Girls in White Dresses - JENNIFER CLOSE [77]
The first time he’d handed one to her, it was like finding a twenty-dollar bill in her winter jacket: unexpected and incredibly lucky. It thrilled her, the happiness that came with that gesture—and it never went away, it never even faded. Every time he gave her his handkerchief, she was dizzy with fortune.
“You missed a great conversation in there about childbirth,” Isabella told him.
“I’m sorry I missed it,” Harrison said. “Did Katie pull out some photos of Charles in the birth canal?”
“Not this time. There was just a lot of talk about placenta.”
“ ‘Placenta’ comes from a Latin word meaning ‘flat cake,’ ” Harrison said.
“How do you know that? Why is that something that you know in your head?”
Harrison shrugged. “I heard it somewhere.” He smiled.
“I think you watch too much Discovery Channel,” Isabella said.
When Harrison gave her a dog for her thirtieth birthday, she was overwhelmed at the responsibility. “I think I’m going to kill it,” she kept saying. He assured her that she would not. Isabella had wanted a dog for a long time, but once she had him she was sure she wasn’t ready. She could step on him, forget to feed him, or leave something poisonous out for him to eat. The possibilities were endless.
The second night he was at the apartment, Winston cried so much that Isabella ended up lying on the floor next to him. She woke up to Harrison standing above her saying, “Who owns who?” Winston was curled in a tight ball by her stomach, and she looked closely to make sure he was still breathing. Then she looked at Harrison, rubbed her eyes, and said, “I think he might own us, but we’ll see.”
Harrison smiled. “You’re a good mom,” he said, and then he went to brush his teeth. Just like that, out of the blue, You’re a good mom.
“Do you want to go back in?” Isabella asked him. “Katie is talking about her birthing plan.”
Harrison considered. “No,” he said. “I do not.”
Isabella twisted the handkerchief in her hand and smiled.
Ken’s father had died, and so Mary couldn’t be as honest about things as she wanted to. “I’m all my mom has,” Ken said whenever Mary mentioned anything.
“She has three other kids,” Mary said.
“None like me,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulder.
Mary tried to be charitable. After all, she was Catholic. She could suffer in silence. She tried not to say anything when Ken spent whole weekends at his mom’s house, doing her taxes or helping her pick out a door for the new garage. “My dad took care of all that stuff,” he said whenever Mary complained that she didn’t see him enough.
On Mary and Ken’s first date, Ken took a call from his mom in the middle of dinner. “I’m sorry,” he said when he got back. “My mom gets nervous when I don’t answer. My dad passed a few years ago, and so she’s all alone.”
Mary could have cried from happiness. She was on a blind date with a truly nice guy who loved his mother and wasn’t afraid to tell her. Three dates later it wasn’t as charming.
Ken moved into Mary’s apartment but warned her that he could never tell his mom what he’d done. “But we’re thirty,” Mary said. She’d never found him less attractive.
“My mom is just old-fashioned,” he said. “And I don’t want to upset her. She’s been through so much with my dad and everything.” And so Mary wasn’t allowed to say much more.
“Some umbilical cords are stronger than others,” Lauren told her. It sounded like the first line of a horror movie.
“Call me Button,” Ken’s mother said when they got engaged. “Or Mom.”
Everyone called Ken’s mother Button. They always had. Most people didn’t even know that her real name was Virginia. “My dad just thought I was cute as a button,” she explained once to Mary. “And the name stuck.”
Mary couldn’t imagine calling a grown woman Button. Calling her Mom was worse. Mary was certain the offer was insincere. She wanted to keep calling her Mrs. Walker, like she always had. But now that the subject had been