Page 81 of Sweet Twins For My Brother's Best Friend

I stand for a moment with my shoulders clenched before turning around with a smile on my face. “Hey, Mom, why aren’t you sleeping?”

She smiles at me and pulls her knees into her chest, grabbing the bottom of the blanket that covers her. “Come sit.”

I walk over to her reluctantly and take a seat, covering my knees with the blanket and fanning it around me. “What are you doing up?”

“Just thinking. Thinking about you as a little girl and how you’re going to have your own little ones soon.”

She reaches over and tugs at a few strands of my hair like a doorknob before twirling it around her finger and letting it drop against my shoulder.

She smiles ruefully, and I can see that her eyes are rimmed in old mascara. She’s either been crying or it’s been rubbed off by sleep.

“I hope they get your beautiful copper hair.”

When I was younger, it always struck me as so odd that she called itmybeautiful copper hair as though she wasn’t a redhead herself, but now, faced with the idea of having children myself, I think I understand how something might be beautiful on a little girl but not on myself.

I smile back at her and sigh before relaxing against her knees. “Yourbeautiful copper hair.”

“Your grandma’s beautiful copper hair,” she corrects even further, running her finger over my scalp and massaging it the way she used to when I was a kid. “Hey, do you want me to braid your hair?”

“Sure, Mom,” I tell her and close my eyes, feeling the gentle tugging of my hair as she braids close to my scalp.

It’s like a deep tissue massage for my head, one that she used to do when I was a kid when she’d work avocado oil into my hair. I used to complain then, having no idea that I would one day work avocado oil into my own hair and wish that someone else was there to do it.

“You have such beautiful hair. My hair has faded,” she says.

I look back and see that she’s self-consciously running a hand through her hair.

“Your hair is beautiful, Mom. It’s changing. Change is okay.”

She kisses my forehead. “When did you get so wise?”

“Guess it comes with the mom territory,” I tell her.

“Don’t wiggle,” she chides me, bumping my arm with her elbow before tying off the end of one of my braids.

“Sorry.” I sit ramrod straight as she finishes off the braid. “Did you know that you’d be a good mother?”

“Hmmm,” she says to herself, the hair band she grabbed out of her purse dangling from her clenched teeth. She wraps it around my second braid and bumps my arm to let me know that she’s finished.

“No. No one knows. Everyone worries. It’s natural. Look at me, Hannah.”

I turn around and look into her mascara-smudged green eyes.

“You have been my perfect Hanny Bee since you were a very young girl. Do you remember that you used to balance our checkbook?”

I nod, the anxiety-ridden memory overshadowing the brief moment of joy I felt remembering the nickname she had for me as a kid: Hanny Bee.

“But you need to know that no one expects orwantsyou to be perfect. All you need to be is yourself. That’s what your children will want most from you.”

I nod quietly, taking in the information. “Sure.”

“I mean it. And that’s what Chris wants from you, too. Trust me. He really cares about you, Hannah. I know this isn’t how you planned this. That doesn’t make it any less special.Capiche?”

She says the last part while holding a pretend toothpick in her mouth.

I roll my eyes at the motion but kiss her fragile cheek as I stand.

I remember when her cheeks were fuller and round, but as she’s aged they’ve gotten thinner and softer. Big changes that aren’t bad. When my own children kiss my mom’s cheeks, they’ll only know how soft she is.

---