Chapter 21

“Mother!” My eyes are saucer-wide. “What are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.” I know I sound as shocked as I must look.

“A change in plans,” she says, her smoke-damaged voice deep and husky.

Clutching Baby Reborn, the doll’s face against my chest, I take in my mother. The petite woman looks thinner, gaunter than when I saw her at my wedding nine months ago. And her taut face more wrinkled, with accordion lines above her lips and a layer of crepe on her bony neck. Smoking and drinking have taken their toll, things that even magical Botox can’t fix. Still styled in a chic bob, her brown hair is now ashen and thinning at the temples. With her vintage St. John suit, low-heeled Ferragamos, and worn Louis Vuitton suitcase, she stands the epitome of faded elegance. Never the light packer, I’m sure there are more LV luggage pieces sitting in the entryway.

She purses her thin, cranberry-colored lips. “Well, that’s a warm welcome.” Then gives me a snide smile. “Thank you, Ava.”

She hasn’t been here for more than a minute and I’m already bristling. Her sarcasm has a way of getting under my skin. Quickly.

Her steely-gray eyes scan the interior and then land back on me. I’m waiting for her to ask me about my baby, her first grandchild, but that’s wishful thinking. She pulls a face, her expression a mixture of contempt and anger.

“Look at you, Ava!” Her eyes travel down my misshapen body to my fuzzy slippers and then return to my haggard face. “If you think you’re some queen sitting on her throne, think again! Shame on you! How do you expect to keep your husband looking like that?”

Exhausted. Disheveled. Frumpy. Pathetic.

My mother has no filter. She says what she thinks as the thought comes to her. Her barb slices through my thick robe like a serrated knife. All my life the patronizing woman has judged me. Nothing I’ve done has ever been good enough for her. From the way I walked to the way I talked. When I was an adolescent, she sent me to cotillion, something she couldn’t afford, so I knew how to dance like a socialite…made me read antiquated books dating back to the 1950s about being a “good wife” and treating your husband like a king, as well as memorize Tiffany’s Table Manners for Teenagers. She constantly tested me on it, as well as showed me the difference between quality and crap, dressing me in the best money could buy even if it meant walking out of Nordstrom in a new dress with the price tag hidden. It all boiled down to this: she wanted me to marry royalty.

I had, without trying, snagged one of Hollywood’s wealthiest and most eligible bachelors, and my mother was never going to let me forget it. Or mess it up. Multimillionaire Ned was more important to her than to me. I would have been happy with a solid, middle-class guy, but for my mother, money’s always been everything. “It’s just as easy to love them rich,” she rubbed into me. Though she’s rarely talked about her past or my father, I know they were wealthy and lived a charmed life. The house I grew up in until I was nine was big and beautiful.

She sets her suitcase down, folds her toothpick-thin arms across her chest, and glares at me. The repulsive smell of her smoke-drenched clothes wafts up my nostrils. Her whole life she’s been a chain smoker, lighting up Virginia Slims nonstop.

I finally answer her, trying to keep my emotions in check. I just don’t need her. Need this, right now. “Mother, this is actually the best I’ve looked and felt in ages. You know this was a very difficult pregnancy. I’m lucky we both made it.”

She squints and shoves her reading glasses, which hang from a pearl chain, halfway up her pinched nose.

“Is that your baby you’re holding?”

“No, Mother.” I flip the realistic-looking doll around so it’s facing her.

She gasps and her face turns ashen. I’m shocked by her visceral reaction. Her fluttering eyes, quivering lips, trembling hands. It’s like she’s just seen a ghost and is going to faint. She fans herself as if she’s having a hot flash.

“Mother, it’s just a doll.”

“I need a drink.” Her voice is shaky and she’s still unsteady.

Leaving her suitcase behind, she staggers over to Ned’s well-stocked bar and pours herself a shot of one of his expensive bourbons.

“It’s not even ten o’clock. Isn’t it a little early to be drinking?”

She takes a swig. “Well, it’s sixp.m. somewhere in the world.”

Then she throws back the drink and turns to face me, avoiding the Baby Reborn doll.

“I want to get settled in my room.” Still looking queasy, she sets down the depleted tumbler on the table.

My muscles clench. I wish my mother agreed to stay in a hotel. There are plenty of five-star hotels on Sunset Boulevard, not far from our house, but she refused to stay in one, even with my husband offering to foot the bill to keep her out of our hair.

She stares at me harshly. “Can your husband please help me with my luggage? I have three more heavy pieces sitting in the entrance.”

Sheesh. How long is she planning to stay? I was hoping no longer than a week, but it sounds more like a month. Someone’s going to die. I know it.

“Sorry, Mother. Ned is playing tennis with his partner and I can’t physically do it…so you’ll have to transport the pieces yourself.”

Her harrumph is cut short by the bouncy sound of footsteps. I look up. It’s Nurse Marley. I’ve honestly forgotten about her. My eyes pop. She’s dressed in skinny jeans and a taupe cashmere pullover. Both mine.

Holding a bundled-up Isa huddled against her.

“Ava, I’m going to take Isa out for a quick walk in her stroller. It looks like it may rain, so I want to give her some fresh air before it does.”

My mother glowers at her. “Who’s this?” she asks me, her throaty voice sharp and suspicious. She makes no mention of my baby. Expresses no interest in holding her. She’s almost oblivious to her. So much of me yearns for her to take Isa, cuddle her in her arms, and whisper sweet nothings. Something I believe grandmas do.

Just not my baby’s. I resign myself to the fact that she’ll likely be as bad of a grandmother as she was a mother.

“Mother, this our live-in nanny…Nurse Marley Manners. She started this week, but she’s already a godsend.”

Their eyes hold each other fiercely like a stare-off until Marley breaks the tense silence with a carefree hello.

My mother tilts her head to one side, never taking her intense gaze off our new help. Her anthracite eyes bore into Marley’s amethyst ones. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

Nurse Marley shoots her a wry smile. “Funny, I was just thinking the same thing.”

My mother’s eyes narrow. “Do you live in Vegas? Play the tables?”

Nurse Marley shakes her head. “Never been there in my life. I guess I just remind you of someone you know.”

“I guess the same.” My mother lets down her guard, her voice still icy. “By the way, I’m Rena.”

“I’d remember that name if we’d met before.” Nurse Marley smiles. “Before I take off, I just want to say, you have a magnificent grandchild.”

My mother sneers. “If you ask me, babies are the end of everything.”

What does she mean by that caustic remark? There’s no time to ask as she excuses herself and heads with her one piece of luggage toward the guest room, leaving me alone with Nurse Marley.

Embarrassment washes over me. “I’m sorry about my mother.”

She adjusts my baby in her arms. “No need to apologize. You warned me. Or maybe your husband did. Don’t worry, I know how to handle women like her.”

I give a wan, grateful smile. “And thank you so much for those lovely words about Isa. I feel so blessed to have you in my life.”

“The same, Ava.” She lovingly glances down at my baby. “I meant what I said. Isa is magnificent.” She plants a small kiss on her forehead, then looks up at me. “Oh, and by the way, I hope you don’t mind me borrowing some jeans and a top. I still haven’t brought my suitcase in from my car.”

Truth is, I feel a bit violated that she went into the bedroom I share with Ned and rifled through my closet and drawers without asking.

“After her feeding, Isa spit up all over me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. That’s what babies do. It’s no big deal. Oh, and I’ll be sure to launder your jeans and put them back in your closet.”

I bite my bottom lip. “Feel free to keep them. They’ll likely never fit me again.”

She breaks into a smile. “That is so lovely of you!”

Before strapping my baby into her stroller, she kisses her again. Isa gurgles.

An unexpected pang of jealousy zips through me.

Am I jealous that Nurse Marley looks better in my skinny jeans than I ever did?

Or am I more jealous that my daughter seems so happy and comfortable in her arms?