In a Book Club Far Away(68)

“Whoa there, not yet,” Regina said softly.

“Oh, I so wish, sweetheart.” A primal mothering urge rose within Adelaide. She wanted to take Genevieve into her arms, stick her in a pocket like a joey to keep her safe.

“Just another day or so, okay?” Sophie said, more to Adelaide than to Genevieve.

Adelaide looked around at her house. Her daughter’s toys were not in the normal places, and little tokens of her friends’ things were littered all over the living room. Their purses and jackets hung at the foyer umbrella stand. On her pedestal table were books and receipts.

Almost an entire week had passed, and life had gone on. Her house still stood. Her daughter was taken care of.

It was both a shock and a relief to Adelaide’s system that the world continued to spin without her. Yes, she had full confidence her friends could handle the task, but to see it…

She had placed so much pressure on herself to keep the home fires burning, to be absolutely indispensable, but she was dispensable. Things were all right without her.

Tears clouded Adelaide’s vision.

Sophie looked around, as if she were checking for a fire. “What’s wrong? What did we do?”

“Nothing.” Adelaide couldn’t put into words that she was both relieved and disappointed that everything was better than okay.

“I know what it is.” Regina made her way to the kitchen. “You’re hungry. You need calories to heal. Well, don’t you worry. I read up on the dietary restrictions of someone who’s had your surgery, and most of what I made this morning is bland and soft and without any kind of substantial deliciousness, but exactly what you need.”

“How about you head to the back deck?” Sophie added. “Getting some cool fresh air might be good for you. I can bring one of your blankets out.”

“Agreed. I’ll bring the food out.” Regina set Genevieve down and disappeared around the corner.

“That sounds great.” Adelaide began her shuffle to the back of the house, passing her L-shaped couch with Waiting to Exhale cracked open upside down. It looked like Sophie was halfway through the book.

A grin threatened to burst from her lips. The plan was working. She’d caught Regina reading the book at the hospital when she spent the night, and now Sophie. And—she realized—she herself had better catch up.

Genevieve got ahead of her and started to tug at the door. “Hold on, baby,” she said, looking down, noticing that the top of Genevieve’s head was as tall as the windowsill. Had she grown overnight?

And then she remembered. Genevieve was turning two this weekend.

Two.

When Adelaide had canceled Genevieve’s party a couple of weeks ago in preparation for her surgery, she’d been filled with regret. She’d waited to become a mother for a long time and was committed to celebrating every milestone.

But even she knew she had her limits.

Adelaide opened the door and gently sat down on a cushioned chair, while Genevieve pushed her trucks across the slats of wood on the deck. Regina came out first with a tray and set it down on the table in front of Adelaide. On the tray was a book, her copy of Waiting to Exhale. She recognized the first edition with its well-cracked spine.

“Oatmeal and Waiting to Exhale. And I think I’m ahead of you in the reading,” she said.

Adelaide raised her eyebrows. “That was your book on the couch?”

“Yes. A certain somebody kept nagging me to read. As if we weren’t in the same book club.”

“But, if I remember correctly, Sophie and I took to finishing a book in a few days, and you liked to stretch it out for weeks.”

“I liked to take advantage of the full deadline. And also.” Regina handed Adelaide her phone. “You left this downstairs before you went to bed last night, so I charged it for you. And I noticed you have a ton of phone calls to return. I swear you and Sophie are the queens of avoidance. What’s been going on?”

That got her attention. “What do you mean, me and Sophie?”

“Am I the only one who notices things around here?” Regina snorted a laugh. “You need to call your mother.”

Adelaide knew her mother had been trying to reach her, but she hadn’t had the nerve to call back.

“What’s going on?”

She picked up her spoon. “I can’t put it into words. I’ve been feeling conflicted about life in general for a while, and with surgery and emergency surgery, things have, I don’t know, shifted. I told Matt that I don’t want another baby.”

Regina leaned back in the chair. “Wow. What did he say?”

“He was sad, and I don’t blame him. I figured that he would be shocked and would need some time to process, and we’d talk about it some more. Matt and I—we talk about everything. My mother on the other hand…” She stirred her oatmeal. Steam rose above the bowl. But Adelaide was far from hungry. On the contrary, she felt full. Full of confusion, of thoughts, of new ideas and possibilities. “I don’t want this whole situation, the way I feel, to become like one of those informercials we used to watch.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Like the more I watch one, the more I soften to the idea, and then soon I’m buying the two-for-one special with added subscription.” She sniffed a laugh, remembering the Orange Glo and the Snuggie and countless other things that she’d bought over the years. “I don’t want to accept my feelings as status quo and ignore them.”