Then she thought about the delivery. When other mothers described their easy labor and textbook delivery, Beth stayed silent. For her, labor was about pain, bruising, stitches and pediatricians hunched over her babies with anxious expressions on their faces.
The thought of going through it again made her pulse rate rocket, and that was before she started to think about sleepless nights and the sheer relentlessness of having young children.
How could Jason even think it was a good idea?
Miserable, tired and hungover, she grabbed her coat and joined her mother in the car.
“Put your seat belt on. The roads are icy.” Suzanne drove carefully and Beth stretched out her legs to warm her toes under the heater. The roads were clear, but snow lay in thick layers over the fields and mountains.
“How are you, Mom?” She felt a stab of guilt. “I’m sorry I haven’t called much lately. It’s been crazy busy with the girls.”
“You don’t have to apologize.” Suzanne concentrated on the road. “I remember how it was having young children. I used to make so many plans for the day, and then somehow the time would be eaten up and I wouldn’t have done any of the things on my list.”
“That sounds f
amiliar.” Beth suppressed a yawn. “How did you ever cope?” One minute, Suzanne’s life had been a child-free zone, and the next she’d had three orphaned children to deal with.
Her mother smiled. “I had your dad. We were a team.”
Thinking of her dad made Beth feel ridiculously emotional.
To distract herself, she stared out of the window as they passed familiar places.
There was the McAllisters’ farm, and beyond that the mountains.
In the early days when they’d moved here, she remembered feeling traumatized. But then slowly, gradually, they’d been absorbed into the community.
She wasn’t sure exactly when she’d started to treat the place as home. It had happened gradually and coincided with her thinking of Suzanne as her mother.
Had she ever really considered how hard it must have been for Suzanne? And how lucky the three of them were to have her? She and Stewart had stuck by them through thick and thin.
“How is Dad?”
“He’s great. You know your dad—” Suzanne slowed as she approached a junction “—always on the go. Says yes to everything, which is why he wasn’t here when you arrived home last night and was gone before you woke up. Of course, if we’d known you were coming—”
“It was a spontaneous thing.”
Suzanne reached across and squeezed her hand. “We’re always here for you, you know that.”
“Thanks.” Beth felt tears sting again and blinked them back. Apparently she’d turned into a fountain overnight. She was never drinking again.
Her mother slowed and lowered her window as they passed a couple hauling a Christmas tree to their car. “Fiona! We’ve moved Book Group to Tuesday.”
“I heard.” Fiona stepped toward the car. “Are we making food, as it’s the last meeting before Christmas?”
“That’s the plan.”
Fiona and Suzanne talked for a minute and Beth tried to imagine a similar exchange happening in Manhattan and failed.
If the time of her yoga class changed, someone sent her a text. They didn’t stop her halfway down Fifth Avenue.
She smiled as her mother waved to Fiona and pulled away. “It’s good to be home.”
“You don’t miss the bright lights of the city? How is Jason? Job still going well?”
“Yes. He’s been offered another promotion.”
“Promotions usually come with longer hours and that would be tough on you with two little ones.”