Surprise: Outback Proposal: Surprise: Outback Proposal. Sarah Mayberry

like that. You’re like the Ninja Mom,” Lucy said.

      “I can’t help that I step lightly, Lucia,” Sophia said.

      Small and slim, she was dressed, as always, with elegance in a silk shirt in bright aquamarine with a bow at the neck, a neat black skirt and black court shoes. Over it all she wore the black Italian wool coat her daughters had bought her for her birthday last year.

      “I know it’s hard to park here, but Brunetti’s make the best hot chocolate in town,” Rosie said.

      Sophia sniffed her disagreement as she folded her coat carefully over the back of her chair. Then she held her arms wide and Rosie stood and stepped dutifully into her embrace, followed by Lucy a few seconds later.

      “My girls. So beautiful,” Sophia Basso said, her fond gaze cataloging their tall, slim bodies, dark shiny hair and deep-brown eyes with parental pride.

      She sank into her chair and Lucy and Rosie followed suit.

      Sometimes, Lucy reflected, meeting with her mother was like having an audience with the queen. Or maybe the pope was a better comparison, since there was usually so much guilt associated with the occasion, mixed in with the love and amusement and frustration.

      “You’ve put on weight, Lucia,” Sophia said as she spread a napkin over her lap. “It’s good to see. You’re always much too skinny.”

      Lucy tensed. She was twelve weeks pregnant and barely showing. If she lay on her back and squinted, she could just discern the concave bump that would soon grow into a big pregnancy belly. How could her mother possibly notice such a subtle change?

      Lucy exchanged glances with her sister.

       Just say it. Spit it out, get it over and done with.

      Ever since she found out she was pregnant five weeks ago, she’d been coming up with excuses for why she couldn’t tell her mother. First, she’d decided to wait to make sure the pregnancy was viable before saying anything. Why upset her mother for no reason, after all? But the weeks had passed and she’d realized she was going to start to show soon. The last thing she wanted was for her mother to find out from someone else. She could just imagine Mrs. Cilauro from the markets or old Mr. Magnifico, one of her customers, asking her mother when Lucia was due.

      The thought was enough to make her feel light-headed. For sure the chest-beating would make a reappearance. And she would never be able to forget causing her mother so much pain. Not that being single and pregnant wasn’t going to score highly on that front. Her mother had struggled to raise her and Rosie single-handedly after their father died in a work-site accident when they were both just toddlers. Sophia’s most fervent wish, often vocalized, was that her two daughters would never have to go through the uncertainty and fear of single motherhood.

       Guess what, Ma? Surprise!

      “I saw Peter DeSarro the other day. He asked me to say hello to you both,” Sophia said, sliding her reading glasses onto the end of her nose. “He asked particularly after you, Rosetta. You broke his heart when you married Andrew, you know.”

      “Oh yeah, I was a real man killer,” Rosie said dryly. “All those guys panting on my doorstep all the time.”

      Sophia glanced at her elder daughter over the top of her glasses.

      “You were too busy with your studies to notice, but you could have had any boy in the neighborhood.”

      Rosie laughed outright at that.

      “Ma, I was the size of a small country in high school. The only boys interested in me were the ones who figured I was good for a free feed at lunchtime.”

      “Rosetta! That is not true!” Sophia said.

      Lucy squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Any second now, the conversation was going to degenerate into a typical Rosie-Sophia debate about history as they both saw it, and Lucy would lose her courage. She took a deep breath.

      “Mom, I’m pregnant,” she blurted, her voice sounding overloud in her own ears.

      Was it just her, or did the world stop spinning for a second?

      Her mother’s eyes widened, then the color drained out of her face.

      “Lucia!” she said. Her hand found Lucy’s on the tabletop and clutched it.

      “It’s Marcus’s. We think maybe a condom broke. I’m due in late October. Give or take,” Lucy said in a rush.

      Her mother’s face got even paler. Lucy winced. She hadn’t meant to share the part about the condom breaking. She’d never discussed contraception with her mother in her life, and she wasn’t about to start now.

      “You’re three months already?” her mother asked, her voice barely a whisper.

      Lucy nodded. She could see the stricken look in her mother’s eyes, knew exactly what she was thinking.

      “I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure,” she said. It was flimsy, and all three of them knew it. “I didn’t want you to worry about me,” she said more honestly.

      Her mother exhaled loudly and sat back in her chair. Her hand slid from Lucy’s.

      “Now Marcus will have to step up and take care of his responsibilities,” Sophia said. “You are angry with him, Lucia, I know, but for the sake of the baby you will take him back. You will buy a nice house, and he will get a real job to look after you and the baby.”

      Lucy blinked. Fatten her mother up, give her a sex change and stuff her mouth with cotton wool, and she’d be a dead spit for Marlon Brando in The Godfather right now, the way she was organizing Lucy’s life like she was one of the capos in her army.

      “Ma, he’s with someone else now. He loves her,” Lucy said flatly.

      Sophia shook her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. He has responsibilities.”

      “Since when did that ever make a difference with Marcus?” Rosie said under her breath.

      Lucy’s chin came up as the familiar urge to defend Marcus gripped her. She frowned.

       He’s not yours to defend anymore, remember?

      “This child needs a father,” Sophia said, her fist thumping the table.

      Lucy knew that her mother’s words were fueled by all the years of scraping by, but they weren’t what she needed to hear. She couldn’t undo what had happened. She was stuck. She was going to have to do the best she could with what she had. And she was going to have to do it alone.

      Rosie’s hand found her knee under the table and gave it a squeeze.

      “It’s not like I planned any of this,” Lucy said. “It was an accident. And I can’t make Marcus love me again. I have to get on with things. I’ve got the business, and Rosie and I have been talking—”

      “The business! I hadn’t even thought about that! How on earth will you cope with it all on your own?” Her mother threw her hands in the air dramatically. “All those fruit deliveries, lifting all those boxes. And it’s just you, Lucia, no one else. This is a disaster.”

      “Ma, you’re not helping. You think Lucy hasn’t gone over and over all of this stuff?” Rosie said.

      “She hasn’t gone over it with me,” Sophia said, and Lucy could hear the hurt in her voice.

      “I know this is the last thing you want for me,” Lucy said. “I know you’re disappointed. But it’s happening. I’m going to have a baby. You’re going to be a grandmother. Can’t we concentrate on the good bits and worry about the bad bits when they happen?”

      Suddenly she really needed to hear her mother say something reassuring. Something about how everything would be all right, how if she had managed, so would Lucy.

      Tears filled Sophia Basso’s