When the Morning Glory Blooms (41 page)

Gil sliced his sandwich on a slant. He must have watched a little of the cooking channel before they canceled their cable. “They would have called you, wouldn’t they? If they’d had the funding, they would have taken you back in a heartbeat.”

She jerked open the fridge and pulled out the plastic container of leftover spaghetti. “Maybe they heard I was fired from my last job. Oh, was that just this morning?”

“I love you, my sarcasmalicious one.”

“Love you, too.”

“We’re in this together.”

“Knee-deep.”

He took a bite of his sandwich, his eyebrows colliding as he chewed. Sour pickle or deep thought?

“I have an idea,” he said when his mouth was almost empty.

“I hope it’s brilliant.”

“Maybe we could get the duplex on a rent-to-own basis.”

“Still have to have a job to pay rent.”

“Oh. Right.”

Brilliant.

He chewed another thought. “So, tell me honestly, would it be so bad if we moved in with my mother?”

“Here. Eat this spoonful of peanut butter. Eat, Becky. It’ll stop the hiccups.”

“How (
hic
) do you (
hic
) know these things?”

Gil put the spoon in her hand and wrapped her fingers around the handle. “I don’t have a job. I watch more morning TV than I should.”

“Blog.”

“What hon? Oh, here. I’ll get you a drink.”

She smacked her lips. “Blog. You should start a blog. (
Hic
) ‘Gil’s ’Net: When You’re Fishing for Answers.’ ”

He pursed his lips and wiggled his backward hands near his cheeks in a reasonable facsimile of a fish.

“Of course, you’d need to sell ad space (
hic
) to make that profita—(
hic
)—ble.”

The warmth in his embrace did more to stop the hiccupping than her mouthful of peanut butter.

“You, my creamy protein-ness, are the one with all the answers.”

“Gil, we both ran out of answers a long time ago.”

He held her a long moment. “Then we are perfectly positioned for the spectacular, aren’t we?”

The morning brought a phone call from the realtor—the offer was withdrawn—and with the flip of a switch, expect-the-spectacular Gil became as sullen as a teenager with PMS
and
a baby. And  . . .  the circle was complete.

If it weren’t for their shrinking reserves and the distress it would have caused her husband, Becky would have admitted that the news made her ecstatic. There was still time for a real answer to show up.

Still time, too, for Lauren to show up. She hadn’t come home the night before.

Becky took her anger out on the pan of oatmeal she made for Gil. Mr. Cranky couldn’t afford irregularity. While he sat watching her from his self-imposed Time Out stool at the breakfast bar, she stirred the bubbling cauldron with a vigor usually reserved for hand-whipping meringue.

In her frenzy, she almost missed it. But moms hear things like the faint click of a key in a lock.

Lauren thought she could sneak in the front door? At nine thirty on a Saturday morning?

Impeccably cued, Jackson alerted the world that he was awake.

Roused from his catatonic state by the concurrent crises, Gil pointed down the hall to signify he had dibs on the boy. She could have the girl.

“Lauren?”

“Mom, don’t start. I’m not in the mood.”

“Excuse me? Young lady—”

“I’m really tired. I’m going to bed.”

“No, you’re not. Sit. Sit!” Becky’s blood pressure fluctuated wildly when she saw the look on Lauren’s face. “Honey, sit down. What’s going on? Where were you?”

“The wedding is off.”

The gasp heard ’round the world.

“You broke up?”

“Noah is such a jerk!”

To talk or not to talk—that is the question
.

Lauren flinched when her son let out a man-sized holler.

“Your dad’s taking care of it, Lauren. Now, talk. What happened? Maybe it’s cold feet. A lot of grooms get—”

“Oh, Mom. Give it up. There’s no hope. We’re done.”

“Is it worth it to get some premarital counseling, Lauren? Jackson needs his daddy.”

“What?” Lauren’s forehead creased like a sideways pleated skirt. “Noah’s not Jackson’s father!”

“He isn’t?”

She scrunched her nose. “What’s burning?”

Oatmeal!

Becky ran to clamp a lid on the saucepan and slide it off the stove. The stench still billowed into the room, so she took the pan outside and stuck it in a snowdrift. When she returned to the house and the bizarre conversation, the other half of the conversation had disappeared.

To her bedroom, no doubt.

What was Becky going to do with that daughter of hers?

She knew the answer to that one. Keep loving her  . . .  and step up her prayer labor.

“You can’t give back a tattooed engagement ring.”

The Lauren Trundle Book of Modern Proverbs. There
was a job for her—writing how-not-to books.

“No, dear. That’s true. But maybe”—was she really going to say this?—“maybe you could go back to the shop and have something tattooed on top of it. A flower or something.”

Lauren rolled onto her back on her perpetually unmade bed. “What did you say?”

“Trying to help.”

“Mom, you’re amazing. How can you keep loving me?”

Becky swept the too-long bangs off Lauren’s forehead. “It’s in the contract.”

“Your daughter gets pregnant on a dare—”

“What?”

“Yeah. We’ll talk about that later. But, I mean, how many ways can I mess up my life?”

I’m keeping a ledger. I’ll go get it
.

“And yours? And what are the odds I won’t totally mess up Jackson’s life too? Poor kid.”

“Parents pretty much all feel that way, no matter how old they are.”

“No they don’t.”

“Trust me.”

Lauren’s facial expression shifted. “Not you and Daddy. What have you two ever done wrong in raising us?”

I’m keeping a ledger. Let me get it
. “Well, let’s see. Earlier today  . . . ”

“Come on. I’m being serious.”

“So am I, Lauren. Do you really believe you’ll never be any smarter about parenting than you are today? No smarter about relationships? That you won’t learn anything useful over the next few years? That mistakes are practice for the next big goof-up rather than life lessons?”

Lauren shook like a toddler coming down from a tantrum. “I  . . .  I really do love him, you know.”

“Noah?”

“NO! That jerk. I’m talking about Jackson. I really do love him.”

“I know, honey. It shows  . . .  sometimes.”

“It’s supposed to show all the time, isn’t it?”

“Parenting 101.”

Lauren sat up and hugged her mom sumo-style, and with sumoferocity. “Will you help me?”

What do you think we’ve been trying to do for the last year?
“Absolutely.”

“A dare is a superdumb way to make a baby.” Lauren tugged Jackson’s sweatshirt over his belly. He sat in her lap, facing out, as she sat cross-legged on the couch next to her mother. The recliner Gil rescued from Goodwill was his new office and crisis-management center.

Becky glanced at him, then focused her attention on her daughter. “I think we can all agree there.”

“Lots of things start out ugly, Lauren.” The pace of Gil’s words held as much meaning as their multiple definitions.

“That chair, for instance.”

“Hey, it’s comfortable.”

“Mom, you’re okay with it messing up your design scheme?”

Becky leaned in conspiratorially. “It’s temporary. There’s no way it’ll fit in the duplex.”

Lauren giggled, a far too infrequent sound. “Yeah, but if you’re staging a house with hopes of selling it  . . . ”

“Gil! She’s right! Quick! Haul it out to the yard. We’ll have a bonfire. We can throw in your ratty hooded sweatshirt too.”

“Ladies,” he began, pounding his feet on the chair’s footrest to bring the monstrosity to its pseudo-upright position, “I’ve worn dress shirts and ties almost every day for twenty-four
years. Cut me some slack on the unemployment dress code, all right?”

Lauren stroked the pulsing soft spot on her son’s head. “Slack? It’s called grace, Dad. And thanks for sharing it so generously with me.”

What was that sound? Gratitude?
Becky held her breath, afraid the gossamer bubble would burst if she exhaled.

“I’m ready to listen to you guys.”

Can’t exhale yet!

“What do you think I should do?”

Gil and Becky exchanged invisible, inaudible, parental Morse code.
You take this one, Gil,
she tapped.

“Bullet points or lecture?”

“Bullet points, please.”

Come on, Unemployed Dad of the Year. Do your thing!

“First, focus on getting your diploma. A given.”

“Agreed.”

Becky raised her hand. “May I add some color commentary here? As intriguing an idea as was the Purse Suede business  . . . ”

“Yeah, Mom. You can save your breath. I can’t even sew. Someday maybe. Might make a nice hobby when I’m old.”

Why is she looking at me?

“Okay then.” Gil used one index finger to point to the other. “Second? Look into any financial help offered to single moms for online learning so you can at least get an associate’s degree.”

“More school?” She wrinkled her nose.

“More possibilities,” Gil countered.

“You don’t know,” Becky offered, “if you’ll need to support the two of you on your own for two years, five years, or ten years, so you’ll need marketable skills.”

“Way to be supportive, Mom. ‘You may never find a guy who loves you, Lauren, so  . . .  ’ ”

“That’s not what I meant.”

The sound Gil’s chair made when he scooted forward would have delighted a gaggle of fourth-grade boys. “Back to our bullet points. One more. Love that son of yours and lean on God.”

“That’s two points.”

“Not exactly. They’re so closely tied together, it’s hard to separate them.”

Jackson arched his back and squirmed as if he were old enough to slide from Lauren’s lap and run outside to play. Too soon, that would be true.

Becky’s muscles tensed. Her instinct was to reach for him, settle him, and relieve her daughter of the awkwardness of an unhappy child. Instead, she smiled at the scene taking place inside her brain. Her breaths came in hee-hee-hee-whoo patterns as she mentally took her hands off the moment and let a mother be fully born.