“That’s the best news ever,” she says, releasingme.
I knew she was going to be happy, but she could hide her total elation at least a little. I give her my sternlook.
“Sorry, sorry. What I meant to say wasI’m so sorry to hear the news. How are you holding up?” She takes another step back, but she can’t stop the smile that pulls at her lips. “I wish your father were home. He’d be happy about the news too.” Turning abruptly, she says “Follow me to thekitchen.”
She’s walking away, and I’ve yet to move. There’s still one more bombshell I need to drop on her, and I don’t know if I should do it when she has knives at herdisposal.
“Isaac, come on.” She turns and sends me a questioning look from her spot seven feet away. When she sees me moving, she startsagain.
Once we’re in the kitchen she grabs a head of lettuce from the fridge and tosses it to me. I’m tearing it for a salad when I ask, “Aren’t you going to ask why Jenna and I broke it off? We were engaged, you know.” As if she needs thereminder.
My mom reaches past me and flicks on the faucet, so the water washes the leaves I’ve dropped into thecolander.
“Never look a gift horse in the mouth.” She snickers like she’s just made the funniest jokeever.
I can’t help but laugh. My mom liked Jenna well enough in high school, but when I ran back into her and brought her to my parents’ house, I could tell right away Mom wasn’t rekindling fond memories the way I was. Maybe it was the way Jenna asked for cream and sugar when my mom served her coffee. My mother is more of a double shot of espresso, no-nonsense lady. Love pours from her, even when she's pissed and cussing in Spanish and her black eyebrows are pulled so close together she starts looking like FridaKahlo.
Mom managed to keep her opinion to herself, or at least from me, and I assumed she’d grown to likeJenna.
I guess I waswrong.
What I want to say isJenna left me because she thinks I have feelings for another woman. Who? Oh, just this girl I got pregnant five years ago. Now I have a daughter I found out about when I was her emergencysurgeon.
As priceless as the look on her face would be, I can’t do that toher.
Shifting the lettuce in the colander, I start what is surely to be a long, painful, and possibly embarrassing conversation. “Jenna and I broke up because something I did in the past came back to thepresent.”
My mom’s hand stills, poised with a peeler pressed to acarrot.
“And what might thatbe?”
Her eyes are careful, as if she knows she’s treading into dangerouswaters.
I turn off the faucet and dry my hands on a kitchen towel, then toss it on the counter between us. “After that night, five years ago, the nightthat…”
“No reminder needed,” she says softly. “Goon.”
“I went to a bar. And I met a woman. Aubrey.” Twenty-one-year-old Aubrey fills my head. She was so beautiful, but with an air of sadness. Maybe that was part of the instant attraction when I spotted her sitting alone at that table. The sadness in me saw her, needed her, wanted a person to hurtwith.
“She was upset that night too. About her ex-boyfriend and her mother.” Unwilling to air Aubrey’s dirty laundry, I don’t offer any more explanation than that. “We went back to my place.” My cheeks heat, but thanks to my tanned skin, I don’tredden.
Still, my mom somehow knows I’m flustered. “It’s OK. Sex is normal. Besides, you’re thirty-five.” She winks at me. “So, you ran into Aubrey while you were with Jenna? That hardly seems like a reason to end anengagement.”
“Jenna left because she couldn’t handle what Aubrey and I created that night.”I really should just spit it out.My mom’s eyes narrow, the pieces of the puzzle shifting, so I put it out there. “Aubrey got pregnant that night, and she had no way to tell me. By the time she took a test, I was inAfrica.”
Fingers pressed to her lips, my mom drags in a shocked breath. “Did she have thebaby?”
I nod. Despite the seriousness of our conversation, Ismile.
“I’m agrandma?”
I nod again. Still smiling. And so isshe.
“Oh my god.” Her fingers curl away from her lips, except for one, which stays poised on her top lip. “I need to meet her. Orhim?”
“Her.Claire.”
“Now I really wish your dad were home. This is so exciting. I can’t wait to meet Claire. When? She can come over here. I’ll need…” She starts listing things, ticking her fingers up one at a time. “Toys. Dolls. Does she like dolls? Crayons and coloringbooks.”
