Well, that made one of us. He and I probably did seem happily married, to everyone else, but I couldn’t help but think of our union as the marital equivalent of a lovely house located directly above a sinkhole. At least Topper and Hadley were a good, if unlikely, fit. In spite of his old-man nickname, Topper was nearly a decade younger than her. His primary objective appeared to be to enjoy life, whereas Hadley had emerged from the womb with a to-do list in hand. When they started dating six years ago, we’d all thought Hadley was getting her midlife crisis out of the way early. After all, Topper had been a twenty-seven-year-old blue blood who’d attended all the best schools because some far-back family member had founded most of them. His business card literally read “Philanthropist.” But he’d been wild about Hadley. And in hindsight, we should have known she’d never have bothered dating him if he, too, weren’t part of her plan.
Then it hit me. My mother must have forgotten that I’d told her Josh and I were divorcing. But before I could remind her, the elevator deposited us on Piper’s floor.
“Auntie Laine!” said Kaia, flinging open the door to their apartment. She was wearing a tutu and a cape, and her black curls formed a halo around her head.
“Hiya, kiddo,” I said, scooping her up in my arms. “I’ve missed you.”
“I missed you, too! Where’s Uncle Joshy?”
“Um.” Was this the time to tell them we were getting divorced? What if I changed my mind? “He’s in Ann Arbor. He had to work.”
“Awww,” she pouted. “Auntie Laine? Mama says Belle died. Did she get run over?”
“Yes, she died,” I said, hoping that saying this out loud wouldn’t turn on the waterworks. “But she didn’t get run over.”
“What happened? Did someone poison her? Or kidnap her? Mama says bad people take dogs and make you pay big money to get them back.”
Man, New York kids—I forgot how quickly they grew up. But then I smiled to myself, because it had just occurred to me that if all went well, I’d be raising my future child in Ann Arbor, where they’d have room to run and play and good public schools and wouldn’t learn about extortion in kindergarten.
“She was really old, and sometimes when you’re really old, you get really sick,” I said.
Kaia’s brown eyes widened. “Is that going to happen to Grammy?”
I felt a sudden pang. “I sure hope not.”
“Whew!” she said. She hopped out of my arms. “You’re sad, but you’ll feel happy after you meet Lexi! Come on,” she said, motioning for me to follow her.
“Be right there. Let me say hi to your mom and aunt first,” I called as she headed into the boys’ bedroom.
“Hey, you!” Piper squealed. Except for the bedrooms and bathrooms, her apartment was one big open space, and she was leaning against the kitchen island, waiting for me to come to her.
“Hey, Piper,” I said, walking over. She felt especially bony as I hugged her, or maybe I’d just forgotten how slender she was. “Here,” I said, handing her the flowers. “I brought these for you.”
“Ooh! Thank you,” she said, sniffing them. Her straight chestnut hair was even longer than usual, and she was that rare non-French woman who looked amazing with bangs.
My eyes darted to where she’d just set the flowers on the counter. “Do you want me to put them in water?” The daisies would droop within the hour, but mostly it was the sight of them splayed out among the appetizers that made me twitchy—there was a place for everything, and those were not in their place.
“No, I’ll do it in a few,” she said before taking a sip of her wine. “Go say hi to Had.”
“Over here!” Hadley waved at me from the sofa, where she was nursing one of the twins. Her light brown hair was piled in a messy bun on top of her head, and except for a swipe of lip gloss, her face was bare. She looked tired but happy, like a subtly persuasive commercial for motherhood.
“Hey, Had,” I said, plopping down at the opposite end. “Kisses from afar.”
“I’ll be done in just a second.” Answering the question I hadn’t yet asked, she added, “Topper’s in Kaia’s room putting Asher down.”
“That’s good of him,” I said, and I meant it. Our father hadn’t exactly been a hands-on parent. He’d put in long hours at the water treatment facility where he was a supervisor, and in his spare time, he’d made models of things we had no interest in—cars, rockets, sailboats.
“I mean, it’s also his job,” said Hadley. “He knows I can’t do this alone.”
I nearly winced. If Hadley couldn’t handle parenting on her own—yes, she had twins, but she was also superwoman—how on earth was I going to pull this baby thing off? Granted, Piper was a single mom, but both Levi and Silas had 50 percent custody. This would be 100 percent on me.
“Gorgeous? I can’t do it.” Topper had just come out of the bedroom. His eyes were bloodshot, and for once, he looked older than Hadley. “He just will not go to sleep.”
Asher wasn’t crying, and maybe that was why Hadley glanced at me and smirked so subtly that, had I not spent the first sixteen years of my life sharing a room with her, I would never have caught it. Swiftly and with such certainty that it looked like a dance sequence, she pulled down her shirt, stood, and handed Ainsley to me. “Would you mind? Anyway, the two of you should get to know each other.”
“Not at all,” I said, looking down at a drowsy, rosy-cheeked Ainsley. She was so . . . lovely. Something deep in me got all tight and painful then, and I couldn’t even coo at her right away. By the time I got my voice back, she was asleep.
“Auntie!” Jae was just outside the bedroom he shared with Rocco. “Come meet HRH Lexi!”
“We’re waiting for you!” called Kaia.
“That’s so sweet of you,” I told them, “but Ainsley just fell asleep. Give me a minute or two?” Or twenty, I thought, peering at her. If I felt this level of affection for my niece, I could only imagine how I’d feel about my own child.
There was a sharp bark and Ainsley stirred in my arms. “Shhh,” I said, bouncing from heel to heel.
“Such a cutie,” said Piper, coming up next to me. She touched Ainsley’s head softly. “I wouldn’t mind another baby or two.”
I obviously wouldn’t have minded one myself, but mostly I was thinking: Another two? I supposed if I could pop out several kids and still have a concave, stretch-mark-free stomach, maybe I’d want to birth a basketball team, too. Still, hadn’t she learned anything from our childhood? Less was more. Then again, Piper had never had a problem grabbing the spotlight, so this had probably never occurred to her.
All at once, I realized I hadn’t heard a peep from my mother since we’d walked in. “Uh, you guys? Where’s Mom?” I said, glancing around. I was pretty sure she was fine, but her comment about me being happily married was a bit concerning, and I hadn’t paid attention to whether she’d followed me into the apartment. For all I knew, she’d gotten back on the elevator, wandered out onto the street, and was now chatting it up with a bunch of twentysomethings.
“I’m right here!” my mother announced from behind me, and I nearly startled Ainsley awake.
“Mom, you scared me,” I said, but I realized I sounded like I was chiding her. In a softer tone, I added, “I hadn’t seen you since we got here, and I thought . . .”
“Oh, Laine,” she said, squeezing my shoulder lightly. “You thought I went missing, didn’t you? I was just in the bathroom. But you are so sweet to worry about me. Thank you.”
“Sorry,” I whispered. Hadley was right; she was more forgetful than usual—but she also seemed to be more appreciative of me, and wasn’t that what I wanted? Anyway, she definitely wasn’t a flight risk.
“Ladies! A toast!” Piper announced. She’d managed to carry four champagne flutes over at once. She held one out to me, but I shook my head; I didn’t like wine, but more importantly, I wasn’t ready to put the baby down.
Piper lifted her glass. “To Laine coming to visit.”
“To Laine,” said Hadley, who had come back in the room. She stole a glance at me before raising her glass. “Cheers!”
“Cheers,” I said quietly, hoping Ainsley wouldn’t rouse.
“Indeed! And to my family,” said my mother. “All in the same place at one time.” Then she smiled at me. “Well, almost all of us. It’s really not the same without Josh.”
No, it wasn’t. As they clinked glasses and took sips of their champagne, I blinked back fresh tears and wondered whether, if the baby in my arms were mine, that would be enough to justify removing Josh from the family that loved him so.
EIGHT