A Baby of Her Own. Brenda Novak

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      “YOU’LL HAVE TO MOVE BACK HERE with us. How else will you get by once Rebecca leaves?” Aunt Millie asked, watching Delaney closely.

      Delaney paused in her dusting but kept her face purposefully averted from Aunt Millie, who sat propped up in bed, suffering from a touch of the flu or a cold or, more likely, simply the need for a little tender loving care.

      “I’ll get by,” she said for probably the hundredth time and went back to dusting, hoping Aunt Millie would let the subject drop. But Delaney knew she wouldn’t. Ever since Millie had heard about Rebecca’s engagement, she’d been pressing Delaney to move home again. She’d never liked the fact that Delaney had moved out in the first place, especially to go and live with Rebecca. But Delaney wasn’t about to return to the days of having Aunt Millie cluck over her constantly, monitoring her diet, her spending habits, her social success. Much as she loved Millie and Ralph, she liked her privacy and was determined to preserve it.

      “But coming home for a few months would help you save a little money,” Aunt Millie said. “What’s wrong with saving money? You don’t want to live all alone, do you?”

      “I don’t mind living alone. Can I get you anything else to eat?”

      “No, I’m finished,” Aunt Millie said, but she wasn’t so easily distracted. The white-haired woman who’d raised Delaney was getting on in years. Her body was beginning to succumb to arthritis and advanced age, but nothing could diminish her iron will. “You could have your old room,” she went on. “We haven’t changed a thing in there, but we could, if you want. We could sew some new drapes, buy a new spread….”

      The cornered feeling Delaney knew so well crept over her, along with a touch of resentment. If she’d wanted to move home, she would have done it by now. Why couldn’t Millie understand that? Why did she have to keep pushing?

      “The room’s fine,” she said.

      “Think of the time we’d have. We never did finish putting that quilt together, you know.”

      Delaney imagined living under Aunt Millie’s regime again, imagined Uncle Ralph sitting in front of the television most of the time, monopolizing the remote, while Millie insisted Delaney take her vitamins, eat her bran, get more sleep—and thought she might scream.

      Then she felt guilty for wanting to scream because Aunt Millie and Uncle Ralph had been so good to her. They’d never formally adopted her; there’d been no one to contest their guardianship, so paying for the paperwork to be filed seemed unnecessary. But Millie and Ralph had given her their name and treated her as lovingly as a blood daughter.

      God, she couldn’t win.

      “That house of yours is too drafty in the winter,” Millie was saying. “I just freeze to death whenever I go there. You need to tell that landlord of yours that you’re moving out because it’s so cold. He should really do something about the insulation.”

      “I’ll mention it,” Delaney said, but she wasn’t thinking about insulation. She’d role-played this exact situation online with her assertiveness training coach. She knew what she had to do. She had to tell Aunt Millie in a kind but firm manner that she wasn’t moving home under any circumstances, and now was as good a time as any. But when she turned, she saw the hope on her adoptive mother’s face and couldn’t bring herself to say what she knew would hurt Millie, no matter how kindly she framed it.

      “I’ll think about it,” she said instead, then mentally kicked herself. She was never going to overcome her passivity. She’d probably be the first person to fail a class that gave no grades.

      “Ralph could borrow the neighbor’s truck, so we wouldn’t have any trouble moving your things,” Millie said, struggling to lift the breakfast tray from across her lap.

      Delaney put down her dusting cloth and went to help. “I’ll get that,” she said, setting it on СКАЧАТЬ