"Wow! Is that the way it really was? I thought he'd been in love with you since you were kids or something."

Crimson filled my cheeks, and I stuttered, "Wh ... Wh ... What made you think that?"

"It's the way he looks at you. Like you've got a halo hiding under all that curly hair. Like you couldn't do or say a wrong thing if you tried. If some fellow ever looks at me like that, I'm going to have him in front of a preacher so fast, he'll wonder how he got there"

"You're thinking about trying marriage again in the future?" I tried to change the subject.

"Yes, someday, when I find a younger version of Billy Lee. But we weren't talking about me; we were discussing you and Billy Lee"

"Then the discussion is finished. I'm forty, overweight, and getting wrinkles. Billy Lee isn't interested in being anything but a friend and good neighbor."

"We'll have to agree to disagree, then"

Smart girl. She knew when to hold 'em and when to fold em. Right now I had a mother who seldom had good days, an ex-husband who wanted to abort my firstborn grandchild, a pregnant daughter, and three new cats. I did not have time to deal with crazy notions about Billy Lee Tucker.

I woke up New Year's Eve morning with a chip the size of a hundred-year-old pecan tree sitting on my shoulder. I didn't even know where the thing had come from or why. I tried to shake it off when I looked out the window into the beautiful morning. Bright sunshine poured into the bedroom, but my mood was as black as sin. My eyebrows lowered so fiercely that I was sure I'd given birth to a dozen forehead wrinkles. I forced myself to relax. Something had to have triggered the ugly mood. We'd had a lovely Christmas, and Crystal and I had cleared the air. We'd laughed over the Christmas Slug and talked about her father and her future. So what was wrong with me?

I hoped I'd shake it off by the time I got downstairs.

I didn't.

The kitchen was empty, but I could see Billy Lee and Crystal outside through the window. They were out beside his workshop with a steel tape measure and stakes, marking off where her new greenhouse would rise up like that mythical bird from ashes. Shouldn't she at least have to work at a job she hated for a couple of years before she got to dive right into her heart's desire? But, no, only I had to do that kind of thing. I was always the good girl. Poor Trudy. Bless her heart.

I dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and grabbed the car keys. Billy Lee and Crystal waved when they heard the engine, but I pretended I didn't even see them. I drove straight down Broadway to Main Street and made a right turn toward the nursing home.

Momma was sitting in her recliner in her room. A rerun of The Golden Girls was on television, and she didn't take her eyes from it when I stomped into the room. I threw myself down into the other chair at the end of her bed, and she finally looked up.

"Who are you?"

"Momma, it's me, Trudy."

"Get out of here before I call the police. I'm not afraid to dial 91 L"

"Okay, I'll go" When I left, she was giggling at something Blanche had said. Why, oh, why couldn't she be lucid today?

I couldn't take the anger home, but there was really nowhere else to go. I drove slowly all the way out to the Y where the highway split, one part going to Madill, the other to Ravia and Ardmore. I stopped the car at the Western Inn's restaurant and thought about going in for a cup of coffee, but I was afraid I might commit homicide if Drew happened to be in there. So I drove to the park across the Pennington Creek bridge to where Billy Lee and I had gone to picnic that day in the summer. It was so cold, my breath came out in smoky puffs when I got out of the car.

I heard an old pickup rattling across the bridge, but I didn't look up until a door slammed. Crystal plowed across the dead grass with determination and more than a little worry in her eyes.

"What are you doing out here?" Crystal sat down across the table from me.

I shrugged.

"Tell me what happened"

I shook my head. How did I tell my child that I woke up that morning resenting her?

"What are you upset about?" she demanded.

Be honest! It was as if Aunt Gert was sitting right there giving me advice.

"It was there when I woke up this morning. I've loved you from the minute they laid you in my arms when you were born. But today I woke up resenting the heck out of you"

Tears welled up behind her beautiful eyes and spilled down her face. "Why? I thought things were finally going well between us."

"They are, but I'm mad because ..." I stopped.

"You might as well tell me," she said, regaining her composure. "We're doing `honest,' remember?"

I sighed. "Okay, honest it is. I wanted to wait for a baby when your father and I married. I hoped to go to school and get a degree, but your grandparents really wanted a grandchild, and they pushed hard for that. I think they had visions of Drew going on to something big, like politics, and a stay-athome wife and a baby would look good"

"Dad's no politician, Momma. He's a small-town lawyer. Politics might have been the Williamses' dream for their son, but Daddy never would have that kind of discipline or drive. He was way too spoiled, and he is what he is."

"How'd you get so smart?"

She smiled and reached across the picnic table to touch my hand. "Go on, Momma"

I went on. "Anyway, we had you, and I loved you to pieces, but I guess I always felt I'd been cheated out of my dreams. I basically had to walk two steps behind Drew and cater to his every whim. Then, when you were about two, I wanted another child, but your father said no way." I stopped. "I don't know why I'm telling you this."

"Because I asked and because you resent me," she said honestly.

"Oh, stop that. We both know I've always loved you no matter how spoiled and demanding Drew and I let you becomeespecially when you were a teenager, though I pretended that that was just a phase. And I allowed it because I couldn't stand fighting. I love you, and you know that, and that's all that matters. Now let's go home." My stomach hurt, and I had a headache.

"No, not until we've talked this through."

"I can't."

"Oh, yes, you can. Are you upset because of the baby?"

"It's not the baby. It's me. I'm forty, and for the first time I have a life all my own, and now ..

"I can get my own place. I don't have to live with you," she said.

"I like having you live with me. I love sharing our lives."

"Well, you have to decide. If I'm upsetting things in your new life and making you have these moods, then please tell me. Maybe you could give me a loan until I can get my business up and running. But if you want me to stay, then you have to remember that we're both adults now. You can come and go and do as you please, and you don't have to explain anything or answer to me or take care of me as if I was still a child."

That took me by surprise; my daughter was trying to meet me halfway, just as a grown-up would. I guess I'd figured she'd flounce back to Billy Lee's truck and throw gravel all the way home.

"How are you going to manage with a baby and a new business?"

"I'm going to be a mother who runs a business." Her eyes glittered at the prospect. "I'll have a crib and playpen in the greenhouse, remember? That's the beauty of having my own business. I can do both. I'm not asking you to take care of me or my child, Momma. All I need from you is to always be my mother. A real one. Not a perfect one. I don't even care if some days you hate me, as long as most of them you love me."