I nodded. “I’m going to go talk to her.”
“Okay, baby,” he replied, his voice deep with sleep.
I padded out to the kitchen, finding May in her bright purple robe seated at the bar sipping tea. She looked over at me without surprise as I took the seat next to her.
I didn’t try to fill the silence with idle chat, knowing Mabel wouldn’t have any of that. Instead I sat quietly, waiting.
“I keep wondering where I went wrong,” she muttered finally. “Bernie worked a lot when the kids were little, but I was always home. I was always here,” she lamented quietly.
“This isn’t about you,” I argued gently.
“Isn’t it?” she countered. “I have two children I barely have a relationship with. A daughter who rarely visits and a son who only comes by apparently to try to steal from me. How can that not be about me?”
“You gave them everything, May.” I continued to press my point. “Your time, every opportunity, and love. It was a hell of a lot more than I ever had. Who knows why we turn out the way we do? My parents had the opposite luck. They should have ended up with a serial killer for a daughter with the way they raised me, but I think I turned out okay.” I shrugged.
“You did,” she agreed firmly, always quick to defend me.
“So, you see?” I put a hand on her arm, squeezing gently. “Sometimes the kind of kids you end up with is luck of the draw. You did your best. I hate that you’re berating yourself over this.”
“Someday you’ll be a mother, then you’ll understand,” she told me.
The idea made my chest ache with an urge I was surprised by. I’d always loved children, but having them hadn’t been on my radar. Now I could see into my future, and it looked so bright. It was filled with Travis.
“He was such a stinker, that kid.” She snorted affectionately, her gaze distant as she became lost in memory. “Always into something. But he was so affectionate. He’d come and curl up in my lap, he loved me to stroke his hair,” she remembered fondly. “I dreaded the day when he stopped.”
I imagined that day was painful for every mother, when the tide turned and her child’s world stopped revolving solely around her. I thought of Hudson and how he was still very much in that phase, and hopefully would be for a good deal longer.
“It wasn’t until after he graduated from college that I sensed him really pulling back from me. I should have tried harder, should have pushed to understand.”
“You couldn’t have known,” I argued quietly. “You wanted to give him space. He was figuring out how to be a man. He probably needed that.”
“What he needed was Bernie.” She sighed. “He was a wonderful father, but he wasn’t home much.”
“You can’t change it, May,” I reminded her gently. “Roy chose his own path.”
“I suppose he did.” She exhaled. “I only wish it had been the right one.”
I nodded silently, knowing there were no words that could ease her pain just then.
She turned to me with a sad smile. “Thank you for staying.”
“Anytime,” I murmured.
Her eyes drifted toward where the guest room lay down the hall. “That man of yours is never far. I don’t imagine that’s going to change.”
“No. Hopefully not,” I agreed.
“I’m glad for you. You deserve it, honey. And good golly, is he a looker.”
I laughed, agreeing wholeheartedly with her there.
“You get to bed.” She nudged me. “I’m going to stay up for a little while longer.”
I nodded, knowing she wanted to be alone. “Come get me if you need me.”
“I will,” she agreed, though I knew she wouldn’t.
I stood up, turning toward her before I left the room. “May, I know you’ll sit up questioning yourself, wondering where you went wrong. What mistakes you made. But I know firsthand what kind of mother you were because I’ve seen it myself. Without you, I would have been so lost—you gave me everything you had without question, without asking for anything in return. You’re the most giving and loving person I’ve ever known. Now, I’m far from perfect, but I do believe you can count me as one of your successes,” I said quietly.
She blinked against tears. “I’ll do that honey, thank you,” she rasped.
I nodded, hoping I’d gotten through to one small part of her regret, and walked back to my room, eager to return to bed and to Travis’s arms, where my own regrets had been eradicated by pure acceptance and the promise of the future that lay ahead.
