Bart’s attorney asked for the apartment as part of the settlement, and she gave it to him. She bought a small townhouse in Chelsea, not far from the store, and decorated it the way she wanted. She loved it. It was just big enough for her and the twins, with a room for the nanny, and a garden. The twins seemed happy there too.
She was working even harder than before, once she and Bart split up, and rushing home to see the twins after work. She felt like a robot sometimes, going from one problem to the next. She was the only parent at home, and the ultimate decision-maker and the final word at the store on every subject. It was an awesome responsibility, and she took it more seriously than ever. She took her parenting of the twins seriously too, and managed both her career and her mothering, just as she had promised herself she would. She was surprised by how little Bart wanted to see the boys. She invited him to visit them whenever he hadn’t been to see them in a while, and most of the time he said he was busy and declined. He hadn’t formed a strong bond with them to begin with, and it seemed to lessen over time. He was enjoying his single life again, and dating. Spencer had no time to date, between the store and the twins, and she had no interest in dating. She didn’t have the energy or the time to meet men and go out with them.
Her mother had been very vocally opposed to the divorce as soon as Spencer told her. As usual, she was critical of Spencer. Her views were more similar to Bart’s than her daughter’s. And like Bart, she hated the store, and was jealous of it.
“He’s right, you know. You don’t have time to bring up children properly. They’ll end up juvenile delinquents if you’re never around,” she predicted. Eileen had never been around either, and Spencer had never gone wild. She’d been a serious child and a good student, despite little attention from her parents. Spencer was a much better, warmer mother than her own had been, and spent more time with her children than her mother had.
“I’m around, Mom,” Spencer said quietly. “Just not at traditional hours.” She took care of them herself on Sundays and loved it. She didn’t have to choose between them and the store. It was Bart who had tried to force that hand, as though to prove a point. He was giving her a decent amount of child support for the boys, but none of his time. She wondered who he was dating, but never asked. She told herself that it was none of her business, although it would be later on, once visitation started. The court mediator had started visitation at three years of age for the twins, by mutual consent, with visits at Spencer’s home in the meantime, with proper warning. Bart almost never called to see them. He claimed they were too young to know the difference. The twins seemed happy, had no alarming behaviors, and didn’t seem to miss him. They were only eighteen months old, barely more than babies, and had been just over a year old when their parents separated.
Spencer walked the store, as she did every morning right after they opened at ten, although she was there long before ten. She was thirty-seven years old, had run the store for seven years since her father’s death, and her divorce from Bart had been final for five years. It had been relatively bloodless. They’d had a strong prenup at her father’s insistence, and as a result there had been less to argue about than there might have been, once she gave him their apartment, which was generous of her. In the end, neither of them tried to hang onto a marriage that wasn’t working and never would. He had disappeared from her life rapidly, which was a relief. He said he wanted a traditional wife who stayed home, not one with a big job who owned a department store and was a CEO. He had wanted her to quit her job at the store once she had children. He refused to understand how much the store meant to her. She had a deep love for it at the very core of her being, and considered it an important part of her heritage and her history. It was almost sacred to her, and a mission bequeathed to her by her grandfather.
Bart still didn’t see the boys often enough, in her opinion, but they weren’t suffering. She had fun with them on Sundays, when Francine was off, and she tried to get home several times a week to have dinner with them, or at least tuck them into bed. And she saw them every morning before work. Francine, the nanny, had stayed with them, so she was a constant.
Bart had been seeing the same woman for the past year, as the boys reported to her after the rare times when they saw him for dinner or a brief visit. He never had them spend the night and didn’t want to. He said they were too hard to manage and too exuberant. He still couldn’t tell them apart, and didn’t try. She expected him to get married again at some point.
She currently had an off-and-on dating relationship with Bill Kelly, the account executive at the ad agency she used for the store. Bill was forty years old, had never been married, and enjoyed his freedom. The relationship was more of a convenience for both of them than a serious romance, and company when it suited them both. Neither of them wanted to get married or made strong demands on each other. They were both busy. Spencer had her hands and her life full with the store and the twins. For now, she didn’t need or want more than occasional companionship. Her marriage to Bart hadn’t inspired her to want to try again. The marriage had been a major disappointment. She was afraid now that any man she got seriously involved with would have issues about her dedication to her job. Her boys and the store were more important to her than any man she had met so far.
She smiled as she went from floor to floor on the escalator, casting a quick eye into each department, just to make sure that all was going smoothly and so that the store personnel would see her. It was a good reminder to them that she was a hands-on CEO, and that customer service was very important to her. She wanted every customer happy while they were there and delighted with their purchases when they left. Walking the store every morning was something she had learned from her grandfather. He had warned her not to get tied up in her office and forget to show her face every day to the staff and the customers. She had often walked with him on his morning rounds.
She had grown into her role in the past seven years, although Thornton’s shoes were hard to fill. But eleven years after his death, she was still trying, and hoped he would have been proud of her. Her father’s tenure had been brief, and of no benefit to the store. It was Spencer who added her own vitality and love to it.
When she reached the ground floor, she took the elevator back up to her office. She walked past her secretary in the reception area with a smile, closed her office door, and sat down at her grandfather’s desk. She could almost feel him smiling at her, as she started her day in earnest. She had lots to do today. She always did, and liked it that way.
She loved being busy, and feeling as though she had accomplished something at the end of every day when she went home to the twins. The store met her needs almost like a human being. It had a heart and a soul, which had been infused into it by the people who loved it. It was her turn to nurture it now, protect it and help it grow, until one day one or both of her sons would be old enough to run it, and she would pass the torch to them. Until then, it was her mission, and she rose to the challenge every day. She could see herself growing old there, as her grandfather had. And someday it would be her legacy to Axel and Ben. It was the best gift she could give them, just as it had been the greatest gift her grandfather left her, when she inherited the store from her father. She could already imagine changing the name of the store one day to add Axel and Ben’s name to hers, “Brooke and White.” But for now, until they grew up, the magical world of Brooke’s was hers.
Chapter 2