Call Her Mine (Harmony Pointe #1)- Melissa Foster Page 0,77
need anything. He’s such a sweetheart. I suspect the man we’re seeing now is the real Benjamin. I think he’s been holding back, secretly fearing he’d let you down.”
Aurelia swallowed hard as her grandmother’s words reiterated Ben’s confession. I was in college, and you were Willow’s best friend, and I knew I couldn’t be the boyfriend you deserved.
“That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard,” Remi said.
“Ben could never let me down,” Aurelia said honestly.
“He is a real mensch.” Flossie patted Remi’s hand and said, “Just like Aiden. Two of a kind, those boys. Real gentlemen.”
“Grandma, did he tell you that we’re together now, as a couple?” Aurelia asked.
“He didn’t have to. I heard something different in his voice, and you just confirmed it.” Flossie placed her hand over her heart and said, “This makes me so very happy, Aurelia.”
“Thank you. It makes me happy, too, but there’s more.” She told her about Bea and everything she and Ben had been through with her.
“Bea . . .” Flossie’s eyes dampened. She blinked several times and whispered, “Just perfect.”
“She is perfect, but I wish I had babysat, or been around more babies, when I was younger. I love her, Grandma, and I feel like I’m failing her.”
Flossie giggled again. “You’re contradicting yourself. If you truly love her unconditionally, you cannot fail her.”
“I’m not so sure that’s true,” Aurelia said. “While I had her yesterday, I was so tired, and I tried everything to calm her down, but she cried her little eyes out all afternoon. I had to ask Piper to come and take over.”
“That’s what love is, honey,” Flossie said. “Failing her would be not asking for help, getting so frustrated you yell at her, or worse. She’s a tiny baby—whom I can’t wait to meet, by the way—all she needs are the essentials: warmth, love, sustenance.”
“But I don’t understand what she wants sometimes,” Aurelia said.
“That’s okay, because neither does she. Babies cry, honey. It’s not easy getting up every few hours to eat and learning about this big new world. You said yourself she missed Benjamin. That’s a big thing to a little baby. And babies are intuitive, which means you probably missed him, too. She might have been crying because she wanted both of you together.” She sipped her drink, watching Aurelia, and Aurelia knew she was letting her words sink in before asking, “What do you want now?”
“Them,” Aurelia said without hesitation.
“Then you can’t fail either of them, or yourself.” Her eyes moved between Aurelia and Remi, and she said, “Girls, one thing you should learn to do in every aspect of your life is to follow your heart. If you do, you can’t go wrong. Things won’t always be easy or run smoothly. You’ll have mountains to climb, battles to fight, but if you lead with your heart, you’ll both survive and come out as better people on the other side.”
“You make it sound so easy,” Remi said. “I can’t imagine anything with a baby is easy, considering life is never easy.”
“Baby, teenager, adult. None of it is easy.” Flossie smiled and said, “Let me tell you both a little story. When Aurelia’s mother was fifteen, she was a sass-mouthed little thing. She never knew when to stop arguing, and she’d push me to my limit every chance she got. One day we were driving home from the shopping center, and she was yelling at me for one thing or another. I can’t remember what, but it was important to her as a teenager. I asked her to speak rather than yell, but she was blinded with anger. So I pulled over six blocks from home, and I let her out of the car and told her to walk the rest of the way.”
Aurelia and Remi exchanged surprised glances.
“Some people might think that’s a parental failure,” Flossie said. “But I couldn’t lead with my heart with her yelling at me. If she kept it up, I’d have said things I could not take back. Now, even though Sweetwater was a safe place back then, I still drove to the end of the next block and pulled over. I could barely see her in my rearview mirror, and when I thought she could make out my car, then I drove to the end of the next block. I did that all the way home.”
Aurelia laughed. “And what happened?”
“Oh, she was livid when she got home, but I felt better. It enabled me to take the breather I needed,