Sugar Daddy (Travis Family #1)(28)

The bond between Carrington and me was closer than that of sisters; it was more like that of parent and child. Not as a result of intention or choice... it simply was. It seemed natural that I would go with Mama and the baby to her pediatrician's visits. I was more intimately acquainted with the baby's problems and patterns than anyone else. When it was time for vaccinations, Mama retreated to the corner of the room while I pinned the baby's arms and legs down on the doctor's table. "You do it, Liberty," Mama said. "She won't hold it against you like she would someone else."

I stared into Carrington's pooling eyes, flinching at her incredulous scream as the nurse injected the vaccines into her plump little thighs. I ducked my head beside hers. "I wish it could be me," I whispered to her scarlet ear. "I would take it for you. I would take a hundred of them." Afterward I comforted her, holding her tightly until her sobbing stopped. I made a ceremony of placing the I WAS A GOOD PATIENT sticker on the center of her T-shirt.

No one, including me, could say that Mama wasn't a good parent to Carrington. She was affectionate and attentive to the baby. She made certain Carrington was well dressed and had everything she needed. But the puzzling distance remained. It troubled me that she didn't seem to feel as intensely for the baby as I did.

I went to Miss Marva with my concerns, and her answer surprised me. 'There's nothing strange about that, Liberty."

"There isn't?"

She stirred a big pot of scented wax on the stove, getting it ready to pour into a row of glass apothecar\'jars. "It's a lie when they say you love all your children equally," she said placidly. "You don't. There's always a favorite. And you're your mother's favorite."

"I want Carrington to be her favorite."

"Your mama will take to her in time. It's not always love at first sight." She dipped a stainless steel ladle into the pot and brought it up brimming with light blue wax. "Sometimes you have to get to know each other."

"It shouldn't take this long," I protested.

Miss Marva's cheeks jiggled as she chuckled. "Liberty, it could take a lifetime."

For once her laugh was not a happy sound. I knew without asking that she was thinking about her own daughter, a woman named Marisol who lived in Dallas and never came to visit. Miss Marva had once described Marisol. the product of a brief and long-ago marriage, as a troubled soul, given to addictions and obsessions and relationships with men of low character.

"What made her that way?" I had asked Miss Marva when she told me about Marisol. expecting her to lay out logical reasons as neatly as balls of cookie dough on a baking sheet.

"God did," Miss Marva had replied, simply and without bitterness. From that and other conversations, I gathered that on questions of nature versus nurture, she was firmly on the side of the former. Me, I wasn't so sure.

Whenever I took Carrington out people assumed she was mine, despite the fact that I was black haired and amber skinned, and she was as fair as a white-petaled daisy. "How young they have them," I heard a woman say behind me. as I pushed Carrington1 s stroller through the mall. And a masculine voice replied in patent disgust. "Mexicans. She'll have a dozen by the time she's twenty. And they'll all be living off our tax money." "Shhh. not so loud." the woman admonished.

I quickened my pace and turned into the next store I could reach, my face burning with shame and anger. That was the stereotype—Mexican girls were supposed to have sex early and often, breed like rabbits, have volcanic tempers, and love to cook. Every now and then a circular would appear on the racks near the supermarket entrance, containing pictures and descriptions of Mexican mail-order brides. "These lovely ladies enjoy being women" the circular said. "They 're not interested in competing with men. A Mexican wife, with her traditional values, will put you and your career first. Unlike their American counterparts, Mexican women are satisfied with a modest lifestyle, as long as they are not mistreated. "

Living so close to the border, Tex-Mex women were often subject to the same expectations. I hoped no man would ever make the mistake of thinking / would be happy to put him and his career first.

My junior year seemed to go quickly. Mama's disposition had improved considerably, thanks to the antidepressants the doctor had prescribed. She regained her figure and her sense of humor, and the phone rang often. Mama seldom brought her dates to the trailer, and she hardly ever spent a full night away from Carrington and me. But there were still those odd disappearances when she would be gone for a day and come back without a word of explanation. After these episodes she was always calm and strangely peaceful, as if she'd gone through a period of prayer and fasting. I didn't mind her leaving. It always seemed to do her good, and I had no problem taking care of Carrington by myself.

I tried to rely on Hardy as little as possible, because seeing each other seemed to bring

us more frustration and unhappiness than pleasure. Hardy was determined to treat me as if I were a younger sister, and I tried to comply, but the pretense was awkward and ill-fitting.

Hardy was busy with land clearing and other brutal labor that toughened him in body and spirit. The mischievous twinkle of his eyes had cooled into a flat, rebellious stare. His lack of prospects, the fact that other boys his age were going to college while he seemed to be going nowhere, was eating away at him. Boys in Hardy's position had few choices after high school other than to take a petrochem job with Sterling or Valero, or go into road construction.