How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [53]
But I kept seeing the baby strapped to my chest in a Snugli.
I braided sweet breads and painted them with egg whites, breads so beautiful that Poppy sold them for an extra dollar. I imagined going to school and facing everybody when I had a baby at home. It would be embarrassing, but would it be any worse than going back without the baby?
At the end of the week, my mother and my grandmother drove up to Poppy’s house. Before they got there, Nancy, Poppy, and I baked zucchini bread, made coffee, and set the table in the kitchen with a cloth embroidered with tiny mirrors around the edges. Nancy had all kinds of papers and folders of information for me to use if I wanted. She had stayed completely neutral and factual, and for that I was grateful.
Poppy went upstairs to change and came down wearing a dress, with her hair tied back in a braid. She had put on lipstick, which she never did. It was weird to see her so nervous.
“Can you tell me why you and Grandma don’t talk?”
“Maybe someday,” she said. “I’ll talk to her today. I promise we’ll be nice. This is about you.”
“Thank you.”
I spent a lot of time with my grandmother back at home. I was her first granddaughter, and I knew, along with everybody else, that I was her favorite. When I saw her climbing out of the car in a dark-blue dress belted smartly at the middle, my heart swelled to the size of the Empire State Building, and I ran down the steps. “Grandma!” I cried, and flung myself into her arms.
She caught me tightly, fiercely. “Oh, child, I’m so glad to see you! Let me look at you.” She held me at arm’s length, studying my face and then looking at my belly. “You are prettier every day, Ramona. You’re as beautiful as my own mother was. I’m so sorry you’re having to go through this. It’s not your fault that men can’t handle themselves around a beauty.”
“Mother,” said Lily. “Please. Let’s go inside.”
We all sat at the table, with Poppy putting down the neatly sliced zucchini bread and pouring the coffee. “So, what’s this all about, Ramona?” my mother said.
I took a breath, squared my shoulders, and said, “First, I want to ask you to listen to me all the way through before you say one word.”
My mother’s face turned into a mask of solid rock. She pressed her coral-lipsticked lips together.
“We’re listening, honey,” Adelaide said.
“Okay. I asked you to come here so that we can make a plan that would make it possible for me to keep the baby.”
“What?” my grandmother said, and slammed her hand on the table. “Did you put her up to this, Poppy? Is this some woman-power thing?”
“Let her finish, Mother,” Poppy said. “Everybody needs to let her present her case.”
My mother’s lips didn’t move one tiny bit, so I looked at my grandma. “I want to keep the baby. I can do it if you guys help me. I can still go to school and finish my education and then find a job.”
“Go to college,” my mother said.
“But, Ramona—” began Adelaide.
“Please let me finish. Look, I’m not an idiot. I know it will be hard. I know this is not a great thing, that you all had other dreams for me. I had a different plan in mind, too, but maybe this is just how things are supposed to go. Maybe it’s fate or something that this baby is important to my life.” I looked at my mother. “Think about when you were pregnant with me.”
Adelaide and Poppy looked at my mother. Who had the stoniest, coldest look on her face that I’d ever seen. “No, Ramona. The answer is no. I am not going to let you throw your life away like this.”
“It’s not your decision.”
She crossed her legs and lit a cigarette, daring Poppy to say a word. With her thin arms crossed over her chest, she blew a stream of smoke out into the kitchen, and the smell of it choked me. “It is my decision,” she said. “You are a minor, and I am still your mother.”
I stood up. “But this baby is mine!”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Ramona! Come down off your cloud. Wake up! This isn’t some little toy you get to bring home, or a kitten who will be so cute on your bed.” A lock of hair at the edge of her bangs quivered, and I thought she wanted to shake me.