the rift, but when Allie died…Zac wasn’t sure what it would take for his parents and Seth to fix their relationship. Seth hadn’t cut them off completely, but he’d erected a wall that their parents couldn’t breach.

      He knew Cessy was thinking the same thing as she glanced at their mother, and added, “So, it’ll be you, Mom and Dad cheering me on.”

      “I’m pretty sure your brother can make enough noise that you’ll never notice the rest are missing,” his mom said.

      Zac looked at Cessy’s face and knew she’d notice. Cessy, more than the rest of them, needed her family around. Zac would rearrange his Sunday. He’d call Dom and May. Granted, they were in their mid-twenties, and busy with their own lives, but if he told them Cessy wanted them at the game, they’d find a way to be there. Layla would fuss about school work, but if Dom or May did the driving, she’d have a little less than two hours in the car each way to study.

      And Seth? Well, he’d try. That’s all he could do.

      Seth had never gotten over his parents not supporting his marriage to Allie, and since her death, he’d been ever more distant. But for Cessy, he might show up.

      Zac would do all he could to get his whole family to the game because it was obviously important to Cessy.

      That’s what family did—supported each other when it was important.

      And the Kellers