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Maya’s eyes widened as she stared at her mother.
“It’s true, hon. Oh, don’t you see, child? You’re getting what you’ve always wanted. Respectability. Why, you’re marrying into a family who could buy and sell this town and everyone in it. Every person who ever snubbed you is gonna be kissing up full force, just hopin’ to get invited to have a cup of coffee with you.”
Maya’s face puckered and her lower lip quivered. “Y-you’re right. That’s wh-what I’ve always w-wanted. But I wanted to earn it…not marry into it.”
“You’d already earned it, Maya. That’s the point. Those women are forced now to give you the respect you already deserved. You should be happy to see them so firmly put in their places.”
“I…know I should.”
Her mother tilted her head to one side. “Well, then, how come you’re crying?”
“I don’t know!” she wailed, and the tears flooded her face, and she shoveled in some more ice cream.
“Darlin’,” her mother said after a moment, “Idoknow. And so do you, deep down. And you’d best get busy thinking it through and figurin’ it out, because you’re gonna be married in a few hours, and it would be a darned good notion to have your head on straight when you do.”
Blinking several times, sitting up straighter, she thought very hard. Her mother snatched tissues from the box and wiped Maya’s face, her nose.
“Well?”
Maya stared down at the melting ice cream in the bowl. “I’m afraid I’m not good enough to be a senator’s wife.”
“You’re good enough to be anything you want to be, and you know it. I haven’t raised you to think otherwise. Now think some more. What’s really wrong?”
Maya frowned. “Maybe it’s…that I thinkhemight not think I’m good enough—”
“Bullcookies. He wouldn’t be marrying you if he thought that way. Try again.”
“His…father. Yes, that’s it, his father hates me, and—”
“His father is a teddy bear trying to act like a grizzly. I can’t believe a daughter of mine didn’t see through that stuff and nonsense at first glance.”
Licking her lips, Maya nodded. “I did. He’s just lonely and feeling left out.”
“Uh-huh.”
Drawing a deep breath, Maya sighed, took a big bite of ice cream and thought some more. “Maybe it’s…that I don’t know what’s going to happen. I mean, I don’t want to move away from here. But he’s going to have to, if he becomes a senator. And I don’t want to go with him, but I don’t want to be left behind, either.”
“Why not?”
Her brows went up. Another bite. “Well, I…I…the babies. It would be hard on the babies, and hell, I don’t want to be raising them all alone. I mean, I’ve seen how hard that is.”
“We’ve been just fine alone, Maya. You know you could do it, and do it in spades, if you had to.”
“But this is different. I mean…okay, it’s not that I don’t think I could raise the kids alone, I mean, I could. Of course I could. I know I could.”
Vidalia nodded and dipped her spoon in for another bite.
“It’s just that I don’t want to be alone.”
“You were fine alone, a year ago,” her mother pointed out.
“That was before I met Caleb….” Maya blinked and went very still with a spoonful of ice cream halfway to her mouth. She lowered the spoon. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “What if I love him?” She turned to stare at her mother through eyes gone wide with horror. “Landsakes, Mom, what if Ilovehim?”
* * *
Maya’s mother sat beside her, stroking her hair and talking to her until she finally fell asleep. A restless, fitful sleep, but still, she needed the rest. And she did rest, just fine, until about 1:00 a.m. when something woke her. She wasn’t sure whether it was the howling wind outside or the sensation of being soaking wet from the waist down. She only knew that the house was freezing cold and pitch dark, and that her water had broken.
“Mom?” she called.
