“A good mother knows her children, knows everything about them, the good and the bad. A great mother loves them regardless. I love you and your sister and brother and would do anything for each of you — including supporting you even when I think you are making a wrong choice. I am not saying that I think you’re making a bad choice right now; I just think you need to take care of yourself, or let your parents take care of you. No matter how old you get, Rachel, you will always be my baby.”
“Oh, Mom, I love you so much.” Rachel sat up and wrapped her slender arms around her mom’s neck, with tears beginning to stream from her eyes. “Dang hormones,” she grumbled.
“I love you too, sweetheart, and I’m so sorry that you’re going through such a terrible amount of pain right now. If I could take it away, I would,” she said, tenderly rubbing the length of Rachel’s back in comfort, the way she’d always done since Rachel could remember.
“I’m just so confused,” she admitted.
“Then tell me about it. Let’s see if we can figure things out together,” Rosabella said.
Rachel hesitated for only a moment longer before sitting back and clutching the blanket beside her to her chest. This was her mom, the woman she’d always told everything to. Of course she was the one who would give her the best advice.
“I know Ari filled you in, but I don’t know exactly what she told you, so I guess I’ll give you my version of the events. You’ve probably been told that I had a weeklong affair with Adriane in Florida,” she began, feeling bad when her mom winced. Though she’d heard it already, no mother liked to be told about her daughter having an illicit affair with a man she didn’t know.
“I’m sorry, darling. I know you’re an adult now, but it’s still something hard for a mother to hear, especially when I’ve heard it twice,” she said with a chuckle.
“Yeah, I know. The thought of my children growing up and behaving the way I did fills my heart with terror,” Rachel admitted.
“You followed your heart and you’ve always been responsible. I’m not faulting you for that. I just wish you’d been more careful this time. Adriane could have turned out to be a serial killer,” Rosabella admonished her.
“Worse! He turned out to be a flipping king!” Rachel countered.
“We will have to disagree on which of the two is worse,” Rosabella said with another laugh.
“Everything was great with Adriane. I only knew him as Ian at the time. We laughed, talked, and, well…had fun. Then, it was just something carefree and exciting. Now, I realize how irresponsible I was,” she said, not quite willing to tell her mom that she’d had the best sex of her life. Not to mention the only sex of her life, but who was counting? Anyway, Rosabella seemed grateful for her discretion.
As Rachel repeated her story, her mother sat there patting her leg, listening without interruption. Though Rachel hadn’t been listening to anyone recently, she was eager to hear her mother’s advice.
“Have you decided if you want to stay with him?” Rosabella asked when her daughter finished her tale. “It is to Adriane’s credit, I hope you know, that he wants to marry you. Many a royal man wouldn’t be so principled.”
“I am honored by his offer, Mom, but no. I’m not going to marry him. I learned from watching you and dad that a marriage can only be about love, and anything less would be settling. I deserve better than that. I do, however, want to know him. I want to be able to tell my children good things about him, and I hope we can be friends for their sake. I think the reason I want to know him so much is because I feel that after we leave, that will be it, that he’ll move on, get married to a proper woman, and the kids will never see him again. At least if I’ve spent time with him, then I will be able to share with them who their father is. When I read them fairy tales, I can tell them that their father is a real live king. I would have been excited to know I was a princess when I was a little girl.”
“I’m so very proud of you, Rachel. The choices you’re making aren’t easy ones, and the way you are already putting your children ahead of anything else shows me that you are more than ready to become a mother. A lot of young women think being a mom is all glory and nothing messy. Many teens think they will have this child who will love them always. The reality is that children are difficult. They are demanding and it’s all about them — always. We make sacrifices as a mother, and those sacrifices are well worth it, because then when our children grow into fine young men and women, we get to sit down with them and share their life. I wouldn’t change a thing about being a mother — well, I might change those sleepless nights.”
“Thanks, Mom. Sometimes it scares me to do this alone,” Rachel admitted.
“You will never be alone; you have your family. Plus, you never know. Maybe Adriane is the one — maybe you will fall hopelessly in love,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes.
“I will never fall in love with that man. He is too pompous and he thinks he’s always right. He would drive me insane!” she cried, narrowing her eyes at just the thought.
Rosabella chortled as she looked at her daughter. “That’s what I said about your father. He stormed into Italy like he owned the country. I wanted nothing to do with him. But look at us now. Married for almost forty years, and I love him now more than ever before.”
“That’s because you and Dad are perfect together,” Rachel said, only hoping she could someday have a marriage even half as beautiful as her parents had.
“We weren’t in the beginning, darling. I kept turning him down flat when he asked me out. Not interested, I kept saying. It took some time, but he was so persistent that eventually I agreed to a date, thinking he would grow bored after I spoke in a monotone and refused any of his advances. I was wrong. He stirred my blood that night, just as he does now,” her mom said with a dreamy smile.
“Ugh, mom. I don’t even want to think about dad stirring your blood,” Rachel said with a fake gag, but her cheeks turned pink at the thought.
“I’m not in the grave yet, Rachel. I still have feelings.”
“OK, you can still have feelings. I just can’t hear about them. That’s my dad you’re talking about,” she said with a grin.
“I will miss you so much, cara. I want you to come home soon, OK?” Rosabella leaned over and embraced Rachel with the magical comfort of a mother’s love.