Almost a Family

Molly looked over the selection, which covered an entire wall. “How about princesses or something?”

“That sounds about right.” He leaned over to pick out plates, napkins and cups in pink and pale blue, and his scrubs stretched taut. Molly’s mouth watered. All the reasons she’d left so long ago faded into the distant past. Instead she was reminded of how he’d kissed her in the snow, how he’d held her hand this afternoon. She’d thought perhaps parting as friends would be easier, leaving the bitterness behind. But it wasn’t going to be easier at all. Molly knew leaving Jason, after all that had transpired, was going to hurt all over again. And this time she wouldn’t have righteous indignation to pull her through. If she came back again, they’d have to find a way to make peace with the past so they could move forward. Talk about a gigantic task. She laughed inwardly at herself. She never had been one to take the easy road.

He put the items in the cart and looked up at her when she didn’t follow along. “Are you coming?”

She nodded. “Sorry. Preoccupied.”

“What did Kim want to get her?”

They started down another aisle, one completely pink. Didn’t girl’s things come in any other color?

“She said something about a play kitchen. But I don’t know what kind.”

She really was horrible. She didn’t even know how to shop for a little girl, for goodness sake! She had to refer to a single man for shopping advice!

“Here they are.” Jason halted in front of a display. “Which one do you like best?”

She stared at the selection. “I don’t know. I’m hopeless at this sort of thing.”

Jason leaned over. “You were four once. What would you have wanted?”

Molly stared at the different designs, her heart heavy. “You know better than to ask that, Jason,” she murmured. She could feel him looking at her and refused to meet his gaze.

“I’m sorry, Molly,” he said softly from behind her. “I never thought.”

What he’d done with that one simple question was stir up old memories she had no desire to recall. She looked at the toys. Plastic or wood. Pink and white or tan and green. Ironing boards or dishwashers. So many choices in miniature and she knew that not once in her life had she had toys such as these. She understood Kim wanting to have things for Sara that they’d never had. Their own parents had divorced when they were young and their mother had all but abandoned them when they finished high school, remarrying and moving away.

There’d been many things they’d wanted for as children—not only the presents but the thought and love that went behind the gifts. Feeling treasured. That was what had drawn her to Jason in the first place. He’d understood that need, as he’d felt it himself. The warm family he’d known had faded away after his brother Jonathan’s death. Molly and Jason had become fiercely independent, thinking they didn’t need those things. Kim had been younger and had handled things differently. For the first time, Molly faced the fact that she’d done the same thing as her mother—run away. She’d handled the neglect in one way, Kim the polar opposite. She’d put a wall around her heart; Kim had become the giving nurturer. It was obvious which one Jason truly needed. It was understandable.

Kim was trying desperately to give her daughter a sense of family, all on her own. Kim was the one who had always realized what family meant even in the absence of it, had always been the nurturing one even though Molly had been oldest. Molly looked up and saw the biggest, most elaborate item and pointed. “That one. The one with all the bells and whistles.”

Jason stared at it, his eyes flicking to the price tag. “It’s a bit expensive, don’t you think?”

“I’ll cover it. Kim can accept this bit of help, just this once.”

Jason picked up the tag. “It’s too big. We’ll have to give them this at the register an

d have it brought out.”

Molly smiled then. The glee in the fact that the present was so big made her feel silly and childish, and she liked it. She had money and couldn’t think of a better way to use it than putting a smile on her niece’s face.

“We need accessories.”

They went down another aisle, Molly fighting the feeling that she and Jason were shopping for their own child. If they’d stayed together, they very well could have had a child Sara’s age. She shook off the feeling. Sara wasn’t their child, and she and Jason weren’t a couple. They were simply shopping for her niece’s birthday.

She picked out a porcelain tea set in white with pink roses sprayed on the cups. She added a child’s size cobbler’s apron and a plastic carry bag of play food, so Sara’s playtime with her new kitchen would be complete.

At the cash register she never batted an eyelash at the total, just took out her credit card, signed the slip and headed for the truck with Jason carrying the bags. They were followed out by an attendant who helped load the huge box in the back.

“Now we need a cake.”

Jason laughed. “Of course.”

Molly checked her watch. “Is anything even still open?”

“Yeah. The grocery’s open twenty-four hours.”

Walking into the brightly lit store, it felt somewhat like a ghost town. Only a handful of shoppers wandered the quiet aisles. At the bakery counter, they ordered a cake to pick up the following day and made their way to the frozen section to pick up party food.