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She gestured to the fruit platter. “Please have something to eat.” Melody poured some of the lemonade into a glass and slid it in front of me. “The other thing is to understand that it’s totally okay to not know what you’re doing, to fly by the seat of your pants. There is a first time for everything, and a lot of it’s going to be trial and error. Things like changing diapers, feeding the baby…it will all seem like second nature once you get used to it. But there’s no real way to learn how to care for a baby aside from actually doing it. And again, no one expects you to be perfect out of the gate.”
“Good. Because I am pretty sure I’ll be a mess.”
She laughed as she put a grape in her mouth. “You’ll surprise yourself.”
There was a moment of silence where she just looked at me from across the table. I don’t know why I felt compelled to say, “I don’t have a mother, you know.”
Melody’s eyes were brimming with sympathy. “I know.”
“I couldn’t remember if I told you that.” I stared off, contemplating my lack of maternal role model. “How am I supposed to be good mother when I don’t even have one?”
“Because it’s innate,” she said without hesitation. “You’re a loving, caring person who will do everything in her power to care for her baby. She likely never had a motherly bone in her body. You’re not your mother.”
I truly hoped she was right. As I processed her words, tears ran down my cheeks. Melody moved her chair around to my side of the table and embraced me.
We stayed like that for a while until she gave me a napkin to wipe my eyes, then said, “It will be okay. It’s hard to know that now. But trust me, it will.” She got up and started walking toward her bedroom. “I’ll be right back. I want to show you something.”
A few minutes later, she returned with a photo album.
She planted it on the table. “I’m pretty sure Rush would kill me if he knew I was showing these to you, but that’s too bad.”
There were so many photos of a young Melody with baby Rush, who was surprisingly blond as a child. He still had the same naughty grin and expressive eyes. Melody looked so young, and her hair was really long.
When she came upon a set of photos that looked like they were professionally taken, she grinned from ear to ear.
“I remember this day.” She covered her mouth as she pointed to a particular shot of baby Rush sitting on her lap. “Oh my gosh. I’d taken Rush to the Sears portrait studio. Right before this, he’d puked all over his brand-new outfit. I was in tears because the mall was quite a long drive for me, and I didn’t want to have to come back, so the photographer gave me an outfit for him that a previous customer happened to leave behind. You see how his overalls are a little big?
“Look at that drooly, toothless smile,” I gushed.
“I know I was so stressed out right before this, but once the photographer got us settled, Rush was hamming it up for the cameras. I left feeling so lucky, in a totally different mood compared to how I’d walked in.” She gazed off into space for a moment before she looked at me. “That’s what motherhood is like. It’s a series of ups and downs. But it’s all worth it, Gia. Trust me on that.”
I kept staring at the image of baby Rush’s big smile. It was reflective of the natural goodness built into my tough guy.
My tough guy.
Had I not gotten the memo that he wasn’t mine anymore?
“What’s wrong Gia?”
Melody must have noticed the sudden expression of sadness on my face. Damn pregnancy hormones.
The realization of it hit me like a ton of bricks. “I was falling in love with your son before this happened. Rush made it clear that he’s not ready for all of this. I don’t blame him. It just sucks, you know? Because he and I…we really had something. But I understand why he can’t be with me. I do.”
“I’m so sorry. If I had a magic button, I wish I could make this right for both of you. I wish my son felt differently, too. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about him, it’s that I can’t tell him what to do or how to feel. But I’ll be rooting for you, that maybe he has a change of heart about it.”
I wondered if she really meant that, or if deep inside she didn’t want her son to be with someone who came with baggage when he could likely have anyone he wanted. I’d never know if she was telling me the truth or just wanted to make me feel better.
