She climbed out of the car on shaky legs. The bout of morning sickness earlier hadn’t helped, but Molly should’ve been straightened out by lunchtime.
It probably was more nerves in the first place.
She had dealt with the elevated intolerance for spicy food, the necessity of avoiding fried foods in the morning, and queasy choice to downgrade from whole to one percent milk. Overall, however, Molly’s nausea seemed less connected to food than nerves—circling thoughts around Matthew, her finances, and other things she couldn’t untangle. Molly had a knot in her throat fairly often, but before this morning, she’d only actually thrown up twice in her pregnancy.
Ironic Molly felt this way because of an obligation to see her family.
But it had been this way for over fifteen years. Molly’s whole life, to be honest. She longed for simple emotional support. Instead, her parents—her mother, especially—pushed her boundaries in constant motion. Even when they offered Molly money, even when she desperately needed it, she didn’t dare take it. Molly’d learned way back in college the gift was never as free as her folks claimed.
Stop right here. Take a moment. Breathe You in. Breathe out love.
Molly reached back into the car to grab the plate of brownies from their perch on her passenger seat then shut the rusty door with a little more resolve than necessary. The journey up the long immaculate concrete driveway felt like a perp walk. Molly had to brace her elbow against the doorjamb to give her finger a steady aim at the doorbell. A recording of Westminster bells echoed through the cavernous open floor plan of the shiny McMansion Molly’s parents had purchased four years before.
Because a couple whose daughters were both well-grown and stubbornly independent clearly needed a house with six bedrooms and five-and-a-half baths. It was clearly necessary, this mammoth of a residence into which only business guests would ever be welcomed and those never overnight.
Laura answered the door, and Molly breathed deep, savoring the momentary relief.
“Hey, little sis.”
“Big sis, how’s it going?” Molly held the brownie plate aloft like a waitress’s tray and wrapped her free arm around Laura who briefly wrapped her arms tight around Molly’s waist.
Her elder sister’s wardrobe was ninety percent bargain bought yoga pants, worn baby tees with flirty slogans, and glitzy “dead sexy” mini-skirts and cami tops for going out. For dinner with the folks, however, Laura wore saddle shoes, thick white tights, a knee-length gray wool pencil skirt with a layered flounce, aubergine fitted oxford-style shirt with small, precise ruffles trimming the button seams and collar, and a gray university-style cardigan with aubergine trim. All designer, none even purchased from an outlet (for shame, those outlets). Gifts, of course, from their mother, for Laura’s most recent birthday.
Molly had similar gifts, but today she had settled on a generously flowered, jumper-style knit dress which was a thrift store find of her own from a couple years before. With it, she sported cheap, worn canvas slip-on tennis shoes and a thin, short-sleeve v-neck brown button-up sweater of soft acrylic, unbuttoned (also a Salvation Army 99 cent find).
“Thank God you’re here.” Laura’s voice was a stage whisper. “I was about to call the National Guard for reinforcements. Only, I realized even a hundred sexy well-armed soldiers wouldn’t be a fair match for our dear mater.”
Molly’s lips twerked a smile of subtle agreement.
“Aunt Molly!” the youthful shout echoed off the cathedral ceiling of the house’s bloated entry/living area.
Five-year-old Liam rocketed toward her chest, and Laura snatched the brownie plate to safety just before Molly’s nephew hit his target.
“Hey, dude,” Molly said as she ruffled the chin-length, dark curls. She’d never been a huge fan of long hair-styles on young boys, but it had been uber-popular not long ago. It was on its way out now, but Laura wasn’t exactly a pacesetter. For all her stylistic confidence, Molly’s sister was busy with her work managing a local theme café, single mom-hood, and an eventful dating life. Laura’s style lagged a year or so behind the truly pop of trend.
Also, all of Laura’s fashion-related rebellion at family get-togethers was centered on her son, who was doted on by his grandparents. Laura kept Liam’s hair long past its stylistic expiration date mostly because their mother hated it that way. Not to mention that today, at a fancy family dinner, the little boy wore a lightly stained, worn-kneed pair of Osh Kosh bib-alls…and nothing else. No shirt, no shoes, no socks, but all the service in the world for the only grandson and incumbent heir.
Liam released Molly and gazed up at her with golden eyes which featured ridiculously long and heavy lashes. “Whatcha bring us? What’s our dessert?” he singsonged in his keyless little boy soprano.
Molly stood straight and clasped her hands in front of her dress. “Ooohh, well, they’re ooey gooey brownies with soft, creamy salted-caramel layered right in the middle. And, now here’s the kicker, they are cookie-cut to very special shapes,” She tapped on his chest, “just…for…you.”
Happy mouth, saucer-eyes. “Wow. You’re the best at desserts, Aunt Molly, and I mean EVER.” The sentence ended in an unexpected shout, though the auntie was too familiar by now with the child’s chronically unbridled exuberance to be much startled by it.
“Well, I’m glad you think so, little man.”
Liam whirled around the room, arms extended like airplane wings as he sang, “I do. I do, I do, I DO!”
“I think you’re showing, Meryl. Just a little bit.”
At that volume-controlled pronouncement, however, Molly almost catapulted out of her own skin. “Oh, hi, Mom.”
Molly’s mother was the only person who ever (and unfailingly) called Molly by her birth name. Meryl Astrid Cooper. From day one, it had been a mismatch for Molly’s quiet, timid personality, and every time she saw her mother she kicked herself for not making the change to “just Molly” legal and official. Someday she would. Laura had been Lorelai Hermione before television and books brought either name to popular awareness. Molly’s sister claimed leaving that persona behind was one of the best decisions of her life.
Doubtless, Liam’s cheerful noise had drawn his grandmother out of the kitchen. Now, Katherine (never Kathy or Kate or Kit or Katie or anything but Kath-er-ine, thank you very much) Cooper, with designer pumps and a British queen’s bearing, made her way toward her younger daughter.
While Laura and Liam melted into the air, Mother laid a perfectly manicured hand over the miniscule baby bump, which had only yesterday begun to make Molly’s jeans feel even a tad tighter.
Molly’s whole body went tense, regrettable but still a perfect match for the stiff-armed hug her mother gave her a moment later.
Mom let her go, stepped back, and returned her posture to its previous regal perfection. Her tailored, dusky lavender silk evening suit almost might have been hung on a manikin. “How are you, darling?”
Molly gave the answer expected of her. “Well, thank you, Mother. And you?”
Her eyes darted the vast expanse of entry-living area which folded into a wall-less formal dining room to the side which, by slight change of flooring and half-barrier of marble-topped buffet, declared itself a fully equipped gourmet kitchen.