Always the Last to Know by Kristan Higgins Page 0,49
her due date and pampered her, and when she went into labor, I went to the hospital with them, right into the labor room, so welcomed and included, so needed. I held her hand and told her she was strong and amazing and I loved her so much, and when the baby finally came out, Juliet clutched my hand, crying tears of joy.
A girl.
They named her Brianna. “After you,” Juliet said. “I know you never loved your name, so we took letters from Barbara Marie Johnson and made Brianna. So she’s your namesake in a special way, Mommy.”
Was there ever a more perfect daughter?
And so, as Sadie drifted like a butterfly, living her New York dream of art, poverty and waitressing, my older daughter continued to be my pearl. When Brianna was one, they moved back to Stoningham. Juliet called me several times a day just to talk and invited John and me for dinner a few times each month, and came to our house most Sunday afternoons.
If Sadie had given me anything more than scraps from her heart, I could’ve done better, but the truth is, I got tired of trying. Sadie had her father; I had my Juliet, and Oliver, and Brianna, and a few years later, another beautiful granddaughter, Sloane.
John was a bit disappointing as a grandfather, frankly. He was fine when a child was deposited on his lap, but he wasn’t all that enthusiastic. He still worked a few days a week and played golf (the most unimaginative hobby in the world). Twice a year, he went away for a golf weekend with his friends, and I loved being in the house without him. Sometimes he’d go to the city to see Sadie and take her out to dinner and spend the night in a hotel down there, or at her place, once she got an apartment of her own.
“You never did that when I lived there,” Juliet said, a rare rebuke from our gentle girl.
“Didn’t I?” was his response, and I felt the venom well up in my throat, like one of those dinosaurs that could spit acid. Still, I held my tongue.
I continued to be a contributing member of Stoningham, working on committees and serving on boards. I watched my granddaughters when asked—unlike me, Juliet and Oliver liked to go out, and it was a joy to be the one to care for the girls. I’d read to them, or bake cookies with them, or do crafts and let them take an extra-long bath, and when they were asleep, I’d fold some laundry or pick flowers. Juliet’s house was beautiful, and she had a cleaning lady, but I still liked to fuss and tidy.
It was so nice to be wanted.
I thought about divorcing John. It had been so long since we’d done anything meaningful together, connected in any way. But there was that affordability thing. The thought of losing my house.
Then Bill Pritchard said he wouldn’t run again for first selectman.
“You should run, Mom,” Juliet said over dinner at her house when John was on a golfing weekend. The girls were in bed, and we were enjoying a glass of wine on the deck on the top of their house, which overlooked the Sound.
“Oh, absolutely,” Oliver concurred. “Can you imagine how shipshape this town would be if you were in charge, Mum?”
“That community center project would be in the bag, that’s for sure,” Juliet said. She put her hand over mine. “You should do it. You’d be amazing.”
“Honey, I’m almost seventy.”
“And? You have more energy than I do. And organizational skills. And smarts. And everyone adores you.”
The idea took root. I was good at organizing. I’d been on every committee there was. Being Juliet’s mother still carried cachet in this town; everyone loved her (and Sadie, too, just not as much . . . she’d left Stoningham years before, after all, impatient to shake the small-town dust from her shoes).
I won in a landslide. John had the nerve to be surprised on election night. “Well, holy crap, Barb. Who could’ve called that?” he said right there in the school gym, loud enough to be overheard. I saw a few people give him a strange look. An angry flush crept up my chest. Where had he been all these years we’d lived in Stoningham? Didn’t he know how hard I worked, how many people respected me, how much I’d given to this community? How dare he be surprised by my success?