What We Hope For

Two

"I hope you're happy," Carol cried as she slammed the hand-carved mahogony door of her and her husband's bedroom shut.

"Now Emma will never talk to us again (sob) or trust us at all! And the worst part is that she and I w-were (sob) finally starting to get along. Our plans for the wedding were finally starting to fall into place...but then your mother ruined it!" Carol started crying hysterically as she fell onto the soft king-sized bed which was fitted with fresh Egyptian-cotton sheets.

"I-I know love," Richard held his wife tightly in his arms while trying to calm her, but he himself was overwhelmed. He had never expected the truth to come out in such a way and had never seen anything leave his wife so distraught. She had always presented herself with composure and rationality, the fact that he now had to be the one to think clearly left him more confused than ever.

"We should have told her Richard," Carol reasoned. "Her mother wanted her to know who she was." She proceeded to blow her nose in the lady-like fashion she always did.

Richard tucked a wandering strand of his wife's dark brown hair behind her ear. "No, darling. She merely said that if we wished to tell-"

"But how could she put that on us, Richard? How could she leave us with the choice. Maybe we made the wrong choice..." Carol started crying again.

"You know we didn't make the wrong choice darling. Emma is our daughter. We raised her and not that crazy nomadic woman and Emma can see that dear. If Emma knows anything, she knows that."

Carol looked at her husband affectionately, her chocolate-brown eyes were starting to warm up again. "You're right, I know you are. She didn't want Emma, she didn't have the time for her and we love her. We love her more than anything."

As husbsnd and wife embraced, their daughter walked into the room.

"Mom, Dad, can we talk?"

The tall, blue-eyed blonde that they had called their own for twenty-one years now looked at them as if they were strangers.