Page 69 of The Wish List
“I want to be.” Trinity nodded. “I don’t think I know how.”
“You learn.”
“What if I make mistakes? What if I fail? I’ve failed at so much in my life.”
May seemed to contemplate this or else she was lost in thought for another reason. It was hard to tell what was going on in her brain sometimes. “I messed up,” she said after a moment. “Real bad. My daughters still perfec.”
Trinity laughed. “We’re hardly perfect, Mom, even Beth.”
May patted Trinity’s cheek with her soft palm. “To me, you perfect. I sorry for being bad mama. I love girls.”
“Oh, Mom.” Trinity leaned into May’s touch. “You weren’t bad.”
“I bad.” May patted her chest. “I know bad. I angry and not good. I wad not good, but you will be good mama, Trinny. I know.”
“I wish I had your confidence.”
“You stay here with me. I help. Will be good gramma.”
“I want to stay,” Trinity admitted, the tightness in her chest releasing a bit at finally saying the words out loud to her mother. “But I don’t want to be a burden to you, Mom. You have to focus on your recovery and the book.”
“You read book?”
Trinity gasped. “The book. I totally forgot. I’m so sorry. I went into labor the night Greer gave it to me. I haven’t read it. It’s still in my car.”
May smiled again. “You read. Then you understand. This your home, and you stay.”
“I’ll bring Thomas to see you,” Trinity promised. “As soon as he’s healthy enough to come home.” She smoothed a hand over her mother’s hair. “And soon you’ll be coming home. I’m going to take care of you for as long as you need it, Mom. Both you and Thomas.”
“You safe, Trinny,” May said, and Trinity almost lost it. Her mother couldn’t possibly know what had happened unless Beth or Freya had said something.
“Did one of them tell you?” she demanded.
So much for sisterly loyalty. May only smiled. “You safe,” she repeated.
Trinity held onto her anger so that no other emotion could take over. She looked away from her mother to the Christmas decorations making the room look cheery and bright.
She wanted to believe she was safe. She needed to know that her son was safe but wasn’t sure how to release the fear that had become her closest companion in the past year.
“I’m fine,” she lied. “They shouldn’t have worried you. He’s part of my past now.”
May continued to smile that tranquil smile. “Safe. Show me more granson.”
Trinity nodded and snuggled in closer to her mother, bringing up photos of her precious baby once again. They gazed at the phone together until May drifted off to sleep. Trinity gave her mother a soft kiss on the forehead and then left the rehab facility and headed to the hospital.
Freya and Greer were at the house today painting trim. After they finished, the downstairs would be ready for May to come home.
Trinity had planned to help them, but Thomas’s arrival had changed all of her plans. She didn’t mind. Nothing was more important to her than her son, and she would be a good mother even if she didn’t know how. Nothing else would take precedence over him.
Her romance with Ash had ended before it started. Even that was a casualty she could handle, although the thought of him still made her heart pine for another chance.
He and Michaela had come to the hospital the day after Thomas was born, but the visit had been short and awkward. Trinity couldn’t shake the feeling that something negative in her behavior had caused her to go into labor so early.
Even her mother had managed to give birth to three full-term babies. No C-section scars for May. Each of the girls had been born naturally, with no epidural. The way her mom had told their birth stories, the sound of ocean waves played in the background and ambient lighting had facilitated their transition from the womb to the world.
It was one of the things she knew her mother to be most proud of based on how often she told the story. Trinity hadn’t even gotten around to putting together a labor playlist, not that it would have mattered. Thomas had entered the world in a brilliant, sterile operating room with his mom puking on Beth’s shoes because she was so nauseous from the anesthesia.
Her sisters might agree that May had been a bad mother, but Trinity didn’t feel so strongly. Yes, May had been selfish and self-centered, but she’d loved her daughters in her own narcissistic way. Two days into motherhood, Trinity felt that she could be a little more generous with her judgments.
