“What shall they call you, Lucy?” asked my father.
“Call me ‘step-mamma,’” was the answer; and I think he was utterly surprised.
“I will not take their mother’s name away,” she said. “I will not be instead of her. I will be called just what I want to be; a step, a link, between her and them. I will try and do for her what she would have done if she had stayed.”
“Then I think I’ll call you ‘For-mamma,’” said straight-spoken Andrew. “I think that will do very well.”
We all laughed; and it relieved the feeling. “Thank you, Andrew,” said our step-mamma. “That is a great help at the very beginning. I believe we shall understand each other.”
For my part I only kissed her. By the way she kissed me back, I knew it was her first act “for” my mother.
So we began to love her, and we called her “step-mamma.” People thought it very odd, and we never explained it to them. We let our relation explain itself. But among ourselves, the familiar, privileged, lovely name was “For-mamma.” That we kept this sign through so many years,—the years of our troublesome, probative childhood,—tells more than any story of the years could tell.
I only wanted to say a little bit of what she was to me at seventeen; and how my mother’s very words came again to me through her, as by an accepted mediation.
I went with her to a large party; my very first large grown-up party.
My old friend, Elizabeth Hunter, was a bride this winter. I had been bridesmaid at her wedding; that was the beginning of my coming out, earlier than I should otherwise have done.