Page 9 of Living at 40

Then my mother showed up.

“I’m just here to say hello,” she announces, appearing conveniently after dinner with desserts in hand.

Mrs. Kulis and Mama K ring out around the table to honor my mother. As the co-owner of Kulis Landscaping with my father, my mother knows these boys well. Mason began working for Dad before his junior year of high school, while Zack had been a family friend from the moment he was born. When Logan joined the group, he spent an entire summer with us when he had nowhere else to go after his freshman year of college.

“Hope you boys are all behaving,” Mom adds as if they are still twenty instead of forty. My mother is a good woman even though she can be meddlesome, especially in my life. She and my father had a perfect marriage, according to her, while Ben and I know they had their difficult moments. Being married is hard work, my mother would say. You seed. You plant. You grow. You harvest. Sometimes, I felt her words of wisdom were directed at me as if I wasn’t willing to work hard at anything. Then again, I’d been the office manager of the landscaping business for years before dedicating myself to my own business affairs.

“Mama K, heard you might be a grandmother again soon,” Mason blurts, and I want to kick him under the dinner table.

“Really?” She turns to Ben and Anna as the obvious answer, but she also knows that isn’t a possibility. Then she turns to me. Her brow tweaks, and I shake my head, wordlessly glaring at Mason.

Oh boy. Way to get me in trouble with my own mother.

“I can’t stay. I just wanted to drop these off.” She waves at the plates of cookies she brought. I’d already brought a fresh tray of sweets from my café, but one can never have too many desserts even though I try to be better about consuming sugary treats now that I’m older.

A round of begging her to stay follows, encouraging her to hang out a bit.

“I can’t.”

“Hot date?” Mason teases, and Ben glares at him next. Since our father's death, our mother has not been on a date that we are aware of. She’d be the first to say she’s still young at sixty-three, but I’m not certain dating is on her radar.

“Knitting club,” she replies to Mason.

“Gotta be careful around those sticks,” he warns, wiggling his brows.

“Dude, you’re so rude,” Logan says while Zack just shakes his head at Mason’s antics.

“Mama K is used to it from me.” He winks at our mother, who pinkens just the slightest. She is used to Mason’s crassness, but it doesn’t mean his language doesn’t affect her.

“Okay. Be good,” she says to the table, but her eyes meet mine. “Autumn, walk me out.”

“Dun-dun-dun,” Ben mutters under his breath as I stand from my seat, and I smack him on the back of the head as I pass him. I should really reach over and tap Anna since she started this. The list has been another source of conversation during dinner, including Anna’s recommendation I consider Bert, a local veterinarian. She gives me a sympathetic look, but it’s too late as I follow my mother to the front of the house. The seed has been planted in Mama K’s ear.

We haven’t even cleared the front door when my mother turns on me. “Why is this the first I’m hearing of you having a baby?”

“I’m not having a baby.” At least, not yet. She doesn’t need to know the particulars, and I don’t even have an official plan.

“Well, you aren’t getting any younger,” she reminds me.

“Thank you. I wasn’t aware.”

“No need to take that tone with me, missy.” Spoken without ire, her position as my mother seeps into her words. She’s open-minded about most things, especially when I moved in with man number three, minus an engagement ring. Still, she’s meddlesome.

“What did Mason mean, then?” she questions. Standing on the driveway, she waits out an answer despite the oh-so-pressing knitting club.

“He’s just being Mason.”

My mother’s eyes narrow, disbelieving my rebuttal.

“Well, as long as Mason isn’t the father . . .” While my mother might adore my brother’s friends, she didn’t want me to end up with one of them except maybe Zack, which was never a possibility. His mother is her best friend, and like the sister she never had, they both would have enjoyed our families joining in matrimony.

“Mason will not be the father,” I state, trying to assure her. I also want to move her along. “You should get to knitting. You don’t want to be late.”

“Yes, yes,” she says, giving me a wave as she turns for her car. “My date with dueling sticks.”

I softly chuckle, grateful Mason hadn’t heard that statement.

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