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Nurse Marley has chosen to feed Isa in her nursery. She told me my baby takes the bottle best in the rocker, but I can’t help thinking she didn’t want to chat with me anymore. Maybe she felt like I was prying too much into her personal life. It’s weird how I’ve been so open with her, well, mostly, and she’s been so closed off with me.
The wails of my baby have died down on the monitor. All I hear now is Nurse Marley’s soft voice coaxing her to drink her bottle and praising her.
Then she starts singing a slow, heartfelt rendition of that old Ronettes song, “Be My Baby.” I know that oldie is about a girl crushing on a boy she just met, but in my head, I twist the meaning of the lyrics and picture Marley, as she rocks my little baby, proclaiming her eternal love and need for her. Yearning for Isa to be hers.
Her one and only baby. A chill runs through me. A familiar feeling of paranoia. Does Nurse Marley want to take my baby from me? From the moment she arrived here, she’s been so territorial. Proprietary. Then again, I’ve been so insecure. Heck, I even thought she kidnapped my baby when she simply took her for a short walk. I tell myself to stop thinking these ridiculous thoughts. Being maternal comes so naturally to her. She’s a nanny, after all. She’s supposed to adore my baby. Take care of her like she’s her own.
I suck in a deep breath. It aggravates both my incision and pelvis, but calms me down. Marley’s been gone, alone with my baby, for close to a half hour. I’m tempted to go into the nursery and take over, but she still wants to feed Isa by herself to get her acclimated to her. Impulsively, I take the Baby Reborn doll into my arms, wishing it was my Isa instead. At some point, I know I’m going to need to take control.
But for now, in my still debilitated, hormonally charged state, I might as well enjoy the reprieve Nurse Marley’s providing. She won’t be around forever. That’s both a soothing thought, and an unsettling one. I’m not sure if I’m capable of being a good mother. My own certainly wasn’t a role model.
A spasm shoots through my lower back and I realize I’ve been sitting in this low-slung couch for too long. I manage to hoist myself up, and, taking the Baby Reborn doll with me, I retreat to the ugly but more comfortable recliner. As soon as I settle into it, I hear the front door open.
Click-clack. Click-clack.
My chest tightens at the familiar sound. It can only be one person…
TWENTY-ONE
AVA
“Mother!” My eyes are saucer-wide. “What are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.” I know I sound as shocked as I must look.
“A change in plans,” she says, her smoke-damaged voice deep and husky.
Clutching Baby Reborn, the doll’s face against my chest, I take in my mother. The petite woman looks thinner, gaunter than when I saw her at my wedding nine months ago. And her taut face more wrinkled, with accordion lines above her lips and a layer of crepe on her bony neck. Smoking and drinking have taken their toll, things that even magical Botox can’t fix. Still styled in a chic bob, her brown hair is now ashen and thinning at the temples. With her vintage St. John suit, low-heeled Ferragamos, and worn Louis Vuitton suitcase, she stands the epitome of faded elegance. Never the light packer, I’m sure there are more LV luggage pieces sitting in the entryway.
She purses her thin, cranberry-colored lips. “Well, that’s a warm welcome.” Then gives me a snide smile. “Thank you, Ava.”
She hasn’t been here for more than a minute and I’m already bristling. Her sarcasm has a way of getting under my skin. Quickly.
Her steely-gray eyes scan the interior and then land back on me. I’m waiting for her to ask me about my baby, her first grandchild, but that’s wishful thinking. She pulls a face, her expression a mixture of contempt and anger.
“Look at you, Ava!” Her eyes travel down my misshapen body to my fuzzy slippers and then return to my haggard face. “If you think you’re some queen sitting on her throne, think again! Shame on you! How do you expect to keep your husband looking like that?”
Exhausted. Disheveled. Frumpy. Pathetic.
My mother has no filter. She says what she thinks as the thought comes to her. Her barb slices through my thick robe like a serrated knife. All my life the patronizing woman has judged me. Nothing I’ve done has ever been good enough for her. From the way I walked to the way I talked. When I was an adolescent, she sent me to cotillion, something she couldn’t afford, so I knew how to dance like a socialite…made me read antiquated books dating back to the 1950s about being a “good wife” and treating your husband like a king, as well as memorize Tiffany’s Table Manners for Teenagers. She constantly tested me on it, as well as showed me the difference between quality and crap, dressing me in the best money could buy even if it meant walking out of Nordstrom in a new dress with the price tag hidden. It all boiled down to this: she wanted me to marry royalty.
I had, without trying, snagged one of Hollywood’s wealthiest and most eligible bachelors, and my mother was never going to let me forget it. Or mess it up. Multimillionaire Ned was more important to her than to me. I would have been happy with a solid, middle-class guy, but for my mother, money’s always been everything. “It’s just as easy to love them rich,” she rubbed into me. Though she’s rarely talked about her past or my father, I know they were wealthy and lived a charmed life. The house I grew up in until I was nine was big and beautiful.
She sets her suitcase down, folds her toothpick-thin arms across her chest, and glares at me. The repulsive smell of her smoke-drenched clothes wafts up my nostrils. Her whole life she’s been a chain smoker, lighting up Virginia Slims nonstop.
I finally answer her, trying to keep my emotions in check. I just don’t need her. Need this, right now. “Mother, this is actually the best I’ve looked and felt in ages. You know this was a very difficult pregnancy. I’m lucky we both made it.”
She squints and shoves her reading glasses, which hang from a pearl chain, halfway up her pinched nose.
“Is that your baby you’re holding?”
“No, Mother.” I flip the realistic-looking doll around so it’s facing her.
She gasps and her face turns ashen. I’m shocked by her visceral reaction. Her fluttering eyes, quivering lips, trembling hands. It’s like she’s just seen a ghost and is going to faint. She fans herself as if she’s having a hot flash.
“Mother, it’s just a doll.”
“I need a drink.” Her voice is shaky and she’s still unsteady.
Leaving her suitcase behind, she staggers over to Ned’s well-stocked bar and pours herself a shot of one of his expensive bourbons.
