“Are you kidding me?” It was a sheen of shock rather than excitement that she wore.
“You don’t want to go?”
She blinked furiously. “I mean of course. I just need to check about . . . I need to figure out whether I have enough savings and—”
This girl took nothing for granted. “Autumn, you’re not going to pay for anything. It’s a business expense. But even if it wasn’t, I’ve got this.”
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I’m not expecting you to—”
“Autumn, please. You’ll be looking after Bethany—you’ll be working. And for the record, when I do take you away just for fun, you won’t be paying for anything then, either.”
“It’s important to me that I’m independent, Gabriel. Hollie’s looked out for me my entire life. I’m an adult now. I don’t want to be dependent on anyone. I need to know I can do life without a handout.”
I pushed my fingers into her hair, unable to help admiring her independence. But there was something in me that wanted to show her the world. “Let’s not borrow trouble. Rome is a business trip and you’re coming as Bethany’s nanny. It’s as simple as that.”
She looked at me like she wanted to argue the point but eventually her frown turned into a small smile. “We really get to go to Rome?”
“You said you wanted to go,” I said, my grin as wide as it ever had been as she lifted up onto her toes.
“This is beyond,” she said. “We’ll get to see the Colosseum. And St. Peters. The Pantheon. Oh my God. Mike doesn’t mind you bringing us?”
“I don’t care if he minds. Anyway, he won’t know. I’ll make sure we stay at a different hotel to him so we get some privacy. And we can stay the following weekend too if you’d like to.”
She looked up at me, her hands on my chest. “Are you serious? This is going to be so much fun. Rome.”
Before Autumn, I wouldn’t have considered going to Rome. I certainly would never have considered putting fun on the agenda. But now? I would enjoy eating pasta and drinking good red wine in an Italian restaurant. I was thinking about something in my life other than Bethany and work. I was looking forward to something. I wanted to share something with another person, purely for the sake of having her by my side. Autumn was shifting everything—what I ate, what time I came home from work and now, what I was looking forward to.
“We need to pack and—” Her smile fell. “What should I tell Hollie? I can’t exactly say we’re going away together.”
Seeing her so concerned about what her sister would say took the sheen off my pleasure. I still didn’t know what was happening between us, so I wasn’t encouraging her to tell her sister. But the thought that she had to hide something from someone she was so close to didn’t sit well with me. “I’m going for work, Autumn. You’re coming to look after Bethany so I’m not away from her for a week.”
She nodded. “Yes, that’s right. That is what’s really happening.” She grinned up at me. “And anyway, she should be pleased. She wants me to travel and I guess I can cross Rome off my list now.”
“Your list?” I’d make the week really special. I’d organize a room with a spectacular view and get her a guide to show her around while I was at work. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been away. And there was no one I’d rather go away with than my daughter and Autumn.
“I was just looking at it, actually,” she said, pulling away and turning to the kitchen table where a notebook lay open, the pages full of scribbles. “There’s just so many places to go. A month isn’t enough time to see and do everything.”
A month? What was she talking about? We’d be in Rome a week. She slid onto the bench. “Maybe I’ll start a new notebook for our trip to Rome rather than use this one.”
“So what are you planning in this one?” I said, sliding in next to her.
“Oh just where I’m going in August.”
It was as if someone had handed me a cannonball and pushed me into the ocean.
She was planning life after me.
“Hollie’s getting stressed about a wedding date and wants me to tell her what my plans are, but I haven’t really thought about it. Is that bad?”
It shouldn’t have been, but it was a relief that at least she’d not been counting down the days until she’d be leaving me—leaving us. I hadn’t been as happy as I was at the moment for a long time. Since Penelope. Before that even.
The year before Penelope had abandoned us, life had completely changed for the better because Bethany had been born. I’d felt soaring pride at being a father but also a pressure that it was my responsibility to give my daughter the kind of childhood I would have wanted—one free of anxiety and worry. One that was all about giggles and laughter and being a kid. I didn’t want Bethany to ever have to hear her father berating her mother or hear her mother crying for what seemed like days. I knew what bad was, so I knew how to create perfect for Bethany. When Penelope left, I’d been almost overwhelmed by guilt for not being able to sustain my vision of a perfect family for Bethany. It had eased slightly when it was clear Penelope wasn’t coming back, but Autumn arriving seemed to bring back the hope into our lives. She made everything more manageable somehow. She made every obstacle feel surmountable. She was like some kind of joy fairy that came in and made everything better. There was more laughter in the house. More fun.