Her front porch was just as rickety and questionable as the Londons’, and the wooden boards groaned a little as I sat on them.
“Look at you, all done up,” she commented, casting a glance at my outfit.
Sully, who was still finishing up a work call, had made reservations for tonight. And when I’d approached my closet earlier, I’d reached for his favorite red dress without really thinking twice. It seemed the only logical choice to wear on our first date in so many years.
“I have dinner plans with Sully,” I explained. “He said there wasn’t a dress code, which means there totally is.”
“Well, isn’t that nice.” She said it as though I’d detailed the current weather conditions, and I laughed at her blasé attitude. “What?” She lifted a brow. “Was I supposed to actsurprisedthat you’re back together? He’s been over here painting that whole house for weeks.”
“Yeah, well…” I sighed, wrapping my arms around my knees asI tucked them closer to my body, trying to escape the chill in the air. “It was complicated for a bit.”
She snorted, taking a sip of her wine cooler, a lime something or other. “I’m no stranger to complicated when it comes to men, honey.”
“I went to Boston in June,” I explained, the words falling out of me. “I had a work trip that overlapped with Noah’s engagement party, and Sully was there.”
My mom glanced over at me, nodding. But I looked away, staring at my feet and knocking my toes together as I confessed, “I moved home this summer because I was pregnant.”
Silence stretched between us, interrupted only by the sound of insects, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at her.
“You ran home when you got pregnant, and I ran away.” She tapped her nails on the side of her wine cooler can. “In some ways, we couldn’t be more different.”
I wasn’t sure that was so true, even though she’d never told me much about it—what happened when she got pregnant with me.
“I went where I felt safest, Mom.” I finally cocked my head to the side, taking in the lines of her face, which had grown so much more pronounced in recent years. “Why did you decide to leave?”
She sighed. “Because it would have been safer than staying.”
“We’re not so different,” I said with a shrug. “Though I have to admit that it did cross my mind—that I wouldn’t want my child not knowing their father.”
“Sully London is worth knowing.” My mom shook her head, which I’d expected. “Your father wasn’t, Ellie.”
I bit down on my lip, wondering what I should and shouldn’t say. This was more than I’d ever gotten her to say about my dad, and maybe that was the crux of it.
“I would have at least liked to know something, Mom.”
She heaved a breath that sounded as though she’d been holding it in for years. “Okay.”
I took that to mean that maybe the conversation was open. More open than it had been.
“I’m not anymore,” I said instead of prodding her further.
There would be other times for that.
“Hm?”
She seemed to have gone somewhere in her head and jerked out of it.
“Pregnant,” I clarified. “I’m not pregnant.”
Mom nodded and put her arms around my shoulders, drawing me closer. “I figured, honey. You said ‘was.’”
“It wasn’t…” I blew out a breath before trying again. “It wasn’t our choice.”
She squeezed tighter, her voice softer than I’d heard it in a long time. “I figured that, too.”
I nodded, feeling grateful that she wasn’t asking any other questions, and silence once again lingered in the air around us. For a moment, this was all I really needed. To sit here with her.
“I know that’s your home more than this one ever was,” she said after a bit, tipping her head to gesture across the street. “And I’m not upset about it. I think moving here was the best thing I ever did as a mom, the best thing for you. I realized very quickly that the Londons could give you more of a family than I’d ever be able to?—”
