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Thoughtsof my mom rattle around in my brain for the next two weeks. It doesn’t matter if I’m alone at home, surrounded by people at work, or even with Cade and Brynlee at his house. I replayed my conversation about her over so many times in my head, I think I might be losing my mind. I know I need to call her. But I have no desire to listen to the disappointment that’ll be evident in her voice.
I have very little relationship with Adaline. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve seen her these last few years.
Max has zero tolerance for her.
Becket is the only one of the three of us who keeps in touch. And that’s because he keeps in touch, not the other way around. I might have a bit of a daddy complex, but Becks rocks a definite mommy complex.
But if I’m willing to work for what I want in my career and my relationship, I need to be woman enough to call my mother and see if she’d be willing to meet me halfway in order for us to have a relationship. I’d like my daughter to know the only parent I have left.
But on my terms.
That’s how I find myself FaceTiming her nearly two weeks after my zoo date.
I wait until the office has cleared out for the day and know it’s time.
There’s no hiding that my baby bump has popped in person, but we’re not in person. I’m sitting behind my monitor at work, so she won’t be getting that view. This is on my terms, even if she doesn’t realize it.
Once I find her contact on my FaceTime app, I sit back and wait for her to answer.
Hoping for a moment she won’t answer but knowing it’ll be better to get this over with like the strong confident woman I am. My therapist would be so proud.
Until she answers and I regress back to that young woman who let Adaline manipulate me at will. “Scarlet, darling. It’s so good to see you. You look tired, dear. Are you getting enough sleep?”
I haven’t spoken to my mother since Christmas. And in the first five seconds of speaking to me, that’s what she says.
“I’m fine, Mother. How are you?”
I study her while she spends the next few minutes regaling me of the week she and her latest boyfriend just spent on a yacht in Lake Cuomo. Her blonde hair is cut in a short bob, just skimming her chin. Her makeup is perfectly applied to an incredibly botoxed face. She’s had so much work done, she looks more like my older sister than my mother. It’s a shame. She’d be a beautiful sixty-year-old woman if she let herself age gracefully. But that was never an option for her.
I wait until she finally takes a breath before I interrupt her, having already had enough of this conversation. “I’m pregnant.”
I throw it out there without any fanfare. I just need her to know so I can get off this call before I crawl out of my skin.
There’s a knock on my door, followed by Lenny’s head popping in just as Adaline starts to go off like a rocket. “What? You can’t be pregnant. You’re not married. Scarlet Kingston, what will the papers say? What do you know about being a mother?”
I wave my hand at Lenny out of the view of the camera, knowing this call isn’t going to last much longer, and she closes the door quietly behind her, tiptoeing over to one of the seats across from me without Adaline seeing.
“The papers aren’t going to say anything, Mother. They have more important things to write about than me being pregnant. The Kings have won the Championship two years in a row. We’re going for a third this year, and we’re going to be doing it with me as president of Operations and my daughter in my arms while I do it.” There. I said it, and my voice didn’t even shake like the child she makes me feel like I still am.
Her throat clears dramatically, and Lenny makes a silly face, causing me to hold back a laugh. “This is not funny, Scarlet. How in the world do you think you’re going to have a baby and that kind of career? Take it from me, you can’t have it all. It’s impossible. And who, exactly, is the father? Is he going to make this right and marry you?”
“It’s not 1955, Mother. I don’t have to marry the father if I don’t want to. I’m a grown woman with the means to take care of my own child if I want to do it alone. But that won’t be the case. The father is Cade St. James, and he is very much in my life.”
If Adaline could move her forehead at all, I’m fairly sure her eyebrows would be touching her hairline right now.
Ahh. The beauty of botox.
“The same boy—”
I spare a glance at my sister and cut my mother off, not wanting her to finish that sentence in front of Lenny. “Yes, Mother. The same boy. Only he’s a man now. An incredible man. And the father of your granddaughter.”
“Scarlet, you can’t be serious.”
“I’m very serious. I didn’t call to get your opinion or advice. I just wanted to tell you that you’re going to be a grandmother in a few more months.” Before she gets the chance to say anything, I take the high road and lie. “Mother, I just realized I have a meeting to get to. I’ve got to go. We’ll talk soon. Bye.”
“Scarlet—” I close FaceTime before she gets the chance to finish her sentence and lean back against my chair, looking at Lenny. “I’m so sorry you had to hear that.”
“I barged into your office. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. That was painful. God. I haven’t seen your mom since Dad’s funeral.” Lenny was lucky. Her mother was nothing like mine. We lost her right before Len graduated from high school. She tried to mother all of us, and we let her. It was the first time anyone ever had. “She’s wrong, you know.”
