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“Definitely but fortunately, he has a girlfriend.” I should be pleased that I don’t have to fight temptation every day but the emotion I feel is not joy.
Lexi screws her face. “He does? We were at a barbecue last weekend and he didn’t come with a date.”
“Maybe she was busy or he likes to keep his private life private. There are people like that.”
Lexi still looks skeptical.
“How do you explain these clothes then?” I ask her. “Unless he’s a cross dresser.”
The bell rings and we both let out a string of curses. Any mom of young children will tell you that a doorbell is our worst enemy when our babies are sleeping.
“Who could that be,” Vanessa says and hurries out of the kitchen. She opens the door and I recognize the voice of the newcomer. Our mom.
“What a nice surprise to find you here,” she says as she walks into the kitchen.
Our mother has been blessed with youthful looks. It helps also that she had us when she was quite young. Despite the abuse, she’s put her body through, she can still pass for our older sister.
“Hi, Mom.” I stand up to give her a hug and a kiss.
Lexi goes to the coffee machine to pour her a coffee.
“Where are my babies? It’s too quiet in here,” she says.
“Napping,” I tell her.
We talk about the children for a few minutes and Lexi brings the coffee to the island.
“You’re glowing,” Lexi tells her. “What’s going on?”
Mom grins. “I might just have met a very special man. This might be it, girls. The love of my life, can you imagine that?” she lets off a loud girly laugh.
I groan inwardly and I’m sure Lexi does as well. My mother never meets good men. She’s attracted to bad boys who think nothing of drinking from dawn to dusk or going for months without a job. She’s done so well for a year and I’d started to be hopeful that this time, she has ditched alcohol for good.
She turns to me. “What about you, Mother Teresa? Have you met a special someone yet? You’re young and beautiful, you can’t put yourself out to pasture yet. Live, enjoy life. If Lexi can do it, then so can you.”
“What do you mean if Lexi can do it?” my sister says, a hard edge in her voice.
I tense, having an inkling as to what is coming. The three of us together don’t gel well. My mother and Lexi are like oil and water and neither tries to understand the other.
“You know what I mean, Lexi,” my mother says. “You take life way too seriously.”
“Maybe it’s because responsibility was forced on me early,” Lexi says.
“It did you a world of good,” my mother shoots back. “Look how well you’re going now.”
They glare at each other, looking as if they want to go for each other’s throats.
“Come on, that’s the past and we did say we’d try and put it behind us, right?” I beg. It’s always been this way, with me as the soother.
“Fine,” Lexi says between clenched teeth.
“Mom,” a sleepy voice says, and we all swing our gazes to the kitchen door.
It’s Luna and she looks so adorable rubbing her eyes with her hand. The tension at the back of my neck eases.
“Luna!” my mother exclaims and stands up.
On seeing her grandmother, Luna’s eyes light up and her pretty little face grows animated. “Laura!”
I cringe even though all the children call my mother by her name. She says she’s too young to have them call her Nana or grandma. She’s exasperating and embarrassing. Still, she loves her grandchildren, and she lifts Luna up, hugs her, and then twirls her around. Soon, the kitchen is filled with Luna’s laughter, which brings her brother down and wakes up Ivy.
The nanny comes down with them and I quickly take Ivy from her. “Thanks.”
The excitement in the kitchen is palpable and even Ivy giggles at her grandmother when she kisses her cheek. We hang around for a few more minutes, then Ivy and I begin to leave.
Vanessa carries Ivy’s baby bag as she walks me to my car. “What do you think about Mom having a new man in her life?”
“Same as you I guess.” I strap Ivy into her car seat. “I don’t like it. She’ll go back to her old ways and the thought of it scares the daylights out of me.”
Lexi folds her hands across her chest. “Me too.”
“But hey, maybe she won’t. We’re probably worrying for nothing.” That’s always been Lexi and I. worrying about our mother. Once, she disappeared for years. It was the worst time of my life and as a result, I made bad choices in men, as if I too didn’t care about my future.
Never again. I have Ivy now and she comes first in my life. My mind wanders to Logan and his perfect face floats into my mind. I’m embarrassed by the rush of attraction that came over me before I realized that he had a girlfriend. I tremble slightly at the way my body reacted to him with a hot pull of attraction I had never experienced before.
