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“We came to have a chat with you, Mom,” Adeline says. “And this just proves that we were right. How can you let another man sleep here? What would Daddy say?”
Adeline was a daddy’s girl through and through. Actually, she was the ideal daughter, close to both parents. Her anger doesn’t surprise me. My anger is not for loyalty to my dad. It’s simply embarrassing when your sixty-something mother is becoming someone you don’t know.
“Your dad left us almost a decade ago,” my mother says with barely controlled anger.
“That doesn’t mean that you can bring a man here!” my sister shouts.
“Yes, I can, and you had better get used to it because he’s moving in!” She looks like a rebelling teenager with her chin thrust out as if daring us to contradict her.
My sister is shocked into silence. As for me, my jaw drops to the floor. My pregnancy hormones must be tricking me. There’s no way that she said Ian is moving in.
“Mom, you don’t mean that.” Ian could be a serial killer for all she knows.
“I know that he makes me feel things that I haven’t felt since your father,” she says.
Adeline points her index finger at her. “Don’t you dare talk about him and Father in the same sentence.”
“Is everything okay in here?” Ian says, walking into the kitchen.
I didn’t hear him coming in, and I wonder if he walked with light steps deliberately so that he could eavesdrop.
Adeline jumps to her feet and pulls me up. “Let’s go!”
Mom stands up too and goes to hug Ian. She clings to him, and I have to look back once more, unable to believe that she’s the mother I know.
Outside, Adeline follows me to my car and sits in the passenger seat. We sit quietly and digest what just happened.
“She’s lost her mind,” Adeline says. “She won’t listen to anything we say.” Adeline turns to me. “You have to speak to Ian. Maybe he’ll listen to reason.”
“You realize that he’s a client and not someone I know well at all.”
“He’s our only chance. Can you imagine Mom’s lover moving in with her?”
I shudder. In addition to the risk she will be taking, we’ll never live down the shame. Everyone knows everyone in our neighborhood. Mom will be the laughingstock of the whole town.
“Okay, I will,” I tell Adeline.
She takes my hand and squeezes it. It dawns on me that this is the closest we’ve ever been. It’s unfortunate because the situation that is bringing us closer is horrible.
“How are you holding up?” she says, glancing at my belly.
I shrug. “I’m okay. Just getting tired a lot, but the doctor says it’s normal, and it will pass.”
Adeline makes a face. “I hated that part about my pregnancy.” She goes on to tell me her experiences, and soon we are laughing together. I can’t remember the last time that she and I laughed together. I like it.
We part half an hour later. I have a bit of time before Thomas’s sister, Fran, comes to pick me up, and I decide to go to the office.
As I’m walking through the gym, I meet Kelly, an instructor in one of the senior classes that Ian and my mom attend. After we exchange greetings, I pull her to the side.
“Hey, can I ask you something weird?”
“Sure,” she says.
“It’s about Ian. He attends one of your senior classes. What do you know about him?”
She looks a little taken aback by my question, but she recovers fast. “He’s charming to everyone, especially the ladies. He’s somewhat of a ladies’ man from what I’ve observed. Is this about your mom? I’ve seen them together a lot.”
Everything she tells me makes me feel even more apprehensive. “We’re worried about her,” I say.
She nods. “He’s probably harmless and is just drawn to older women. I wouldn’t worry too much.”
If she knew that Mom and Ian were planning on moving in together, she would not say that. I flash her a smile of gratitude. “Thanks.”
I hope that he gets tired of her before he breaks her heart. It’s a nasty thing to think about your mom, but I have a really bad feeling about this.
***
At exactly two in the afternoon, my phone buzzes with a message. It’s from Fran saying that she’s at the reception desk. I text her back, grab my purse from my desk, and leave my office.
I find her chatting to Samantha, our receptionist. She turns when she hears footsteps and smiles. Her resemblance to Thomas is stark with the same dark, penetrating eyes, but where hers are warm, his are mysterious. Her baby bump is nicely rounded and though not obvious yet to a stranger. Pregnancy suits her. I hope that pregnancy suits me too. Not that it matters. What matters is that several months from now, I’ll have my very own baby. A family.
