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“Yeah.”
“Mama?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“You can always ask me something.”
I bit my lip, knowing when I asked the question, it was going to blast me open and put me under the parental microscope. But I forged ahead anyway. “When you were marrying Dad, did you have cold feet?”
“No.”
“That was a fast answer,” I said with a laugh.
She didn’t chuckle. “I didn’t have cold feet. In fact, I didn’t have any doubts at all. I knew he was the one for me.”
“So many people told me they had cold feet before they got married,” I said.
“Like who?”
“Co-workers mostly.”
“You gotta lead with your gut. I don’t think a lot of people do that. It’s easier for most people to let their brain lead. But if you let your brain lead, you start doing those pros and cons lists, and your brain can mess that up. You might decide to be with someone who’s good on paper, but wrong for you in all the ways that actually matter.”
I pondered her words. “And if the guy on paper is completely wrong for you? What then?”
She paused. “You’ve met someone, haven’t you?”
“What? No!” I protested, albeit a little too loudly. “Just a hypothetical.”
“Well if it’s hypothetical, I’d ask you how he makes you feel…”
Safe.
Seen.
Adored.
“Can I ask you something? And you’ll be one hundred percent honest about it?” I asked.
“Sure.”
“You promise?”
“Promise.”
“You never liked Knox, did you?” When she didn’t reply, I went on, “You promised to tell me the truth.”
“You already know the truth. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have asked me.”
“Ouch,” I joked.
“I never thought he was right for you,” she said. “But it wasn’t my place to tell you. When you have children you gotta let them make their own mistakes.”
I shuddered at the thought of marrying Knox and finding out he was cheating on me after we had been legally bound to one another.
“I wonder if part of me stayed with Knox to prove to Dad that I wasn’t wrong about him,” I said quietly. “Only I was wrong about him. So wrong.”
