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McGovern, mother of Emma Carter

      Confession: My mother’s wisdom is starting to make sense to me (God help me).

      T he next day was my planned lunch date with my mother, who was still under the lovely-though-absolutely untrue assumption that her only daughter was on the sure path to happily-ever-after with her own dream man. Though I hadn’t yet decided how I was going to handle the Derrick subject, I headed off to the restaurant she’d chosen near my office, armed with catalogs and travel brochures filled with all sorts of ideas for how to pull off this wedding she was dreaming of.

      She was already there and seated at a table in the back when I arrived, and suddenly I realized where I might have gotten that five-minute-early arrival technique. Was I more like my mother than I realized? I wondered with sudden horror.

      “Emma!” she exclaimed as I approached the table. She got up and gathered me into a warm, apricot-scented embrace. When we pulled back from each other, I realized that taking after my mother wouldn’t be so bad after all, at least in the looks department. Though she was fifty-nine years old, she was still a beautiful woman, with wavy chestnut-brown hair framing her high-cheekboned face. Other than the fact that she had the same hazel eyes as mine—though hers seemed more definitely green—no one would have guessed we were mother and daughter. How had I wound up with straight mousy-brown hair and no cheekbones to speak of? Maybe these things skipped a generation.

      “How are you, sweetie?” she said, studying my face once we sat down across from each other.

      “Good, good,” I said, immediately hiding my face in the menu to disguise any glimmer of unhappiness that might betray me. “Tired. Work is nuts, as usual.”

      “Sometimes it’s nice to take a break in the middle of the day. I was just reading this new book, A Mental Space of One’s Own, and it talks about how we can renew our creative energies just by taking as little as fifteen minutes each day to meditate.”

      “They won’t allow us to burn incense in the office, unfortunately.”

      “Oh, Emma, you don’t have to—” She stopped, probably realizing she was going to get nowhere with me, as usual. “Why do you always have to be so difficult?”

      “I’m sorry, I—” Then I caught sight of the ring, a large deep blue stone that sparkled magnificently on her left hand. “Oh, is that it? I mean, is that the ring Clark gave you?”

      She beamed and held out her hand. “Isn’t it absolutely perfect? We decided to stay away from diamonds after— Well, you know, I’m starting to think they’re bad luck after the first two… Anyway, when Clark gave me this sapphire, he told me that the ancients believed it to be the truest blue in the world, a reflection of the heavens above. He wanted me to have it as a symbol of his faith, his sincerity.” Then she blushed. “You know Clark. Always thinking like a poet.”

      The look on my mother’s face was positively beatific. I began to suspect that maybe this was the real thing. Until her next words.

      “Clark and I have decided to take a vow of celibacy.”

      “What?” Now my mother’s sex life, or lack thereof, was a subject I strictly avoided. But I couldn’t help asking, “Forever?”

      “Oh, no. Of course not!” Then she glanced around and leaned close, confiding, “It’s only been a week, and Clark’s having a hard enough time as it is. Just the other night—”

      “Okay, okay,” I said, interrupting her, not wanting her to get into any details I couldn’t bear hearing. Over the years, my mother’s intermittent single status often put me in the position of confidante, given that I was the only other close female in her life for long periods. But despite that, there were some lines mother and daughter could never cross. “Let me guess. Until the wedding night?”

      “Yes! So you’ve heard of couples doing this?”

      “Yeah. I think we did a story on it once in Bridal Best. Something about recapturing the romance of an old-fashioned wedding night.”

      “Exactly. I knew you would have heard of it. Clark thought I was crazy at first, but you know how agreeable he is.”

      “Can I bring you ladies something to drink as a starter?” the waiter said, when he finally showed up at our table.

      My mother looked up and beamed him such a smile he almost blushed. “We’re ready to order our meals, I think,” she told him. Then looking over at me, she asked, “Have you decided, Emma?”

      No, but that wasn’t about to stop my mother, who’s had this thing for time-efficient behavior ever since she read Twelve Time-Saving Strategies That Might Just Lengthen Your Life. “You order first. I’ll be ready in a minute,” I said, my eyes roaming frantically over the menu.

      “I’ll have the grilled chicken salad, dressing on the side and a sparkling water,” she said. Then, looking up at me, she continued, “The salads here are really good, Emma.”

      Now this is the kind of statement my mother makes that immediately sends me into paranoid speculation. Clearly I had gained weight, and my mother was subtly guiding me back from the brink of bulging midsections and mornings spent obsessing in front of my closet in search of an outfit to disguise my sudden change of dress size. If there was one thing I could count on my mother for, it was a careful monitoring of weight fluctuation. If I relied on my own eyes, which tended to deceive me during periods of my life when I felt a pressing need to gorge myself at any opportunity, I worried I would wake up one day requiring a crane to get me out of bed. “I’ll have the Cobb salad and an iced tea,” I said, handing my menu to the waiter, who gave a quick nod and scurried off.

      “So have you told Derrick about the wedding yet?”

      “Oh, yeah, sure,” I said, then quickly moving on, “Told Jade, too. She’s thrilled to pieces for you.”

      My mother stopped, staring at me hard for a moment. “And you aren’t so thrilled, I take it?”

      Here it comes. Confession time. “It’s not that I’m not happy…” I began.

      “You don’t trust it,” my mother said. “I was worried about this happening.”

      Whew. I was actually going to be saved by psychobabble. I felt my mother about to take over from here, explaining away her reasons for running to the altar for the third time.

      “I know for much of my life I’ve looked like I’ve had my head in the sand, and in truth I probably have,” she acknowledged.

      She was looking at me in earnest now, and I saw a burning need in her eyes to make things make sense to me. “It hasn’t been so bad for you…” I said, attempting to erase whatever anxieties she might still be having about the zigzagging course her life had taken thus far.

      “It has been bad at times. And I think it was because I simply refused to see what was in front in me. But I look at Clark and I see everything. His warmth. His compassion. His kind, kind heart.” Her eyes misted. “But I also see his flaws. For example, I know he sometimes gets so wrapped up with his work or with his students that he tunes out my needs. And he sometimes has a hard time adjusting to change—and you know my life is nothing but change, it seems.” Then she smiled. “And he snores. Loud.”

      “You snore, too, Mom.”

      “Oh, Em, I’m quiet compared to him.” She laughed before growing serious again. “But the one thing I know for sure is that I love him in a way I’ve never loved anyone else. I would do anything for him. Go anywhere to be by his side. Tend to him if he were ill, God forbid. And I know—this time I know for sure—that he would do the same for me.”

      Her words rang through me, clanging in ways I wasn’t ready to hear. The question rose, unbidden, of whether Derrick and I were really the soulmates I dreamed we were if we were so unwilling to give even a little of our lives to each other. But I quickly swallowed this doubt down around the lump in

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