I pushed my chair back and stretched, gazing out the window at the lightening sky. Beyond the vast manicured lawn, an embankment of beach grass waved in front of the rolling white crests that dotted the tossing Atlantic.
And I got the spectacular view right from my own kitchen.
My life so far had been absolutely nothing like the way I’d imagined it would be. It wasn’t that I’d never envisioned myself hanging out in Hamptons mansions and attending parties with royalty. I’d just always thought it would be because of my hugely successful career in fashion journalism. While I hadn’t failed at my goal of one day being editor-in-chief of a magazine, when I’d hit that milestone, it had turned out to be something I hadn’t wanted, after all. I’d written two bestselling memoirs, something I’d never foreseen. Marriage? No way. Two romantic partners? The thought would have never crossed my mind. And a family with children? I had wanted that least of all.
Well, that wasn’t true. I hadn’t wanted to be a mother. And I still wasn’t; I loved Olivia, Amal, and Rashida, but I wasn’t the mothering type. The way I saw it, I was more like a loving female influence who had zero interest in doing the hard part of parenting, and I rarely had to since there were two accomplished parents already in our household. Plus, Olivia had her grandmother, Valerie, and Rashida and Amal split their time between our house and their mother’s home in France.
However, they’d opted to stay with us for the school year rather than travel with their mother and their tutors.
Rashida careened into the kitchen with untied shoes.
“Slow down, slow down!” Neil urged.
“I can’t get another tardy!” she gasped, struggling under the weight of her backpack. While Amal strongly resembled her father, with the same golden skin and sharp features, Rashida looked more like her mother, with dark brown skin and a round, elfin face. She hurried over to throw one arm around my shoulders briefly before repeating the gesture with her father.
Neil retrieved a bento box from the refrigerator and held it out for her as she hurried to the door. “Breakfast.”
She veered off course and wound both arms tight around his middle before taking the box and running out to meet our chauffeur.
Neil turned to us with a smug smile. “I got a better hug.”
“It’s the angle. It’s not because you’re special. It’s because you’re standing up,” I argued.
“Okay. That was two.” El-Mudad held up two fingers. “Where is three?”
The kitchen door swung open again. In marched Olivia ahead of her nanny, Mariposa. “I’m going to school now!”
“Yes, you are, big girl.” I stuck my hand out for a knuckle bump, which Olivia returned with enthusiasm but not aim; she ended up punching me in the wrist instead. I shook my hand out. “You’ll get it next time.”
“I’ve got her at preschool until twelve-thirty, then ballet and tumbling from two to three-thirty,” Mariposa read off her phone, pausing to blow one fluffy brown ringlet from her face.
“And her piano teacher at four-thirty,” El-Mudad added with a wink. He’d been teaching Olivia simple pieces on the grand piano that graced our formal living room.
Neil scooped up Olivia. She’d gone through a growth spurt over the summer and carrying her around was becoming a thing of the past; he used every excuse possible to do it while he still could. “Be a good girl. Don’t get any steps today.”
“I stayed on yellow all day yesterday,” Olivia announced proudly.
Of course, “yellow” was the second most serious disciplinary step. It came right before a call home. Of which we had received many.
Olivia was indeed her mother’s daughter.
“Why don’t you try to stay on green today?” I suggested.
“From your lips to his ears.” Mariposa pointed upward with one finger.
“Don’t...don’t expect too much,” Olivia warned solemnly.
Neil set Olivia back on her feet with a kiss. “Thank you, Mariposa.”
“I definitely couldn’t do this without you,” I added.
They went out the door, Olivia’s steps as determined as a CEO striding into a company-wide scolding.
That she got from her grandfather.
“That’s three. And we are all alone.” El-Mudad leaned back in his chair with a relieved sigh.
I shook my head with a rueful smile to myself. Neither of my guys would survive parenting without a full-time support staff of tutors and nannies.
The silence that followed the girls’ departures always seemed to make Neil a little bit wistful. Of course, he missed his own daughter, but long ago, he’d mentioned that he would have liked to have had more children in his younger years. By the time he married his ex-wife, he’d already set the idea aside; chemotherapy and my staunch no baby policy had sealed the deal. Having custody of Olivia had changed our plans somewhat, and now, with El-Mudad’s girls, Neil had embraced the fatherhood role again.