Page 39 of His Best Friend's Baby

“Hi, Mama,” he said and pressed his hand against the screen.

“Hi, sweetie.” She smiled back and bit her lip. Agnes did this sort of thing all the time, used Ben as a way to make Julia feel bad or to check up on her. “I’ll be in when I’m done.”

Agnes left and Julia sighed hard.

“Things aren’t quite what you hoped for, are they?” her mother asked.

“Not at all.” Julia stood and walked into the yard just in case Agnes lingered by the door to hear her conversation. Even though she knew she was being paranoid, it wasn’t a maneuver she’d put past Agnes.

“Tell me,” Beth said, and Julia let it all spill out.

“I came here looking to give Ben some permanence and, at first, everything seemed so good. The Adamses treated us like family and…” Jesse’s here. He’s actually here but he pushes me away with both hands.

She almost brought up Jesse, but she was still too raw and her mother’s advice, she knew, would be to not go rushing into anything. Too late for that.

She was up to her neck in murky feelings. Julia remembered the harrowed expression on Jesse’s face in the garage. The haunted eyes filled with appeal. Please, he’d begged, and she’d walked away.

But she also remembered the heat of his eyes. The way he’d groaned when she touched him. The way he’d touched her in Germany, like a thirsty man in front of water.

Which was true? False? He’d rejected her twice, how much was she supposed to push?

“And now?” her mother asked, pulling Julia back into the conversation about the Adamses.

“They’re so stifling.”

“You’ve been on your own a long time,” Beth said and Julia nodded, though she couldn’t be seen. “It’s hard to give up your independence that way.”

“I didn’t think I was!” Julia nearly cried. “I thought I was getting a support system, not a mother hen.”

“Family isn’t all it’s cracked up to be sometimes.”

“That’s not very helpful, Mom.”

She laughed. “No, it isn’t. But I’ll tell you something, sweetheart. Sometimes you have to make your own family. It’s why your father and I were in the military and it’s why we stayed. We found friends who felt more like brothers and sisters than our own ever did. And each of us had mentors that felt like parents.”

“Mom,” she sighed. “I hated the military life.”

“I know, sweetheart, and I’m so sorry for that. But sometimes you have to create what you need out of what you get. It’s not easy. It’s hard work but you have to keep at it.”

“Nothing seems easy right now.”

“It takes courage to get what you want,” Beth said. “Courage and patience. Which you have or you’d never have gone out there in the first place.”

“That wasn’t courage, Mom.” Julia laughed. “That was desperation.”

“You’ve always sold yourself short, Julia. You’re much stronger than you think you are.”

“And you’ve always seen things in me that aren’t there. I’m not strong, Mom.”

“You left home at eighteen. You made that disastrous marriage work. You’ve raised that darling boy all on your own.”

Julia laughed. “You’re right. I’m the strongest woman on earth.”

“Don’t be flip, Julia. It’s long been time for you to decide your worth. You’ve let other people do it for you for too long.”

Julia sucked in a deep breath, tasting the truth on the air. Her worth? It was true. She’d let Mitch convince her she was worthless and now Agnes was doing the same. And Jesse—he’d told her she deserved more but then he walked away from her.

What did she think?

What did she determine her worth to be?

She was certainly worth more than the way Jesse had treated her yesterday, that was for sure.

Maybe it was time to listen to her mother. More importantly it was time to listen to herself.

“Thanks, Mom,” she whispered. “That’s what I needed to hear.”

“I love you,” Beth said.

“I love you, too.” Julia sighed, feeling her mother’s absence like a thorn under her skin.

---