Day 21

I could even see why my mother seemed so out of it for much of our lives. All those pregnancies must have taken a toll on her health and sapped much of her strength.

On the two day drive from Biloxi to home I thought about all the great things I’d learned from them and all the gifts they’d given me that I’d never realized before. Jude drove my Prius because I could hardly squeeze behind the wheel now and I just sat back and looked out of the window, enjoying the scenery. We spent the night in Tennessee.

Our marriage was still unconsummated. Jude told me before he married me that sex wasn’t an option until after the birth because he would hate to cause something like me going into premature labor. I knew the chances of that weren’t very high but I honored his wishes and didn’t push the issue even though when we lay next to each other in the bed and indulged in kissing and other intimacies I could hardly stand it. Somehow I, the formerly frigid virgin, had developed a sexual appetite.

Once we crossed the border of Maryland into Pennsylvania I started getting more nervous than excited and it crossed my mind that my parents might not be thrilled to see their recently married daughter pregnant with triplets holding the last name of Greenburg.

I was surprised that the old house looked the same from the outside. Somehow I’d always imagined it would look smaller than in my memory. We drove up the long gravel driveway and I caught sight of my younger siblings outside playing, the youngest toddlers. But when the kids saw the car they ran into the house and I could hear their shouts of “Momma, Daddy, strangers here.”

Jude got out and helped me out of the car. just as My mother came to the back door and stared, taking a hard look at me as I got out of the passengers side. I’d taken care to dress modestly, no shorts and t shirt but no baggy calicos either. I had on a plain dark blue maternity dress and sandals. The dress would have been cute if I hadn’t have been baby elephant sized now at the end of my fourth month.

Her face seemed to crumple and she shouted, ‘Emily Ann!” as she ran out of the house to throw her arms around me. She sobbed and held me, “My baby, my baby..”

On the drive back to the local hotel I could hardly believe what had just happened. We’d been welcomed in with open arms. Both of my parents were happy to see me and my brothers and sisters had grown so much it was scary. There was even one brother I’d never met, born after I left home.

No one seemed thrown by the idea that I was now Emily Greenburg, psychologist but both of my parents seemed relieved to find out that Jude and I were both practicing Christians.

One of the biggest changes I noticed at the house was that my mother and sisters were no longer dressed as if it was pioneer times. True, they did still dress modestly, but now they were dressed in different things, such as denim skirts, stylish tailored button up shirts, polo shirts and a variety of shoes from earth shoes to penny loafers. Still no stilettos or jeans, but still it was forward progress.

My mother confided in me about the changes on the second day, she told me that after that last visit from Biloxi, being so shocked to see how far from their teachings that Jake, Cynthia and I had strayed that they realized it would be better to give every child some smaller measures of freedom instead of having them rebel once they left the family nest. I found out of my now nineteen brothers and sisters that seven of us were gone from home, either settled into a life or at school. Momma told me in hushed tones about how my sister Ellen Louise had refused to go to a Bible college and ended up winning a slot at Penn State, where she was now getting ready to graduate.

It was a long time before the topic turned to Cynthia Rose. I’d been showing Momma my wedding album, half winching expecting her to say something about the fact that I was so obviously pregnant but she didn’t. I’d already told her that I’d given the baby I’d been pregnant with before up for adoption and while I didn’t know what Benjamin and Sarah Rachel had said about their visit with me I can just imagine it wasn’t positive.

While Momma had looked through the album of pictures, exclaiming in delight seeing my beautiful condo that looked right out onto the beach, asking me who this or that person was in the photos I started getting very nervous. By the time she turned to the page of wedding photos she zeroed in on a bleached blonde head I knew all too well and asked, “Is that Cynthia Rose? It can’t be, but... it sort of looks like it is.”

I took one of Momma’s careworn hands in mine and said, “Yes, yes it is I’m sad to say. Cynthia Rose has been working as a dancer at one of the casinos, Momma. I think she’s had plastic surgery, in fact I’m certain one of her former male companions paid for her to have a breast enlargement and some work done on her face. I keep hoping she’ll settle down and I think it’s starting to happen now. She’s in love with someone that has been encouraging her to stop dancing and they live in one of the nicest high rise condos in Biloxi. She’s even taken to toning down her makeup and dress. They’re talking about getting married.”

What I don’t tell Momma is that this male companion of Cynthia Rose’s gives me the willies. He seems perfectly normal in every way but there is just something oily and dishonest about him. If you ask him what he does for a living he keeps talking about how he imports things from China for sale in the US, bringing shipments through the post of Gulfport, which doesn’t even make sense. It would make much more sense for his cargo to land in California somewhere and be shipped by rail or truck overland to be distributed. Something is seriously off about the man.

We ended up staying for four glorious days, while I was home I got to know my parents from an adult perspective and actually enjoy who they are. I also got to thank them for being my parents, for their forgiveness and we seemed closer than we’d all been in years. Even better they’d accepted Jude with joy, treating him as a treasured new member of the family.

By the end of our time there Momma started speaking longingly of going back to Biloxi to see the sea and to help me out during my confinement. Then the unexpected happened, Daddy told her to pack up and ride back to Mississippi with us, he’d buy her a plane ticket back after I’d had the triplets and was able to care for them and myself.

So she packed a small bag, kissed everyone goodbye and rode all the way back to Mississippi in the cramped back seat of my sub compact car. Even thought Momma had driven to southern Mississippi before with Daddy there was just something very different about her this time, a new freedom. I knew this was the first time in the thirty years Momma and Daddy had been married that she’d been completely without kids or Daddy away from home.

It was night when we pulled up in my numbered parking space by home but it didn’t matter to Momma, she still wanted to pull off her socks and shoes to wade in the warm salty waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It was midnight before we could get her to calm down enough to go to bed. She’d danced in the splashing surf of the ocean, like a person newly freed from their restraints.

While we’d been gone the construction crew hired by Jude had started the process of making our two condos into one large condo, cutting a large archway in the main wall between my living room and his. Since my condo had been the model home with upgraded appliances and fancier decoration we decided to keep my kitchen but cut another archway, strip his kitchen down to bare walls to turn it into a long galley dining room. One more arch cut in the upper hallway opened up the upstairs of from one smaller bedroom over the kitchen and one large one facing the living room with it’s own balcony to two large bedrooms and two smaller ones.

Momma was happy to be installed in Jude’s old bedroom and she helped move his things over into my bedroom, even putting them away. She loved her room, overlooking the ocean.

As Momma settled into her new digs I went back to work for a few more days to tie up all the loose ends. I was going into my fifth month now but my new doctor said all bed rest up until delivery. She wanted me to go as far over the sixth month mark as possible, triplets tended to come early and be tiny so it was essential I rest to make that happen.

On my last day of work something upsetting happened. I’d been just ending a session with a client I was transferring to another colleague, introducing the colleague and the client and going over a continuation of her treatment plan when I was buzzed that I had a visitor waiting for me in the big conference room.