In the early hours, there was a soft knock on the bedroom door, and I waited to hear who was on the other side. It was Carmen’s voice that sounded through the barrier. “Mia? Are you awake?” Her head peeked around the door and I looked at her from where I was sat on the bed.
“Coming in?” I asked, closing the book and placing it on my lap.
She walked into the room and closed the door behind her before joining me on the bed. “You should be asleep,” Carmen sternly told me off. “Instead, you’re reading...” She trailed off as she picked up the book and looked at the cover. “Macbeth? Mia, seriously? A tragedy?”
I shrugged my shoulders at her. “It’s the only thing that Ez seems to enjoy. He stopped his one-man rave when I started reading it to him.” It wasn’t a complaint. I was overjoyed every time I felt a wriggle, every time we heard the heartbeat or saw him on the screen. It was almost as if Ezra sensed all my concerns over him and sent a constant reminder that he was alive and waiting to join us.
“Two under two.” Carmen clucked her tongue. “You’re a braver woman than me.”
“This was not the plan,” I reminded her. “I’m not sure how I’m meant to stand in church, in front of Father, in a white dress when I already have a son and am just about ready to drop my second.”
Carmen stifled her laughter behind a hand. “Makes sense that you and Luc would do everything ass backwards.”
I huffed and leaned back against the headboard, folding my arms across my chest.
“Are you nervous?” Carmen asked, tucking some hair behind my ear. I’d kept it trimmed in the bob style rather than grow it back out. It felt like a new phase of my life and I preferred the way it looked.
“About the wedding or having two heathens in the house? Three, if we include Luc. Twenty, if we account for Dante,” I mused.
“The wedding.” She laughed.
“A little,” I admitted.
“It’s natural,” she said, wrapping an arm around my shoulder, and I leaned against her. “I was nervous before I married Emilio.”
“I can’t imagine that.”
“It’s true. I was never sold on the idea of marriage or children until I met him. I was so nervous the morning of the wedding, we had to stop the car so I could be sick.”
“Carmen,” I said, surprised that it’d gotten to her that badly.
“I made it to the end of the aisle, didn’t I?” She grinned. “What are you nervous about?”
It felt safe to be honest with Carmen. She’d always been my closest ally and I never felt judged when I was with her. “I’m nervous about not being enough.”
“For Luc?” she asked, looking at me.
“For everyone,” I told her. At every turn, someone expected me to be a certain version of myself and marrying Luc added the title of wife to the roster. It cemented me into the family, and I didn’t know if I could fulfil all the roles that were expected of me.
“You need to stop worrying about everyone else,” Carmen said seriously. “You’ll never be able to please everyone. Mia, let me be honest with you.” She took her arm away from my shoulders and shuffled on the bed so she could look directly at me. “The men will tell you that business comes before all else, but they don’t understand what it’s like for women. We have a family to raise, a house to run and they expect us to know what is going on around us at all times. The church will expect you to be sweet and your enemies will expect you to be sharp. Your boys will want you to be loving and your patience will wear thin. Be kind to yourself, Mia. This life is not an easy one.”
Carmen had always offered me advice and I’d always listened. We came from the same world. A world that we were blind to until we’d been pulled into it.
“You’ve done more than prove your worth. I should apologise,” she told me. “I told you once that you weren’t made for our world, but you are, Mia. Probably more so than some of the men we know.” She laughed to herself. “You don’t need to be anyone other than who you want to be. Get married in a few hours. Become a Foster and spend some time just figuring out what that means to you.”
I beckoned her forward, knowing that my bump wouldn’t let me rock forward. When Carmen came near me, I pulled her into a hug. “Thank you,” I whispered into her hair. “For being here when I needed you. For your friendship.”
Carmen pulled away and looked at me. “You will always have me in your corner. Do you know how much it means having an ally I can trust?”
“It’s a relief,” I said. There was a bond between us that was solid and unwavering. Our families were entwined by our children and Luc and Emilio’s history. It felt good to confidently say that I had a friend that I could trust. Someone who wasn’t on Luc’s payroll.
“This is the beginning of the rest of your life, Mia,” Carmen told me with a glint in her eyes. I knew she wasn’t on about being a married woman. Carmen believed that women ran the world and didn’t need a man, but they were nice to keep around. Sometimes I wondered how she and Emilio kept their relationship successful with so much ego between the pair.
“Everything I wanted.” I laughed and felt my eyes sting with tears.
“Everything you wanted,” Carmen said, leaning forward and kissing my forehead. “Get some sleep now. You’ll be grateful for it in the morning.”
I nodded and as Carmen left the room, I switched off the lamp and shuffled under the covers. When I eventually fell asleep, it was dreamless and peaceful for the first time in months.
