Winslet seemed to glow as she stood there silently.
“Go on.Open it up,” Oz said.
Mom straightened in her chair and slid the bow off, then took the lid off the box.Her eyes went wide, and her mouth formed an O as she stared down at whatever was inside.
What the fuck was going on?Had they upset her?
No, she looked surprised, but it was a happy kind, I thought.My eyes didn’t leave her face as I waited for her to say anything to clue us in on what they’d given her.
“We don’t know the sex yet.We wanted you to know first,” Oz said, and his words clicked.
Holy shit.
Mom sniffled as her grin spread across her face, and she reached inside to lift up a pair of tiny pink booties.“I’m gonna have myself a baby girl to spoil,” she squealed.
Dad’s deep laughter was the first I’d heard from him in months.
Winslet was staring at Oz as he swung his eyes to his wife.“What am I gonna do with a girl?”he asked, looking slightly terrified.
“Stalk her like you do her momma,” Kash replied, and the room broke into laughter.Real laughter.Not the fake shit we’d been doing since Mom’s diagnosis.
Winslet went into Oz’s arms, and he held her as he kissed her head, then shifted his eyes back to Mom.She was holding the small booties to her chest, and she looked healthier all of a sudden.Her cheeks had color, and her eyes didn’t mask any pain as they shone with happiness.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Dad said, leaning down to kiss Mom’s temple.“We are gonna have a little girl after all.”
Mom reached up and held on to his arm.“Yes, we are.”
“Congratulations!”Cressida said cheerily.
“Yeah, congrats,” Kash added.
Oz nodded as he stared down at Winslet.
“I like the sound of Uncle Forge.Has a ring to it.”
Oz glanced over at me and almost smiled.
For a moment, we weren’t thinking about Mom’s illness.And that was a moment I wanted to fucking sear into my brain.Hold on to tightly.
“Have you talked about names?”Mom asked, her eyes wide with wonder.
Winslet and Oz exchanged a glance, and then Winslet turned her gaze back to Mom.“Yes.We decided if it’s a girl, we’re going to name her Ellender Marley Savelle and call her Lindy for short.”
Mom’s breath came in at a stutter, and then she let out a small sob.
Dad whispered something in her ear and then looked up at my brother and his wife and mouthed the words,Thank you.
Ellender was not only my mother’s name, but her grandmother’s too.Now her granddaughter would carry the name as well.And Marley was the woman who had taken Winslet in and raised her after her mother’s death.I didn’t know all the details, but that her mother had been abusive.Marley was the only thing resembling a real mom she’d had.
“Oh my goodness,” Mom finally said shakily.“I feel like it’s Christmas all over again.”
I didn’t.Christmas had been fucking hard this year.Seeing Mom so goddamn happy was a hell of a lot better than it had been.
If only the small voice in the back of my head, which I had been trying to shut out, wasn’t there, reminding me that Mom might never see her namesake.She might not get to hold her and rock her and sing her that song she always sang to us.If there was a god—and I wasn’t real sure there was—he’d not take my momma before she got to be a grandmother.
Ten
Elsie
