“Why? He barely knows me.”
“How much does a person have to know to recognize someone in need?”
“I am not in need—”
“Sh, now, don’t get your dander up. Everyone can use a helping hand now and again. There’s no shame in that.”
Peggy sucked her lips between her teeth, feeling inadequate, fighting tears.
“Hormones,” Sue Anne commented with a knowing gleam in her eye. “After my babes were born, I cried at detergent commercials.”
Peggy sniffed. “I feel silly.” Not to mention fat, bloated and besieged by postpartum uterine contractions that made her wonder if she was going back into labor. “Listen, Mrs. Conway—”
“Sue Anne.”
“Sue Anne, I really do appreciate your concern, but it isn’t necessary for you to take time away from your family on my account.”
“It is to Travis.” Sue Anne brightened. “Say, you must be neigh onto starving by now. I got a casserole in the oven.”
A spicy aroma wafted down the hall, making Peggy’s mouth water. “Casserole?” She wandered to the doorway, sniffing appreciatively. “As in real food?”
“Nothing fancy, just chicken and noodles, but I figured you’d be too tuckered to fix anything nourishing for yourself.” Sue Anne scanned Peggy as if sizing up a prized hog. “Looks like you haven’t been filling your plate for quite a spell. You’re nothing but bones. But don’t you worry, hon, we’ll fatten you up in no time.”
Peggy angled a morose glance down at the tummy pouch that threatened to pop the elastic on the only pair of prepregnancy slacks she could squeeze into. “Fattening is the last thing I need.”
“Leftover flab, eh?” Sue Anne clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “Well, don’t worry about that, sugar. It’ll tighten up. After Danny was born, my belly sagged so low I could squeeze it between my knees.”
“Really?” Peggy felt her spirits lift. “I thought it was just, you know, me.”
Sue Anne’s laugh was deep, resonant and warming. “Heck, no hon, we’re all sisters when it comes to the pains of womanhood. There’s nothing happening with you that hasn’t happened to most all of us at one time or another.”
For some odd reason, Peggy found that immensely reassuring. “What about, well…” Embarrassed, she made little scratching gestures at the sides of her abdomen.
“Stretch marks?” At Peggy’s miserable nod, Sue Anne’s eyes warmed with sympathy. “They’ll fade some.”
“They won’t go away?”
“Think of them as a merit badge, the purple heart of motherhood.” She tossed a sisterly arm around her. “Are your stitches giving you grief?”
Peggy rolled her eyes and nodded.
“A real pain in the butt, hmm?” Sue Anne grinned at her own joke and gave the new mommy’s shoulders a squeeze. “And speaking of pain, let’s talk breast-feeding. Just wait until your little sharks get teeth.”
* * *
For the next few hours, Peggy’s fear and loneliness dissipated in a rush of giggles and girl talk. With twenty years of mothering experience under her ample belt, Sue Anne anticipated and answered all of Peggy’s questions, and shared tips on caring for babies—tips that hadn’t even been hinted at in the parenting books Peggy had read. Sue Anne even helped give the twins their first bath, which was more a damp mop job than the full submersion wash, which she suggested could wait until their little umbilical cords had healed.
After the sponge bath, when the twins were clean and comfortable, Peggy was flushed with exhilaration along with more self-confidence than she’d felt in a very long time.
Then, with T.J. cradled in Peggy’s arms and little Ginny nestled in Sue Anne’s, they spent hours talking—about nothing and everything, about midnight feedings and the horrors of breast pumps, about diaper rash and maternal insecurity, and about the very real pressure of just being a woman.
Sue Anne was able to expose Peggy’s fears without exploiting them, to rationalize seemingly irrational emotions, and to offer valuable reassurances. By evening’s end, she’d become the confidante Peggy so desperately wanted, the sister she’d never had, and the mother she’d lost—all rolled up into one wisecracking bundle of effervescent energy.
Even more important, Sue Anne became exactly what Peggy needed more than anything in the entire world. She became a friend. Which was, Peggy suspected, exactly what Travis Stockwell had in mind.
* * *
“You mean you just left her alone?”
Sue Anne hiked a brow and flopped on the sofa, balancing a bowl of buttered popcorn in her lap. “What did you expect me to do, roll out a sleeping bag on her living room floor?”
Travis slapped his hat on his thigh and muttered an oath. “Yes, dadgummit, if that’s what it took. Peggy just had those babies Saturday. It’s not right, her being left to fend for herself and all.”
“She’s just fine. Ted, hand me that flipper.” Sue Anne tossed a few kernels into her mouth while her oldest son, who was hunched cross-legged on the floor, felt around the carpet for the television remote. He found it and handed it over without taking his glassy eyes from a babes-in-bikinis beer commercial flickering across the screen.
Standing behind the sofa, Travis tossed his hat on a table, planted a hand on each side of his sister’s shoulders and shouted at the top of her head. “What if something happens? What if one of those babies gets sick?”
Sue Anne tipped her face back, grazing her frustrated brother with a bland stare. “Peggy Saxon’s a bright woman, Travis, and she’s good with those babies. A natural mommy. She’ll deal with whatever comes.” She refocused on the screen, aiming the remote. Her thumb jerked.
Ted spun around. “Hey!”
“I wanna watch the news,” she mumbled, continuing to flip channels as Jimmy ambled in from the kitchen with a half-eaten sandwich in his hand. Sue Anne spared him a glance. “Is Danny still handling dispatch?”
“Nah.” Jimmy smacked his lips and dropped into a worn recliner. “There ain’t been no calls for a couple of hours, so he flipped the switch to speaker and went on to bed.”
Since there was only one cab on duty during the slow overnight shift, the switch in question would sound an audible alarm throughout the house if a call came through dispatch. Most nights were quiet enough, which allowed the Conways to sleep undisturbed while the bored night cabbie snoozed through his shift parked by a quiet curb somewhere in town.
Jimmy finished his sandwich and eyed the bowl on his wife’s lap. “That popcorn?”
“Roasted maggots,” Sue Anne replied, tossing the remote aside and settling back to watch the news. “Want some?”
Jimmy leaned over and scooped up a handful. “Hmm, hot buttered maggots. Yum.”
Clearly revolted, Ted, who’d been known to lose his lunch at the sight of a kitchen ant invasion, left the room, muttering. A moment later, his bedroom door slammed.
“More