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She wasn’t concerned about her daughter desiring more time with her dad. She was concerned with her wanting all of her time with her dad.
Then again, maybe that was her just rewards for allowing Mia to believe her father had rejected them and keeping her existence from Lucas.
Despite having, in her mind, strong reasons for doing so.
But were they the right reasons?
Justifiable?
Seemed so at the time, but she was beginning to doubt herself. Maybe her reasons for lying were just smokescreens for the real reasons she kept them apart.
Fear of not just having Mia taken away from her, but of Mia no longer wanting to be in her life. Preferring her father.
Didn’t everybody?
No, that was bullshite, as Angus would say. There had been no other choice.
She did what she had to do based on the circumstances at the time. There was no other choice. Period.
Birdie followed Bernadette outside to gather the items drying on the clothesline.
It had been years since she had performed this simple task. She remembered how she used to love removing the clothes from the wooden pins holding the cloth firmly in place, loosely folding and dropping them into the sweetgrass baskets made with painstaking patience by Bernadette and her Gullah Geechee neighbors. She would always beg Bernadette to let her help bring the clothes inside. The smell of the salty coast, alongside the ethereal scent of the breeze lingering on the clothes, had brought her a sense of peace and calm.
“So,” Bernadette said, handing her the opposite side of a flat sheet. “Tell me about this husband of yours. What was it about him that made you marry him?”
Most people would view the question as small talk. Bernadette wasn’t capable of such benign conversation.
“Protection.” She wasn’t going to lie to her dear friend. Not anymore anyway. What was the point?
Together, they executed the first fold and then whipped the wrinkles out with a unified flick of their wrists.
“There are worse reasons,” Bernadette said with a knowing smile.
They remained silent and contemplative until Birdie added, “He adopted Mia. Gave her his name and loved her unconditionally.”
“Not a hard task. She’s lovely. He was a bit older than you, is that right?”
Well, that was interesting. Bernadette had to have been listening to hearsay to have come across that tidbit of information. Which wasn’t at all common for the prim, elderly woman.
“Yes, quite a bit,” Birdie confirmed, as they walked toward one another after making another fold. “How did you know that?”
“People talk in Wayward.”
That didn’t answer her question.
“Yeah, but who told you? Lucas?” Had he been cyber-stalking her all this time without saying a word?
“Let me see,” Bernadette said, feigning uncertainty. “I do believe it was Pinkie Wallensky.”
“You…had a conversation with Ms. Pinkie? Where she told you that Marshall was thirty years my senior?”
“Yes, I believe that’s right.”
Birdie didn’t know Bernadette knew the town matriarch let alone well enough to converse with her.
“You had a conversation about me with one of the most prolific gossips in Wayward?”
“What are you saying? That a woman of my… background, can’t have a friend of a different background?”
