Just then, Smith and Valentina emerged from a back door Lori hadn’t noticed, both of them flushed and laughing, their hands linked together as Smith pulled her in for a lingering kiss.

“Aren’t they beautiful together?”

Her mother gave happy little sigh. “Oh yes. So very beautiful.”

Everyone was thrilled with the news that not only were Smith and Valentina engaged, but they would also be working together to produce a film in San Francisco next year based on Alcatraz.

“Not in the mood to dance yet?” her mother asked softly.

“No, not yet.” Her mother could probably see the dark smudges under her eyes even though she’d worked to conceal them with makeup.

“When you were a little girl,” Mary said, as she rubbed small, soothing circles on Lori’s back, “you used to talk all the time. So much that other mothers would shoot me sympathetic looks whenever we were out.” Mary smiled and leaned in closer, close enough that their foreheads touched for a moment. “But I loved it, loved that you wanted to share everything with me.”

Lori could feel the tears coming, knew she could tell her mother anything—anything at all—and Mary wouldn’t judge her.

But she couldn’t. Not yet. Not if there was still a chance that—

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too, honey.”

The next thing Lori knew, her hands were full of soft, sweet baby. She looked down into little Jackie’s face, then up into her twin sister’s eyes.

“They wanted their favorite aunt to come dance with them,” Sophie said, as if her infants could say or even think something like that at this stage in their development. But she knew her sister loved her too much to let her stay on the sidelines.

And as Lori and her mother were drawn onto the dance floor, each of them holding a baby in their arms as they moved to the music the wedding band was playing, with her brothers dancing over to tickle a little foot or grasp a small hand, Lori let herself pretend that everything was actually going to work out for her love life, too.

~ THE END ~