Page 111 of Worth the Fall
“A chai martini. It’s on the winter menu. Try it and make sure it doesn’t suck before I release it to the world.” Bella winced as I carefully took a sip, not wanting to spill the same way Lana had.
“Holy crap, Bella. It’s delicious. I love the flavor. So Christmasy,” I said before taking a little too big of a gulp.
“This is perfection in a cup,” Lana said. She downed hers and slammed the empty glass on the bar top.
“It isn’t supposed to be chugged, Lana.” Bella shook her head before she went to work, making what I assumed was another for my best friend.
“What can I say? I don’t believe in sipping,” she said.
I actually giggled. It felt good to laugh again.
“You can stop avoiding the question now, Brooky. What’s going on in that head of yours?”
Bella leaned on the bar top, giving me her full attention as another bartender worked around her, pouring drinks for the rest of the people in the saloon. “I don’t know everything that happened, so I don’t even know why you’d be upset in the first place.”
“Because I lost Clara yesterday.” I looked her in the eyes as I said it, and she leaned her head back in disbelief.
“How did you lose her? She’s not a dog,” Bella genuinely asked.
“I took a work call, and I walked away. When I came back, she was gone. If I’d never left, she wouldn’t have wandered off. I bet her real mom would have never taken her eyes off of her daughter or let her get lost in the snow and almost die.”
Bella laughed. A loud, get-everyone’s-attention type of holler that I didn’t appreciate.
“Not sure how that’s funny,” I ground out as I pushed my drink away, suddenly too annoyed to enjoy it.
Bella shoved it back in my direction. “Brooklyn, I used to hide from my mom all the time. It didn’t matter how much she tried to keep an eye on me; the second she turned around, I’d take off running. In the grocery store. Parking lots. The mall. I constantly hid from her. She’d be screaming my name, and I still wouldn’t come out from my hiding place. I thought it was funny to put myself inside a rack of clothes while she frantically searched for me.”
“You’re evil,” I decided.
“I think I was normal. Didn’t you ever hide from your mom?” Bella asked.
I realized that I hadn’t. At least not that I remembered.
Lana placed her hand on my arm, and I turned my attention toward her. “Do you think you can’t be a good mom to Clara because you didn’t physically give birth to her?” She waited a few seconds for me to answer, and when I didn’t respond, she kept going. “You’re the only mom she’s ever known. You love that little girl, and she adores you. I don’t know the first thing about being a mother, but I do know that you are always thinking about what’s best for Clara. You include her in your plans. You never talk about a future that doesn’t involve her. And I think that’s exactly what arealmom does.”
I swallowed around the lump in my throat as I choked up. “I wanted to be better for her. For Thomas. I feel like I really messed up yesterday.”
Bella placed another drink in front of Lana, but this time in a different glass. Lana eyed it.
“It’s the same thing. But in a glass you won’t spill. Try not to chug it this time.”
“No promises,” Lana said. She took a long gulp, finishing off half the liquid in one swallow. “So, we’ve established that you are a good mom. Because you are. And just like any mom would do, you’re punishing yourself because you had a hell of a scare yesterday.”
“Is Thomas blaming you?” Bella suddenly asked, her eyes narrowing like the thought alone pissed her off somehow.
“Not at all. He’s being way too nice about the whole thing,” I responded as I finished off my first drink.
“He’s being reasonable,” Bella said, her expression calming. “That sounds like Thomas.”
“He shouldn’t be reasonable when it comes to his daughter,” I fired back.
“What do you want him to do, dump you because his kid ran off and got lost?” Lana asked, clearly feeling lippy from her two drinks.
“Kind of.” I figured that maybe I was being a little naive or stupid, but I was so mad at myself that I needed Thomas to be mad at me too.
“Stop it. He loves you. He understands that, sometimes, shit happens. I’m actually impressed he didn’t blame you.” Lana slapped the bar top with her hand.
“You’re impressed by that?”