If there was a word more than perfect, her daughter was that. Blonde curls hung loosely over the olive skin on her forehead, slightly covering her bushy brows. Her eyes, though shut in slumber were so beautiful Adrianne’s own watered.
Source
As Adrianne made to leave, she couldn't resist one more glance. This time, the tears really slipped down her cheeks even as a light smile graced her lips. She turned away weeping softly, hearing Adrian's voice as she walked down the hall,
"You may have experienced abomination, but your baby isn't one. If there's anything I know about you, it's that you are one strong woman who will take the world head-on. And see, you just multiplied your forces. Both of you will shock the world."
Adrianne couldn't recall when last she was in church, but she saw her twin brother's words as a prophecy that was speedily coming to pass. As she molded every ball of cookie to carefully place on the baking sheet, she remembered when it all began, the first time she stood before her family in that floral gown that danced at her knees, her head bowed, her hands clasped together somewhere in between her laps.
“What is this, Adrianne?” Her mother's husband who had come to her room almost every night to caress her first, then land blows blindly when she tried to resist, asked. She wished for Adrian then, he would have kept his arms around her shoulders and sworn she was telling the truth.
Her mother sat there silently, a glass of beer in hand, her only words coming when Adrianne began insisting that the baby in her womb belonged to her step farther.
“You scoundrel! You dare look me in the face and utter such nonsense?” She was on her feet now; Adrianne's feet directed her steps backward as her mother walked up to her. “Take your things and leave my house this minute.”
Adrianne's deep blue eyes had looked into her mother's brown ones but there were no emotions there. She meant this one too like she meant it when she had told them she was leaving their father and took them along with her into a worse marriage.
Adrianne had dared to take a glance at her stepfather then, she couldn't tell but she wanted to believe it was regret that sat in his eyes as he dipped his head when she walked past.
She was just a 17-year-old high schooler so her only option was to travel almost fifty miles to her paternal grandmother. She wasn't surprised when Adrian returned from the NBA to join her there. He loved her that much.
She wiped the tears that threatened to blind her with her apron then put the first batch of cookies into the oven. She remembered how she had to keep her baby with her grandmother so she could shuffle two jobs to raise money for all of them to survive.
When her father came and said he wanted to sue the man who did that to his daughter, she went down on her knees pleading for him to let it go because it had been 5 years already and she was just beginning to have peace with her baby.
When her grandmother slept three years later and didn't wake up, it was Adrian who got her a house while her dad took up paying her baby's tuition so she could drop one job.
Now 17 years later, her daughter, all grown like a fairytale princess, stood amidst her colleagues, wearing the black cap and gown she never got to wear. Nothing gave her more joy than sitting in the back seat with Adrian's hand in hers, watching her baby walk down the aisle, with her hair all packed upwards, giving room for a few tendrils to grace the sides of her face as she headed to collect her ‘Best student of the session’ award; The third she had gotten in a row.
“I am super proud of you, Delight” Adrianne's hands brushed over her cheeks lightly when her daughter came to hand the award over to her, avoiding the tint of color she had added to highlight her cheekbones.
“Thanks, Mom” she turned her eyes over to her uncle “I love you both”.
“Hurry along, they're taking a photograph,” Adrian said, she giggled and hurried away, yelling for them not to take a picture without her.
“I am proud of you, Adrianne.” Adrian had risen to watch the kids throw their caps around happily. Adrianne joined him, silently hoping that the tears knocking at her eyes wouldn't have an opportunity to come down her cheeks. When he opened his arms, she allowed herself to rest in his embrace but with her eyes wide open to watch her Delight.