"Is that a big problem? Do you want to go back to your office?" Chris asked, but I shook my head without taking my eyes off of them.

It wasn't like I hadn't seen my parents in ages. We all got along at Christmas and Thanksgiving when we had to, but other than that, we just didn't talk. They had already made their opinions about my life choices known, and I could only hear about them a few hundred times before it got old. What else was there to talk about? Not much.

I had hoped that I could finally make them proud with my last few voicemails, but maybe I had just hoped that for once, they would just care about what I was up to. It wasn't like I wasn't responsible. I had a home, I paid my bills, I wasn't addicted to crack, but for some reason, that wasn't enough. I had to do something more. Something better.

I wasn't sure what was better than being young and pursuing what I loved, but that was why we didn't talk about that kind of stuff (or much stuff at all) anymore.

Instead of sinking lower into my seat like my body wanted, my mind was always my stronger half. Maybe it was because I was a Scorpio. Maybe it was because I hated the gym. But either way, I put on a smile and waved to catch their attention.

"Do you want me to leave? Because this feels like it's going to be a personal conversation," he continued.

I shook my head again. "If you're here, maybe they'll be a little nicer with what they want to say."

Chris hesitated for half a moment. "This feels like when you made your friend ask your mom to have a sleepover because then she would say yes."

I looked back at him and laughed. "Dammit, you broke my concentration."

"Sorry. It felt way too tense for a second there," he said.

He was probably right, but I turned back and waved my parents over again. This time, they came on over, and although I didn't have any time to plan a script for myself, I put on a smile like everything was perfectly fine. Because it was.

"Marigold, honey. How are you?" my mom asked.

Chris looked up at her, then back at me. We certainly looked alike with our long brown hair and judgmental Scorpio eyes, and we had the same taste in colors and clothing. We were both dressed in black tops with dark skinny jeans.

Thank God she looked a lot older than me. I couldn't handle any idiots asking if we were sisters.

"I'm good. I'm just taking a little break from work before I jump right back in. Lots to do, you know? I don't know if you guys remember Chris, but I went to high school with him," I said.

And they probably went to high school with his parents and so on and so forth. Of course, I didn't have lots of relevant work that I had to get done any time soon, but it made me sound more important if I kept that small detail to myself.

They exchanged pleasantries, but it was clear that my parents weren't just stopping by my work to catch up. And why would they? I pretty much told them everything they needed to know in a couple voicemails.

"So how are you guys?" I asked before they could say what they wanted to say. I just knew it had to be something good if they came by my work.

"We've been good. We've actually been busy printing out a list of business classes that are going to start after the holidays and even through next fall, so there's no reason why you can't make at least one of these work."

I couldn't keep a laugh from sneaking out of my lips. "Printing them out? You couldn't have just sent me a link?"

My dad looked at my mother with a puzzled look on his face. I forgot. In a boomer's mind, printing the internet was the most efficient way to get through life.

I shook my head. "Never mind. Thank you for putting this together. I'll definitely look through it and see if I can find one that speaks to me."

"You should probably listen real hard, then," Mom said, and before I could ask her what the hell she meant by that, she changed the subject. "I'm glad that you're finally beginning to take this dream of yours seriously. You can't just run a business by the seat of your pants, no matter how many times you see that in those little Christmas romcoms you like."

"Everyone likes Hallmark movies. It's just that most people aren't brave enough to admit it out loud," I said. "But I've always taken it seriously. It's just that the more I learn, it's like I learn more things that I don't know."

I hadn't changed at all. I just had my feet a little closer to the ground, and that brought my head down from the clouds just enough that I could see what was in front of me.

"You know what that's called? Growing up," Mom said. But she didn't say it in a tone that I didn't like. Instead, it was gentle, just like when I was young and working on times tables.

And I sure felt like that little girl a lot lately, sitting at my desk by myself just doing the best that I could.

I nodded. I always knew that it was going to take more than a dream and a whole bunch of yarn to get a business off of the ground, but I never really had anyone believe in me enough for me to take the leap. I looked across the table from me. Maybe Chris didn't believe in me either (we had only just rekindled our acquaintanceship), but he at least encouraged me to believe in myself. I knew I could handle the crafts. I just needed a little bit of support with the other hard parts of being my own boss.

I flipped through the list of classes they printed out for me. "Really, guys? The very first one is in France. How am I supposed to make that work?"

"Didn't you always say that you wanted to live in Paris?" Dad asked.

"Well, yeah, when I was seven and thought the Eiffel Tower was cool," I said. I turned to the next page. "And this one is in Alaska. Interesting selection."

"We didn't have to print all of these out for you, Marigold. You should probably be doing this for yourself at this point," Mom said.

I smiled and rolled my eyes. I definitely should have taken matters into my own hands, printed business class ideas, and put them on my refrigerator with my Facebook wall and Mapquest directions. "If you want me to leave town, just say you want me to leave town."

Mom shook her head. "It's not that. It's just that there's a whole world out there, and it's much bigger and better than anything around here can offer you."

"Don't you think I can decide that for myself, though?" I asked, but that question was more for myself than anyone else at the table.

I knew nomads like Mason, and I knew that life wasn't anything I wanted for myself. And I knew people who never left their hometown like my parents, and I knew that it left people wondering what the hell else was out there. I was something in between, and I was just going to have to figure out exactly what that meant for myself.

"Well, thank you for this list. I'll definitely read through it when I'm supposed to be working on winery things," I said.

They seemed to approve of the baby step I wanted to take, and although I still wasn't sure exactly which direction I would go, it was nice to have their help, even if it was a little passive-aggressive.

"Of course, Marigold. We'll let you get back to your date now," Mom said, and before I could tell her that it wasn't exactly a date, she and Dad left us be.

I shook my head and turned back to Chris. "I'm sorry about that. I know they're trying to push me, but sometimes it feels like they're pushing me away."

"All the way to France or Alaska, apparently," Chris said.

"Yeah." I took in a long, deep breath. "I can't believe they wasted so much paper on these random business classes though. This is at least fifty pages."

He laughed. "One for every state except Ohio, plus France."

They sure took my last voicemail to heart. "I told them that maybe I could get George to pay for the classes if I made them seem relevant to what I'm doing here, but I don't think I'm going to be able to convince him to invest in my trip to Hawaii."

"That's why you have to take one class that's really close, and then you'll learn how to negotiate, and then you can go to Hawaii on his dime."

I laughed. What a brilliant plan. "I like that you think about the big picture."

A couple of butterflies fluttered around in my stomach. I knew that it was just a little bit of loneliness, though, so I digested them like they weren't even there.

Marigold Reynolds: winery manager, online craft shop owner, and butterfly murderer. 

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Hello, and thank you so much for reading! When I first started this book, I wasn't sure how on earth I was ever going to make it to the end in a reasonable amount of time, but we are almost on our thirty-third thing they don't tell you about being basic already!

So for this chapter's question, what is the last movie you watched that made you cry?

I'm not the type to cry (like, at all), but the most recent movie that brought me to tears was actually Pixar's Coco maybe five or six years ago. Before that, it was Forest Gump about twelve or thirteen years ago.