LITMIR.BIZ

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to leave now.” The doctor turned sleeping Lily away, as if hearing such things would crush her psyche. “Words are medicine, too, and I’m afraid you’ve come equipped with poison today. Your daughter-in-law is courageous and smart. She and her husband asked me to support them in the decision to breast-feed. I can’t do that with you here confusing things. And for the record, Tracey is not big. You’re just very…petite.” The look on his face said the rest—that Queen Liz could stand to gain a few pounds and a better attitude.

      It would have been easy to gloat as my mother-in-law huffed toward the door, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. She was Ryan’s mother, even if I never would be able to accept her as mine. She gave birth to my husband. That meant something. It had to. “Please stay, Queen,” I said, before I realized it. My friend Rochelle would have been proud of me. Dana would have thought me gone soft. Maybe so. It’d be fitting. The rest of me had congealed into a Jell-O sculpture, so why not my heart, too? Wasn’t that what God wanted of me, anyway?

      My mother-in-law wiped the corner of her eye and sat down.

      I bit my lip. Usually there’s no stopping the Queen’s dramatic exits. My husband came by that honestly. “Thank you for your support, Doctor. And don’t worry about protecting me.” I took Liz’s hand. “You know how mothers and daughters are. She just wants what’s best for me. Ryan and I are determined to continue nursing through this first year. Don’t worry.”

      My doctor bowed low toward the Queen before giving Lily back to me. “It’s not Ryan that I’m worried about, Tracey. It’s you. So many strong women come through this practice changed by motherhood into insecure little girls. I never thought that you’d be one of them. Your mother-in-law may be a queen, but so are you. You’ve just got to learn how to rule your own roost.” With those wise words, a big hug and a menu plan for nursing mothers, Dr. Thomson left Queen Liz, Lily and I alone in the room.

      As we left, I realized that my mother-in-law was still holding my hand. Tight.

      I closed my eyes for a quick prayer. We weren’t alone at all.

       Chapter Three

       W e had a fight in the car on the way over. A pretty bad one. Almost as bad as the blowup with Ryan’s software business earlier in the week. He assured me that everything was okay, while he tried to retrieve files one of his key employees had deleted. He whispered words like “solvent” and “litigation” when he thought I wasn’t listening.

      “Look, we’re here now, okay? Let’s just try and get through this. Dre wants me to step up and do some things in the church, but it seems like the harder I try to serve God, the more whack things get. I don’t even know what we’re fighting about.”

      I blinked back tears. “Me either. Not really. I think we’re both just tired. All this stuff with your business has had you on edge. Some lawyer keeps leaving messages, by the way. Something about the articles of incorporation.”

      Ryan gripped both sides of his head as if trying to hold it on his neck. “Yeah, whatever. Look, I don’t want to think about any of that right now, much less talk about it. Let’s just go in here and see what the Lord has to say to us.”

      Sounded like a plan to me.

      For once, Ryan didn’t pop up out of the car and move inside the church at lightning speed. Whatever was going on with him, helping the pastor seemed to have him dreading going inside as much as I usually did. Today, though, I was trying to get a move on. A few minutes more and someone might take my back-corner seat. And that would be totally unacceptable.

      I gave Ryan a little nudge as I grabbed the last of Lily’s things. “Come on or somebody might get our seats. And you know I won’t know how to function then. You might look up and see me in the balcony.”

      Ryan laughed, but I wasn’t kidding. It just might come to that.

      “We can’t sit in the back today, Tracey. I forgot to tell you. We need to sit in the front, at least until after the announcements.”

      A rapid succession of blinks from me followed this insane information. “When you say front, just exactly how far front do you mean? Ninth row? Eighth?” All of a sudden I wished I had a paper bag in my purse. This was enough to make me hyperventilate.

      “Third row, babe. With Mom and the other ladies. Don’t look at me like that. It’s one Sunday, okay? I know that my mother gives you fits, but she’s my mother. Help me out. Just for today.”

      Famous last words. I knew better than to believe them. For one thing, whatever this front-row business was about, it wasn’t just for today. Ryan dealt with things on a need-to-know basis, especially when it came to the Queen and I. I had a feeling that I’d be needing to know this same information next week as well. Still, she was his mother and he was my husband. “Okay. Just promise me that you won’t let her clown on me in front of all those people. You know I hate that.”

      He kissed my hand and took a bow. “No problem, Your Majesty. Your wish is my command,” he said as we passed one of the older deacons, who readjusted his glasses after we went by.

      So, he’d been in my bathroom after all. He was so dead when we got home. For now, though, it was time to face the Queen. Wearing a prepregnancy skirt for the first time since the baby, I was feeling pretty good, too. It had elastic in the waist, but the Queen wouldn’t be able to tell that. Okay, so she would, but I didn’t care.

      Ten minutes later, we were on the third row and far enough from Liz to keep things civil without having a fight.

      Or so I thought.

      Even with a hat more than a foot in diameter, three-inch heels and two-inch nails, Queen Liz managed to squeeze through twenty people to get to us before I could escape. And she had the nerve to drag a friend along for the ride.

      I waved goodbye to the confused people who’d just been reassigned farther down the row without their permission. If only I could get off as easily.

      “That skirt is cute, but frumpy. Did you get my e-mail?” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “You know. Jenny Craig. No one has to know. I promise.”

      My eyes could have worn a hole in Ryan’s shirt from the way I stared at him, but he was so caught up in his own distress (over what, I wasn’t sure) that he left me defenseless. “Hey, Mom. You look good this morning. Nice shoes.”

      Obligatory or not, that was more than any compliment I’d been given in a long time. I took a deep breath, reminding myself not to be jealous. That was just what she wanted, to set us against each other.

      “Thanks, son. You look good, too.” She paused. “So does my sweet little grandbaby.” She moved in for the baby kidnapping, always her ultimate goal. “Here, I’ll take her.”

      My mother-in-law’s hands came toward me in a flash of pink and green. My eyes focused on the pearl insets on the designs on her nails. She was in rare form today.

      Instead of clutching Lily to my chest as I usually would have and trying to explain that in a few minutes she’d need to eat and I didn’t want to disturb the service with Lily’s crying, I let go. I let God. If the baby cried, she cried. Nobody would die. For whatever reason, Liz needed to make her friends think that she had me under control. (I knew enough from the dynamics between my friends and me to know when a woman, even an older woman, is showing off for her girls.)

      My husband looked relieved. It had been a long week for him at work and at home. Though this seemed more serious than any problems Ryan had dealt with before, I still wanted to help. The difference now was that he didn’t confide in me or ask my counsel the way he did when we were dating and first married. It was as if he thought I’d break since I’d had Lily, like he had to protect me from everything.

      That, and the orchid climbing out of the lady’s hat two rows in front of me was really starting to get on my nerves. Okay, so I had a baby. Women have been doing it since time began. I admit that it’s more challenging than I thought it would be. Okay, a lot more challenging than

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