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“Zeb’s in pain?”
“Well, sweetie, isn’t it obvious? He only went after Jolene when you hooked up with this Gabriel character. He said he doesn’t see you nearly as often since you met Gabriel, and I know it’s just breaking his heart. Jolene’s just his rebound girl. He’s not in love with her. He’s trying to get back at you.”
“For what?”
“For not loving him back!” Mama Ginger cried.
“Zeb doesn’t love me. He loves Jolene,” I said in a slow, deliberate tone one might use with someone who was very dim or slightly drunk. Or both.
“But you’re the perfect match, you always have been. You have such a long history together. You can’t just throw that away. Hot pants and hormones do not make a marriage. Believe me, honey, I should know. I married for lust, and look what happened to me: a husband who doesn’t talk and in-laws who talk too damn much. What you have, friendship and companionship, that’s what makes a solid, lasting marriage. That’s what is going to make my boy happy.”
“Please, God, let that be the last time you ever say ‘hot pants’ in front of me.”
“It’s always been you and Zeb, in my head.” Mama Ginger paused to press her fingers to her temples, as if she were about to peer into a future where I was somehow living and bearing her lots and lots of little Lavelles. “Whenever I pictured Zeb’s wedding, it was always you walking down that aisle.”
“You’re just not making sense right now,” I told her. “If you’d just get to know Jolene, you’d see why Zeb loves her so much.”
“She’s not you! When you and Zeb are married, we’ll be the perfect, big happy family. You and Zeb can come over for dinner every other night. We’ll go to flea markets on the weekends. And I’m sure Mamaw or Daddy Lavelle would be dead by the time you and Zeb started having babies, so you could move right into one of the trailers behind the house.”
I think I might have sprained something trying to keep a straight face in response to that. “But if you really want a mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship like that, Jolene would be more than willing to do all of those things with you. She wants to be close to you.”
“But it won’t be the same. That’s not the way I pictured it.”
“But it would be the way Zeb pictures it. I don’t want Zeb. And he doesn’t want me. He wants Jolene. Isn’t it important to let him have some say in choosing his wife?”
“Oh, he’s a man, he doesn’t know what he wants.” She snorted. “If I didn’t help him figure out what’s best for him, what kind of mother would I be?”
The kind of mother whose son doesn’t dodge her calls?
“You’re going to see things my way soon enough,” Mama Ginger insisted.
“What does that mean?”
“I just want to help you and Zeb figure some things out, honey,” Mama Ginger said, standing up and hitching her bag over her shoulder. “Well, this was fun, but I’ll just let myself out. I have to go meet with Jolene’s mama over at the Bridal Barn to talk about dresses for the wedding, like I need fashion advice from that dowdy thing. Vonnie’s making some big deal about keeping the shop open late.”
I stared after her as she toddled toward the back door. She smiled beatifically at me. “If you ever want to talk, give me a call.”
I sat at the counter, staring at the untouched oozy layers of pastry on my plate, my head spinning. Aunt Jettie appeared next to the sink, her lips quirked into a sneer.
“What is that?” she asked, pointing at the remains of Mama Ginger’s cobbler. “It’s like an autopsy with fruit.”
“Mama Ginger came calling, to set the alarm on my biological clock. Oh, and to remind me that there’s no point to me being a woman if I never have children.”
“Well, if that’s true, I wasted a hell of a lot of money on panty hose and lipstick.” Jettie snorted.
“I don’t know where this is coming from. Why would she say something like that? And why am I letting it bother me? It’s not like I can just decide to turn my lady parts back on.”
“Oh, honey, don’t you think I heard the same thing my whole life?” she said, stroking her cold, insubstantial fingers down my back. Her voice pitched up two octaves. “ ‘Don’t you know you’re wasting your life? You’re going to end up alone with no one to take care of you when you get old. What makes you think you’re too good to get married and have babies like you’re supposed to?’ Most of that was just your grandma Ruthie. You have to ignore them.”
“But don’t you ever regret it?” I asked. “Not having children of your own?”
“I didn’t need to have children of my own.” She grinned. “I had you. I cared for you, taught you, learned from you. I may not have carried you in my womb, but I always carried you in my heart.”
“If I wasn’t thinking about your womb right now, that would have been such a sweet sentiment,” I said, leaning my forehead against her ghostly noggin.
“Do you feel better now?” she asked.
“Eh.” I waffled my hand. “I’d feel better if I could eat about a gallon of Ben and Jerry’s without vomiting.”
