When the Morning Glory Blooms (2 page)

Mamas don’t get to stay out past midnight.

How had pushing a baby through her woman parts given Lauren the right to abandon the house rules? And on a school night?

Becky steeled herself for a confrontation. She’d say, and then Lauren would say, and then she’d say  . . . 

No. That hadn’t worked the last four times they’d had a similar conversation.

She drowned another tea bag—fragrant, impossibly smooth white peach—and forced her gaze away from the clock on the kitchen wall. But the digital displays on the stove and the microwave mocked her attempts to forget what time it was, where her daughter should be, the lure of her pillow, and the fact that Lauren’s father was missing all the fun.

I hope you’re enjoying California, Bub
. She should probably use his real name. It wasn’t Gil’s fault his job demanded the kind of travel she’d find more fulfilling than he did. Wait. It was only a little after ten, Pacific time. She could call.

One ring. Two.

“Hey, honey. How’s my angel?”

“She’s not home yet.”

“I meant you, Becky.”

The sincerity in his voice was like ointment for a scraped knee. “I—”

“Are you okay, my pugalicious?”

“Gil. Not in the mood for nose-related terms of endearment, okay?”

“Sorry.”

Of course he was. Good man. The kind she’d hoped Lauren would choose one day.

“Is Jackson sleeping?” he whispered, as if he could wake the baby from six states away, as the stork flies.

She swirled her tea bag through the steaming water. If it were her typical daytime choice—Black Pearl—it would by now be oversteeped, the deep molasses of Gil’s eyes. “Jackson? Sleeping obliviously. Like I should be.”

“I wish I were there.”

“I know.”

“What’s Lauren’s excuse this time?”

“Study group.”

Gil’s sigh traveled through the fiber-optic phone lines and tickled the hairs in Becky’s ear. “Is she still talking college?”

A slosh of tea left a mini-puddle on the white countertop. She swiped at it with her palm, which turned the small puddle into a smear. “We want her to further her education, don’t we? I mean, providing she gets through this last year of high school.” She ripped a paper towel from its holder. “That’s not a given.”

“We knew this would be hard.” Blistered. His voice sounded blistered, as though life’s shoes had rubbed too long on a tender spot.

“He’s our grandson.”

“And she’s our daughter.”

“That’s been confirmed, hasn’t it?”

Gil chuckled. “You mean, how did two fully responsible, completely mature adults manage to raise a daughter who seems allergic to responsibility?”

“Something like that.”

“She’s not fully grown yet, Becky.”

“Oh, that’s comforting.” The baby monitor let Becky know her not-fully-grown-yet daughter’s infant son squirmed in his crib.

“Do you want me to call Lauren on her cell?”

“I tried that. It went to voice mail.”

Gil huffed. “That’ll be the last time.”

“It’s on my list.” Becky turned away from the glare of the microwave’s time keeper.

California said, “We’re in this together, hon.”

She should have replied instantly with something that meant, “We sure are.” But six states of separation and full-time versus part-time parenting left an awkward gap she didn’t have the energy or wisdom to fill.

“Becky?”

Somewhere beyond the walls, a car door slammed. “Never mind. She just got home.”

“Five, six, seven,
eight!
”

Monica’s ever-present ebullience grated today like a hangnail on silk. So did the fact that nothing bulged over the lip of
her
yoga pants.

Becky retrieved Jackson’s pacifier from the floor of Monica’s lower-level exercise room, squirted it with water from her sports bottle, and stuck it back in his pouty mouth before returning to the video segment Monica seemed to enjoy far more than a normal person should.

“We didn’t  . . .  use  . . .  pacifiers  . . .  with our  . . .  kids,” Monica puffed out, proving she was working hard enough to make conversation difficult.

Mimicking a scaled-back version of Monica’s arm and leg movements, Becky fought to catch the beat of the exercise video. “Yeah, well  . . .”

“And none  . . .  of our  . . .  kids  . . .  needed braces  . . .  or had  . . .”

“Cavities, either. Yes, I heard.”

“I’m just  . . .  saying  . . .”

Was she serious or teasing? “Two different schools of thought on it, Monica.”

“And  . . .  slow it on down.”

Oh. The exercising. No problem there.

“Beck, honestly, I don’t know how you do it.” Monica wiped a delicate dot of perspiration from her forehead with the back of her wrist. “You’re an amazing woman.”

“Even though I take full advantage of disposable diapers when cloth is more environmentally friendly and have been known to rock Jackson clear through his entire nap?”

Monica’s arms flapped to her side. “You don’t really—Oh. You were kidding.”

Perfect mothers sometimes can throw a pall on the best-friend idea.

“No, I mean it,” Monica said, lunging forward just for the fun of it. “I don’t know that I could do what you’re doing.” She switched position and lunged again.

“Lauren needs to graduate.” As if that explained it all.

With the video segment complete and Jackson temporarily content, the two women rehydrated and sat cross-legged on the floor near Jackson’s bouncy chair. Becky knew her knees would give her grief for choosing that position, but she found herself drawn to eye-level with the cherub who didn’t know any better than to love her.

“Doesn’t it bother you that you had to quit work?”

“Bother me? Other than the loss of the paycheck and the fact that I loved what I did? No, not a bit.”

Monica tilted her head as if to say, “Oh, you poor thing.”

Thanks, Monica. That helps. Pity—every woman’s deepest need
.

Attitude adjusted with a Lamaze technique, Becky pressed out a smile. “We do what we have to do.” With a Vanna White wave of her hand, she added, “This is all  . . .  temporary.”

“He’s gorgeous, Beck.”

The two friends watched him breathe, watched his fists bat the air, his feet engage in a dance to silent music.

Becky caught a whiff of something other than a wet or dirty diaper. Sweat. Her own. Had she remembered deodorant this morning? She ran her tongue over her teeth. Had she brushed them? These were things new moms were supposed to fret about, not new grandmothers. No doubt Lauren had time to straighten or curl her hair, depending on her mood, and do a complete makeup routine before leaving for school. Becky reached into the outside pocket of Jackson’s diaper bag, the area she claimed for herself, and grabbed a stick of gum. If Monica left the room for any reason, she’d dust a handful of Jackson’s baby powder under her armpits.

She wouldn’t, couldn’t let herself think about what she would be doing at work today. The magazine layout she’d be supervising. The interviews other editors craved but couldn’t secure. The adrenaline jolt from editing an article to its crispest, laser-sharp edge.

Becky rubbed her left elbow. Infant Seat Elbow, Gil called it. He joked about inventing collapsible legs with wheels for the infant carrier. Becky teased back that a little thing called a stroller had been invented long ago but the two items couldn’t swap duties. Days ago, she’d dreamed he’d engineered the ideal answer. When she woke, the dream dissipated without leaving a blueprint. Dreams do that.

“Vitamin water?” Monica held one toward her.

Eww
. She tipped her sports bottle in Monica’s direction to signal she was good. The bottle’s stainless steel sides kept its contents—unvitaminized, uninteresting, electrolyte-deficient tap water, with a hint of lemon juice—a secret. Becky didn’t need another reminder about the proper way to do things. And hadn’t she seen a segment on
Good Morning America
about vitamin water? Yay or nay? She couldn’t remember the point. More than a few things lost their crisp edge with midnight feedings when Lauren had a test the next day. She rubbed her forehead. Brain fog could lift any time now without her objection.

“Beck, do you—” Monica hesitated, as if sifting her words through a tightly woven screen. “Do you regret not making Lauren go to youth group?”

Patience, get out of my way. I’m putting you in Time Out
. “Monica, come on. You really think Gil and I could have prevented Lauren from getting pregnant if we had forced her to go to youth group?”
Blood pressure? Rapidly approaching nuclear meltdown
.

“Brianne can’t stop talking about all she’s learning under Pastor Jon’s leadership. Did you know she’s serving on the youth worship team now? We’ve always had an intentional family devotional time—we call it God Circle—at home, but the church is offering our young people tools to help them navigate the dangerous waters of—”

Is this the same church that didn’t know how to react, where to look, what to say when Lauren came to the morning service in a skintight maternity top? The same church people who scheduled, then quietly canceled a baby shower?

Becky didn’t know she had the oomph to go from cross-legged to fully upright at lightning speed. “Monica, we’re done here.”

The sitting one looked like she’d never been interrupted before. “This is only the first-round cooldown. We have four more tracks to go to complete the exercise series.”

Becky took mental note of her internal temperature. She could boil pasta.
Cool down?
“I mean, we are done. You were the one person I thought I could count on for support.”

Monica jumped to her feet. “You always have my support, Beck.”

Her fingers fumbling with the safety belts, Becky unlatched Jackson from the bouncy chair, then propped him on her left hip, slung the diaper bag over her right shoulder, grabbed the front lip of the chair, which slammed against her shin, and headed for the door.

“Becky, don’t go.”

“We’re done.”

“I’ll call you later.”

Becky had no hands left to turn the doorknob. The burning sensation rose from her stomach to her throat to her jaw to her ears. Forehead to the door, her voice squeezed out, “A little  . . .  help  . . .  here?”

Jackson’s pacifier hit the floor. The scream that came from his mouth was the one Becky thought she had dibs on for that moment.

Monica’s hand on Becky’s back felt like a branding iron. Apparently when an animal is branded, it reacts with tears.

“Please, hon, let’s talk about this. That was insensitive of me. I’m sorry. Please stay.”

Becky managed to grab the doorknob with the fingertips of her left hand. “Not now, Monica. I need a God moment. A God circle. God.”

The contents of Jackson’s diaper bag left a Hansel-and-Gretel trail from Monica’s front door to Becky’s Honda Civic. The contents of his diaper left a wet spot on her hip. She strapped him into the—to hear him tell the story—
straitjacket
car seat and dug a spare pacifier from the glove compartment to quiet the noise while she retrieved the crumbs of their morning’s adventure.

Hot tears splatted the concrete paver sidewalk and driveway as she bent over the strewn baby paraphernalia.
Lauren. You should be doing this. You should be the one with urine on your hip. You should be holding that child to your breast, making room for car seats and high chairs, and losing sleep and shreds of sanity
.

She was probably in biology II right now. Biology class. A
little late for that
.

Becky slid into the driver’s seat and glanced at the rearview mirror’s reflection of the back window’s baby mirror. Jackson’s eyelids drifted shut over flushed cheeks.

Why am I doing this? Why am I doing any of this? Because I love that child
.

She sighed as she turned the key in the ignition.
Jackson, too
.

2

Becky—2012

Love isn’t Silly Putty
. Thought for the day in the flip calendar that Becky’s still-thinking-about-whether-I’m-calling-you-my-friend Monica had given her for her fortieth birthday.