a someone staring down at me, a self-satisfied look on her face. Geraldine must be beyond delirious that I’m leaving, no doubt hoping I’ll never be back. I give her a brief wave, and she raises her hand in response, her features hard.
“Go,” I instruct the driver, because there’s no way I could manage a full sentence right now. As he drives off, I look back at my fiancé standing in front of his huge house, watching me leave.
***
Mom is at George Bush Intercontinental to meet me, a huge smile on her pretty face, my Aunt Judy at her side. I drop my bags and collect her in a hug, holding onto her tight as I try to stem the tears that threaten to burst from me. I need to stay strong for Mom. She’s the one with cancer. She’s the one going through treatment. I’m only here to support her.
“My baby girl,” she coos softly in my ear. “It’s so good to have you back home, although I’m so sorry you had to leave Sebastian back in England.”
“How are you feeling?” I ask as I release her and greet Aunt Judy.
The two sisters look like two peas in a pod, dressed in slacks and cute blouses, both of them with a bobbed hairstyle.
“I’m doing great, honey. You tell her, Judy.”
“Your mom is an all-star, Emma, but I’m sure she’s real happy her only baby is back home.”
“I’m happy to be home, too. I bought you a gift, Mom.” I reach into my bag and pull out a green double-decker bus toy with the word Harrods written on it and hand it to her. “I got it at Heathrow. I know how much you want to visit London, so I thought I’d bring a little piece of it to Texas for you until you can get there yourself.”
“Oh, sweetie. Thank you,” she says with a smile. “We’ll go to Harrods together, you and me, when I come over for your wedding.”
“It’s a plan.”
With my luggage collected, we get into Aunt Judy’s old Toyota, and she drives us back to Mom’s home, the house I grew up in and the place I’ll be living while she has her treatment. As she drives, Mom asks me about life at Martinston, and I share some of the highlights, avoiding the aspects that are, shall we say, less than optimal. Mom doesn’t need my worries right now, and she sure as heck doesn’t need to know Geraldine thinks I’m not good enough for her grandson.
By the time we pull up outside the house, she’s convinced I live a fairy-tale life akin to Downton Abbey’s Lady Mary—not that her life was exactly a fairy tale, but if that’s the way Mom wants to think of it, then Lady Mary I am. I figure Mom needs some escape, and I’m happy to provide her with it.
Once out of the car, I regard the home I grew up in with fresh eyes. It was always going to pale in comparison with Martinston—what house wouldn’t? Martinston is a freaking manor house—but Mom looks after it well, from the little garden out front to the faux window shutters and the brightly painted, glossy red front door. As I step out of the car, the humidity and heat hits me like a hairdryer on full, and for a moment, I think I actually miss the cool English rain.
An hour later, I’ve unpacked in my childhood bedroom, and we’re sitting in the small living room with its 80’s pastel walls and lampshades as Mom talks me through her treatment plan and Stella sniffs my legs with her tail wagging at full speed.
“My surgery is all set for Tuesday. You’re gonna love Dr. Michaels, honey. He is so nice, isn’t he, Judy?”
“What your mom is saying is that he’s handsome,” she teases.
“I can’t help that I like a man with dimples,” she protests. “Just like your dad’s,” she says to me. “He had the cutest dimples, that man.”
And that does it for me. All my plans to be stoic and strong fly out the window and into the thick Houston air as I crumple with tears.
“Oh, honey.” Mom comes to sit next to me on the couch and wraps me up in one of her world-famous hugs as my tears flow, and Aunt Judy busies herself in the kitchen making me some iced tea.
Eventually, the flow of tears stemmed, I blow my nose. “I’m sorry. I wanted to be strong for you.”
“I