Andrea, my cousin, called. She said that she’d been thinking, and she reached the conclusion she could no longer not speak to me just because my father didn’t approve of the husband he himself chose for me. She asked for my forgiveness.
“I wasn’t being a good Christian about it, doll.” She snapped her gum in my ear. “Come to think about it, I wasn’t even a good manicurist about it. I bet you bit into those nails like nobody’s business without me reminding you to stop chewing on them.”
I told her the truth—forgiveness cost me nothing, and more than that, it enriched my soul. We met for a cappuccino the following day, and I bombarded her with all the twenty-first century questions that sat on my tongue.
Some days later, Wolfe announced that we were taking a weekend-long trip to visit Artemis. I wasn’t in a condition to ride her, but I enjoyed taking care of her and making sure she was doing okay.
A month ticked by. A month in which my husband called every morning to wake me up and every night to tell me good night. A month in which we didn’t fight, or cuss, or slam doors. A month in which he did not withhold any information from me, and I did not refuse his every request, simply because he’d made it. I let the EPAs escort me to school, didn’t break protocol, and still managed to make a handful of friends. Wolfe worked hard but always made sure to put me first.
I still wasn’t wearing my engagement and wedding rings—I left them at his house the night he went to the black-tie gala with Karolina Ivanova. But I never felt as if I belonged to someone else in my entire life more than now, ring or not.
We fell back in lust just as you do into a rabbit hole—fast and frantic. Wolfe, I found out, was quite fond of having sex in unusual places. We had sex in his office and in a restroom at a wedding, on the bed in my old room when my parents weren’t home and against his bedroom window, watching over the pristine street.
He fingered me under the table during an official black-tie dinner and thrust himself into me without warning when I bent down after a shower to open the bottom drawer in the bathroom and retrieve my blow dryer.
I loved every second of us in bed because no one ever needed to wonder when it was time to retreat back to their spot, their wing, or their house. We always fell asleep together and woke up together, insulated in this new, exciting thing called us.
The morning I woke up with a small, visible bump in my lower belly—it felt hard and tough and exciting—my mother walked into my room and sat down on the edge of my bed.
“I’m divorcing your father.”
I had a thousand things I wanted to tell her. From thank God to what took you so long? but I settled for a simple nod, squeezing her hand in mine to give her strength. I couldn’t be more proud of her if I tried. She had a lot to lose. But she was willing to lose it, anyway, if it meant winning back her freedom and voice.
“I think I deserve more. I think I deserved more all along, I just didn’t know that it could be possible. I know that now, through you, Vita Mia. Your happy ending inspired mine.” She wiped away a tear, forcing a smile on her face.
“My story hasn’t ended just yet.” I laughed.
“Not yet,” she agreed with a wink, “but I see where the plot is going.”
“Mama.” I clutched her palm, tears brewing in my eyes. “The best part of your story is yet to be written. You’re doing the right thing.”
Clara and I helped Mama pack her bags. Clara suggested she should book a hotel. I shook my head. It was time for me to go back to where I belonged. And it was time for Wolfe to play nice with both of our mothers—his and mine. I picked up the phone and called my husband. He answered on the first ring.
“I’m ready to come home.”
“Thank fuck,” he breathed. “What took you so long?”
“I needed to see that you meant it. That my freedom was really mine.”
“It is yours,” he said gravely. “It has always been yours.”
“Can Mama and Clara come stay with us for a while?”
“You can bring an entire hostile army into the house and I’d still welcome them with open arms.”
That evening, Wolfe threw all our suitcases into the back of his car with Smithy’s help. My father stood at the doorway and watched us with a glass of something strong. He did not say one thing. It didn’t matter that Wolfe bowed down to him for ten seconds weeks ago. Senator Keaton was still the person who had won everything in the grand scheme of things.