How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [143]
“I know.”
She looks at me. “It must have been so hard for you, Mom. You were so young.”
“No. There was a day, when I first met Jonah, that I was in the record store and he played a record of Spanish guitar. You started to dance in my belly, and that was it. When I saw your face, it was like I already knew you, that you’d been in my world forever.”
She nods, cupping the baby’s head with her hand, ruffling his hair. He makes snorting sounds as he gulps milk. “Yes. Exactly.” Leaning back on the pillows, she says, “I love the way Jonah looks at you.”
She met him this morning, before he went out to do mysterious things, as my mother and Katie had done. He took her hand and gave her his gentle smile and said, “At last we meet,” which made her laugh.
“How does he look at me?”
“What, are you kidding? You haven’t seen it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you. Maybe you should notice.” She strokes the baby’s cheek. “Even better is how you look at him.” She smiles her old-soul smile. “Like he’s the morning.”
I cover my face. “How embarrassing.”
“No. It’s great. He’s the one, you know.”
“The one?”
“Yeah. The. One. The one you’ve been waiting for. The one you want. The one from every song ever sung about love.”
“We’ll see.”
She nods. “You’ll see. I know.”
My mother, whose hotel room has a kitchenette, went shopping with Katie in the afternoon, and the pair of them have prepared a feast to serve in the courtyard of her hotel, not far away from the hospital. The air is soft and warm as we arrive, the night filled with crickets and, far away, the sound of music. There are tacos and strawberry shortcake and candles all in pink and white and red.
My mother comes forward, crisp and pressed. “Jonah,” she says, holding out her hand. “We didn’t have a chance to talk last night. How extraordinary that you are here.”
He nods, grasps her hand, covers it with his own. “I am glad to see you again after so long. You look just the same.”
“No, I don’t, and neither do you, but I would have known you anywhere.” For a minute she peers at him, then, finding whatever she was looking for, gestures for him to sit down. Merlin sidles up to him and flops down happily.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” Lily says to me, kissing my cheek.
We settle in for serious feasting, talking about Marcus and Oscar, who has been cheerful if easily wearied today. Then my mother tells us the story of Sofia going into labor without knowing it. “That isn’t how it happened with me,” Lily says.
“What was it like, Lily,” Jonah asks, “the day Ramona was born?”
She smiles and looks at me. “It was hot. Really hot. I was tired of being pregnant, and grumpy, and there was a thunderstorm every afternoon. Her dad was working twenty hours a day at the Erin, and he wasn’t around. I was mad at him, too.
“When the lightning started, I knew the baby was coming, so I called my mother and she went with me to the hospital. Complaining all the way, of course, that my husband should be there, that men should take more responsibility.”
I laugh. To Jonah and Katie, I say, “Let’s just say she didn’t have a lot of faith in the male of the species.”
“Right.” Lily brushes crumbs off the table. “So we got to the hospital and they whisked me away and it took about seven hours, but Ramona finally ambled into the world. And my mother”—she shakes her head—“who was not the best of mothers by anyone’s measure, that woman took one look at Ramona and her red hair and fell head over heels in love. Right there, that minute. I think you changed your grandmother,” she says.
There’s such a wistful note in her voice that even Katie notices. She puts