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He’d never tell her how close that had come to being true.
To avoid the topic altogether, he turned to his Uncle Doug. “Hey, how’s the tree business this year?” His uncle was an independent truck driver, and this time of year he was kept busy hauling Evergreens and Blue Spruce from the tree farms farther north.
The older mantsked. “Even slower than last year. Folks opting for those pre-lit, no-mess, plastic, rotating, singing trees more and more…” He sounded disgusted.
Beside him, his mother whispered, “I bought one of those this year.”
And so went dinner. Mitch successfully diverted the conversation to every other family member to avoid the discussions he didn’t want to have. Luckily, his older relatives could talk about the everyday mundane pace of the small town for hours, thinking they were catching him up on all that he was missing.
He’d never admit he didn’t feel like he was missing a thing. Same old stories. Same old life. Wonderful if it suited them all, but he’d never be happy living in the simplicity and predictability of small-town life every day.
“Can we chat in the study?” his father asked him, as his mother cleared the dinner plates.
Mitch popped the last piece of strawberry-filled vanilla cupcake into his mouth and made a mental note to compliment Jess on their dinner date the next evening. She was as amazing a baker as she was intriguingly interesting.
“Sure thing, Pop,” he said, standing and reaching for his coffee cup.
His father shook his head. “Leave it. I got the good stuff in the liquor cabinet,” he said quietly.
“Thank God,” Mitch said with a grin, sneaking out of the dining room and following his father to the study. The two of them barely had a chance to chat whenever Mitch visited, with his mother always hovering. He loved his mom, but these one-on-ones with his dad helped him handle his time at home a little better.
Sitting on the slightly worn leather chair near the fireplace, Mitch accepted a glass of scotch from his dad and folded one leg over his knee.
His father sat across from him, studying him for a long moment before saying, “The last mission didn’t go so well, huh?”
Mitch stared at his glass and shook his head. “Some are worse than others. It’s the nature of the business we’re in.” As a family doctor for over forty years, Clyde Jameson had seen it all in his own career. Mitch remembered days when his father would come home beaming after delivering twins or crushed with disappointment when one of his senior patients passed away. It was his father’s compassion and dedication to helping others that Mitch had always admired most, and he was grateful that he’d inherited those traits.
His father nodded. “You doing okay?”
Was he? Two days ago, he’d been a complete mess. Burned out, exhausted, eager to get back but unsure whether or not he could handle a new assignment with his current mindset. Today he was rested, more relaxed, still on edge but better. A big part in thanks to meeting Jess that afternoon. “Getting there,” he said honestly.
There was no point in trying to hide how he was feeling from his father. His mother would worry too much, and Mitch didn’t like adding to her anxiety, but his father understood the stress that came with this career, even if he chose to treat clientele in a small town instead of poverty-stricken countries.
“Well, I’m here, son. Anything you need.”
Mitch nodded. He could always count on his father. “Thanks, Dad. I appreciate that.”
His father took a breath and leaned forward in his chair. “On that note, I have a proposition for you.”
Uh-oh.
“Your mother and I have built a wonderful life here in Blue Moon Bay. We have everything we could imagine we wanted when we started out with a small one-bedroom apartment and struggling to repay my medical school loans,” he said with a smile. “But I think it’s time to retire.”
Mitch blinked. “What?” He’d assumed his father would die holding a thermometer to a toddler’s mouth.
“I’ll be sixty-five next year and we want to do more traveling and, you know, just be together more.” Clyde stood and refilled his own glass, and Mitch recognized it as a way of avoiding his son’s perceptive gaze.
Mitch had also inherited his father’s ability to read people and situations.
How much of this decision had to do with his father being ready to hang up the stethoscope, and how much had to do with his mother wanting him to? She’d been asking Clyde to retire for several years now, claiming soon they’d be too old to enjoy retirement.
“You sure that’s what you want?” It certainly wasn’t what Mitch wanted for his father.
He’d heard of very successful, very intelligent people having a hard time with retirement. As though they lost their purpose. His dad could very well be someone like that. He’d spent his entire life caring for others and thriving in a fast-paced, high stress environment—even at the small family clinic level—this change would be hard on him.
But his father nodded. “It is.”
“What will you do? Other than travel with Mom?” His father had no hobbies or interests beyond medicine. Without it, even the traveling wouldn’t fill the void. His father had never taken more than two weeks off a year. Ever.
