Page 96 of Lady Sings the Blues

“I guess we’ll never know because they’renotinvited.” Although completely irrational, I can’t help the sudden wave of hormonal emotion crashing down on me, and drop into a chair as I burst into a fresh round of ugly tears. “My baby’s never going to know grandparents.Never.”

“What about your mom?” Maryanne asks.

“Haven’t heard from her since I moved here in high school.”

“That’s harsh,” Liv says, like I don’t know disowning your only kid isn’t the epitome of wrong.

“Sure she’s happy at UC Medical, living a great life as a Denverite.”

“She’s a doctor, too?”

“That’s where she met my dad, in medical school.”

Then Liv slides into the seat next to mine to rub my back. “Well…maybe this baby won’t have grandparents.”

Maryanne pulls another chair up to the pool table. She rubs my back too, so I’m surrounded by the love of my girls, my sisters.

Liv rests her forehead against my cheek. “But it’ll have aunts and uncles, even if not by blood, who’ll love him or her unconditionally.Okay?”

“Okay.” I sniff.

“Baby girl, why you cryin’?” Beau walked into the clubhouse from whatever business he’d been up to, spying me and my tears straight away. He moves close. Maryanne moves for Beau to drop to his knees in front of me. He brushes my hair away from my eyes, searching them as he holds my face. “Plannin’ this is s’pposed to be fun.”

“No grandparents,” Maryanne offers.

To which he replies, “Huh?”

“Her dad’s gone, your parents suck, and she hasn’t talked to her mama in seven years. Pregnancy hormones.” She ends on a whisper.

“I know they suck. It all sucks. Wish Doc was here to meet our little miracle.” He absentmindedly rubs his hand over my belly. “But promise, Elise. Promise our kid will have all the family he or she’ll ever need and will never go a day feelin’ unloved.”

“We’re having a baby.” I tell him.

“We are.”

“We’re getting married.”

“We are.”

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