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Practice.
And it has.
Unfortunately, there are still moments where splashes of anger over her falling in love again threaten to ruin my mood.
Destroy the progress we’ve created together as a family.
Urges to sketch and paint hit me in unison forcing me to momentarily shut my eyes and grip the glass in my possession tighter.
Ignore the increasing lump in my throat.
“You know Aunt Brandi didn’t want kids,” my mother slowly begins, summoning my stare up to her. “At all.In fact, she took the home pregnancy testsix times– and I know this for a fact because I was sent to the grocery store to pick up four of them – as well as went totwodifferent doctors to confirm that there hadn’t been a mix up or that someone had mistaken the test results for something else.”
My eyebrows launch to the sky in surprise.
“Andbecause she didn’t even want the one, she was pregnant with, she insisted Brett get fixed. Then when she found out she was having twins, she scheduled his vasectomyherself.” Mom doesn’t hide her amusement. “That was a very loud, very comical Labor Day weekend.”
Rich and I lightly laugh in tandem.
“As for me…” Her head slightly sways side to side. “I…wanted a house full of kids.Especiallyafter you were born.” An unfamiliar longing slides into her expression. “Ilovedeverything about being a mom. I loved holding you and teaching you and being inspired by you. I loved that being a mom gave me lifeoutsideof work.”
“What did Dad want?”
“You.”
Confusion along with shock pulls my brow tightly together.
“When your dad was in the military, I had a nanny help with a lot of the heavy lifting; however, once he was retired,hedid most of that lifting, insisting that a child should spend as much time with their parents as possible.”
I seeandconcur with his point.
Don’t get me wrong.
Ernie is a huge help.
Always.
But whenIcan be the one doing the parenting I am.
It’smy job.
My responsibility.
“Your dadlovedyou so much, Tuck. He…really did. And lovingyouwas enough. Raisingyouwas enough. Our marriage while…wonderful…was…far from perfect or even fucking balanced. Work came first for me, andyoucame first for him, so of course, having a bunch more for me to care foraroundwork while he dedicated practically his entire life to managing you – and if we would’ve had more,them– wasn’t exactly fair.” She indulges in a sip to collect her thoughts. “We fought about ita lot.For almost a year straight on and off. At one point, I thought it was going to cost us our marriage.”
“For many couples it does,” Rich casually proclaims. “Financial strain and children are among the top issues most couples – particularly those that are married – face.”
“Michael and I were – admittedly – not the best communicators. Then again, when you’re young and in love and think you know everything you typically aren’t. It tooktimeand patience and a shit ton of wine for us to finally come to an understanding on the issue. I wanted more children, but I hadn’t been there enough for the one we already had. And he wasconstantlythere for you – something you didn’t always make easy for him when you’d cry yourself to sleep night after night because you thought I didn’t love you anymore because you hadn’t seen me in days – which was why he felt like we didn’t need anymore. We decided at that moment, if I wanted more, if I wanted usto have more, then I needed to be there more for andwiththe one we already had.”
Sympathy is subtly flashed.
“The truth was…your dad knew what was going to happen. He just needed me to figure the shit out on my own. Get out of my own way.”
“That sounds familiar,” Rich quietly teases my direction.
“I needed to see for myself that while theideaof more kids was fucking incredible…actually being there and doing the hard shit over and over and over again wasn’t.” She innocently shrugs. “I wasn’t going to stop working or give up my job. I fucking love my job. I fucking loved my job then. I loved traveling and representing our brand and in order to do that I needed to be out there. I needed to beinthat world. And I couldn’t be in that world and hands on raising five kids at the same time.”
“Five?!”
