“Right,” he muttered, bending in for another lip touch before I pulled away and moved away so he could get out of his car door and close it.
“Sleep well,” I told him, grabbing his hand and leaning back into him.
“Will do. You too.”
“Will do. ’Night, honey.”
He tightened his hand in mine before letting it go on his, “’Night, Amy.”
I grinned, turned and walked away only to stop and turn around when he said loudly with great humor, “Jesus, darlin’.”
“What?” I asked.
“Only my heiress would have fluffy slippers with sequins on ’em.”
I loved it that with the night he had, he was smiling and I’d done something to make him do it.
Thus I went for more.
“There’s not much I do to keep up the Bourne-Hathaway name, but I feel it’s a moral imperative to wear appropriate heiress slippers.”
He shook his head and ordered, “Go home.”
“You got it,” I replied, turned and strolled back to my house.
This time, I didn’t do it letting Mickey watch me in my yoga pants and sequined slippers.
I did it turning once and waving hard, with a big smile.
He also had a big smile and he jerked up his chin.
I didn’t hear the garage door go down and I would see as I was closing my front door that Mickey waited at the rear bumper of his SUV for me to get home safely even though I lived right across our usually sleepy but at that hour, now totally comatose street.
My guy was a good guy.
I locked the door and then jumped a mile when I heard, “Mom.”
I turned, hand to my chest, heart hammering, to see Olympia in the shadows.
“Honey, you scared the dickens out of me.”
Suddenly, I found my daughter in my arms, the side of her head pressed to the side of mine and she was squeezing the breath out of me.
Just as suddenly as she threw herself in my arms, she said, “Glad Mickey’s okay,” let me go, turned and hurried away.
She’d heard me make plans to go see he was all right.
She’d waited up with me.
And maybe, (I didn’t put it past my girl, she could be nosy) she’d watched through the guestroom window as I ran across the street to make sure he was all right.
I had a feeling Mickey had already earned my baby girl’s stamp of approval.
Just because he meant something to me.
And fortunately, even though she’d waited up, obviously she hadn’t heard her brother and me talking about Polly.
I smiled to myself as I turned away from the door, wandered down the hall, took off my cardigan and threw it on the arm of the daybed, kicked off my sequined slippers and climbed into bed.
Then I, Amelia Hathaway, who’d grown up not learning how to deal and never having a solid foundation, after a very rough night, fell right to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Three
My Umbrella
I was Pledging my fabulous new dining room table that looked perfect in its place in my great room and better, the bowl I’d bought that began my new beginning looked perfect in the middle of the table, when my phone rang.
I wandered to it, thinking I needed a rug under it and wondering if I’d be able to find that, and arrange for Mickey—and perhaps Junior and Jake, with the help of Auden—to come and move the huge, heavy table in order to put the rug under it.
This was a happy thought, which made the announcement on the display even more annoying than it normally would be, considering it obliterated my happy thought.
I sighed and wondered if I should perhaps not be grown up all the time as I took the call and put the phone to my ear.
“Conrad,” I greeted.
“You didn’t phone my secretary,” he replied.
No hello. He didn’t even say my name in greeting.
This was not starting out great.
“I’m sorry. You called during an important evening and it slipped my mind,” I somewhat lied.
He ignored my mention of the important evening and asked, “Now that I have you, when can we meet?”
“Perhaps first you can tell me why we’re meeting,” I suggested.
“We need to talk,” he said shortly.
“I could guess that. But about what?”
“This situation with the children isn’t working.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way but it’s working for me”
“I can imagine it is. But it isn’t for Martine.”
Like I gave a crap.
He had to know I felt that way so I didn’t tell him that.
“They’re of an age they can decide where they want to spend their time,” I informed him of something he knew, since he’d forced them to make that decision in a legal way. “But more, it would seem from their demeanor that they enjoy that freedom. I think, as their parents, having put them in a position where they have to divide their time between us, giving them the ability to do that as they wish is something we should allow.”
“The way things are, Amelia, Martine doesn’t know if they’re going to be home for dinner. If she’ll need to pack lunches for them. This affects grocery shopping—”
I interrupted him, “I face the same thing. However, I do find it’s easy to cope with making last minute adjustments. And they aren’t six and eight, Conrad. They can pack their own lunches, something they do at my house.”
“Martine likes to be certain they eat healthy,” he returned. “You would find it easy as they’re your children so you’d make those adjustments as a matter of course. We can’t forget that they aren’t Martine’s children, their home is her home, and the mingling of that has to be managed. This is not managed well.”
The mingling of that has to be managed?
This entire thing was making me uneasy.
“Conrad, I don’t need to remind you that your wife chose to pledge her troth to a man with children. Thus she had a readymade family, which I’m sorry if you disagree, but it’s my feeling she would need to adjust to fit within that family, make our children comfortable in the home she shares with them, not her home, all of your home, and do what’s best for them. If this means she has to endure the horror of cold cuts going bad because someone isn’t eating them, I’m sure she’ll eventually find it in her to survive.”
“There’s no need to get ugly,” he clipped.
“You’re taking my time to share the fact that your wife is annoyed she can’t predict what groceries she needs to buy for the week, Conrad. I’m busy. I have a life. I don’t have time for these trivialities. Honestly?”
“Our children aren’t trivialities, Amelia,” he snapped.
“We aren’t discussing our children,” I shot back. “We’re discussing your wife. And to me, she is. Now, unless there’s some real reason that this situation with the children cannot continue as it stands that you wish to discuss, the discussion is over. Things remain as they are and Martine has to find it in her to deal.”