Self Service

Easy Like Sunday Morning

Priscilla woke up with Scott's arms around her. She didn't know when she had fallen asleep nor when he got into the room, but she slid out of the bed and padded into the bathroom, closing the door and turning on the cold water and splashing her face. She leaned on the counter, looking at herself in the mirror.

A sigh escaped her as she picked up her toothbrush. She counted to exactly 120 as she brushed her teeth before she washed her face. She fixed the stray hairs coming out of her hair before she stepped out of her nightgown and went to pull on a proper fitting pair of running shorts and tank top. She pulled on her sneakers and left the suite doing her very best to make her exit quiet. She didn't want to wake Scott.

After her run, she went back into the room and tiptoed to her phone, exiting the bedroom and going into the front to call Paulina, sliding the door shut. "Please don't be at work," she prayed as the phone began to go into double digit rings. "Pick up, pick up."

"Hello?"

"Mama, I'm in Alabama."

"Your sisters made me aware. What's wrong, baby?"

"I cried last night."

"Sweetheart, tell me what happened," Paulina insisted. Priscilla took a deep breath, attempting futilely to swallow the lump in her throat, her eyes stinging.

"Well, I went to some party last night with Scott. And this prosecutor, I think she's a prosecutor... Well, she was basically throwing herself in Scott's lap. With her husband right there beside her. But that was more a slut your way up the ladder thing. I didn't take that very personally."

"But it upset you?"

"Well... Yes, Mama. He's mine. And she's not the problem."

"What's the problem, Priscilla?" her mother coaxed gently. "Talk to me, baby."

Priscilla took deep breaths and fanned her face, but the tears came anyway. The more she tried not to cry, the harder it came. So she stopped fighting it. She was alone and she was talking to her mother. She could let it be.

"Her name is Marguerite. She was Scott's first love and they could possibly have a child together. And... She was his first love."

"Priscilla, that man loves you. As the mother who loves you, I am obligated to tell you that for a man, you are possibly one of the hardest women to love. The fact that he has been with you long enough to make the decision that you are who he should spend his life with, he loves you. And you love him. Stop that crying, child. Talk to that man because you love him."

"No I don't," she said thickly.

"Yes. You do. You wouldn't be crying about Marguerite if you did not love him. You would not care that he loved another woman before if you did not love him. You would not have agreed to marry him if you did not love him. You would not be in Alabama if you did not love him. Priscilla, you love that man."

Priscilla wiped her face. She could keep trying to deny the truth, but her mother was right. She was sitting here crying, and that fact made her want to run far away.

"I'm scared," she whispered. "I don't want it. Any of it. I want to come home."

"Priscilla, you are a grown woman. And you are in love. You will not run away from that. You are going to go and clean your face up and sit down with that man and talk to him. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, ma'am." She wiped her face.

"Don't you let me find out you came home without him."

If Priscilla went home, chances were that she was going to wound up with one or both of her sisters and they were going to tell Paulina, so she thought it best to do as she was told.