The companionship was pretty good too.
“Your mom really made you practice the piano when you had friends over?”he asked.
“Yes,” she said.“She was really strict.Like I said, there was no room for mistakes.”
“And your sister’s response to that was to jump into making all the biggest mistakes?”
“Yes.”
“And your mom’s not proud of you?”
“Not really.Because being a teacher doesn’t make you a lot ofmoney.However, people respect the profession.So, there’s an element of it that she does like, in spite of herself.”
“Well, when you actually do go talk to her about the baby, I want to go with you.”
“I can’t put it off anymore.”
“Well, we had a good day today.Let’s not make it bad.Tomorrow.We’ll swing by tomorrow.”
He was ready to handle any response the woman had to throw at them.
Ellie wasn’t going to have to handle it alone.
Hell, as far as he was concerned, Ellie would never have to handle her mother alone again.
He would make sure of it.
CHAPTER9
She’d called her mom and dad to let them both know that she’d be stopping by today, and now she was very nervously riding shotgun in Clark’s truck on her way to the house she grew up in, a place that always made her feel as if she was about to swallow a cup of nails.
Maybe showing up with Clark was the wrong move.
But there was no right move here.
Clark had told her he wanted to tell his parents over the phone, because he needed to figure out what condition they were in, and it had been a few months since he’d seen them.
But she knew better than to give her mom serious news over the phone.That was the wrong move.Nancy had protocol for everything, and certain things should not be texted or delivered via phone.
The street looked the same as always, and the house just the way it had when she was growing up.She’d moved back to town at the beginning of the school year and had only been to dinner with her parents twice.She felt bad about it because she was theonly child her parents had who would visit them, but it was just so complicated.
The truck pulled into the wide, paved driveway and she found herself staring at her mother’s potted plants on the porch.Perfect and bright and cheery.So much time and maintenance and stress to look just so.
They got out of the truck, and she walked toward the front door, while Clark followed behind her with Marjorie in his arms.
She twisted her hands together and rocked back and forth on her heels.He put his hand on her arm, calming her nervous energy right then and there, his calloused palm on her elbow grounding her.Then warming her.
She looked up at him and felt reassured.
She knocked on the door.
A moment later, her mother opened it, and she felt her heart squeezing her chest.“Hi, Mom,” she said.“I need to talk to you.”
“What is this?”Her mom looked from Clark to her, and then at the baby.
“Melanie’s,” she said.
There was no perfect staging of conversations where her mother was concerned.There was no way to make this easy, no way to soften the blow or direct her response.
