From the pool, I hear Lara squeal as Damien lifts her up and tosses her into the deep end from where he stands waist-deep in the water. I peer over the rim of my sunglasses at the descending sun, then raise my hand to signal Damien. We changed our timeline so we could hang with Rory and Bree, but the plan is still to take the girls down to the beach. A walk in the surf to look for shells, then dinner on the patio followed by the original 101 Dalmatians. Or, as Anne calls it, Puppies!
After a day of sun and water, I doubt she’ll make it all the way through, but that’s okay. I can’t think of a nicer way to spend my evening than leaning against Damien on the couch with my youngest in my arms and our oldest sprawled out with her head resting on her daddy’s leg.
“About ready?” I call to Damien.
He nods and starts herding the kids out of the pool.
“Anything you need from me?” Bree asks. “I’m so sorry for the crazy day.”
I shake my head and smile. “It’s all fine now,” I say.
And I hope like hell I’m not tempting fate.
12
“And this is the moat,” Lara says. “See, Anne? It goes around the castle.”
“Moat!” Anne says, then splashes her hand into the seawater-filled trench. “More water!”
“No, no, no.” Lara wags an imperious finger. “Croca-dolls live there.”
Croca-dolls? Damien mouths.
I shrug, wishing I’d thought to videotape this entire exchange.
“Croca-dolls?” Anne repeats, frowning at the water. “Where the crocs-dolls?” She bends closer, then splashes again before frowning at her sister. “Nah-uh.”
Lara looks me straight on, then rolls her eyes so dramatically, I have to clench my teeth together so as not to laugh.
“What’s in the middle?” Damien asks, deftly deflecting what would otherwise devolve into a serious discussion about the lack of crocodiles on California beaches. He crouches beside the sandcastle. “Who lives here?” He points to the bucket-shaped pile of sand that sits on the little island inside the moat.
“Daddy!” Anne yells.
“The king!” Lara corrects.
Anne points to Damien. “King Daddy!”
“That’s right,” Damien says, grabbing both girls around the waist as he rises, then spinning slowly so that they squeal as they fly. “King Daddy says it’s time to go in.”
“Nooooooo!” Lara’s protest rings out across the beach.
“Oh, yes,” I say as Damien deposits them both on their feet. “Unless you want to skip the movie tonight and go straight to bed?”
Lara looks like she’d willingly agree, but Anne looks frantically from me to Damien and then back to me again. “No puppies?”
“Yes, puppies,” I say. “So long as two little girls scoot on into the house. Take your toys,” I add, pointing at the mesh bag that holds their collection of plastic buckets and shovels.
While they gather toys, Damien and I scoop up the towels, then follow as the girls race to the door. Despite her earlier protests, Lara seems to be completely down with the puppy plan, and by the time Damien and I reach the outdoor shower at the base of the stairs, Lara’s already rinsed off the sand and is racing up to the deck.
We follow quickly with Anne, and soon everyone is clean and dry and settled on the sofa in pajamas. At first the kids are calm between us, but Anne is in constant motion, and when we see Cruella driving her car, Anne has somehow managed to get herself completely upside down on the couch.
She’s asleep—still upside down—before the movie’s over. And although Lara makes it all the way to the end, her eyes droop all through her protests that she’s not sleepy at all.
“Well, that’s good,” I say, as Anne blinks her eyes and yawns as we settle her into bed. “That means you’re awake enough to read Pajama Time to your little sister.”
She looks up at me with big, brown eyes. “What about Goodnight, Sleep Tight, Little Bunnies?”
It’s her favorite story, and unfortunately the book is in the main house. But when I tell her that, she just smiles. “That’s okay. I know the words.”
She does, too, and as Damien and I sit on the edge of the bed, she “reads” her favorite book to her little sister. “That was awesome,” I tell her as Damien carries her from Anne’s toddler bed to her twin on the other side of their room in the bungalow.
I bend down to kiss Anne, who’s already out again, her little fingers curled around the satin edge of her favorite blanket. Then I move to Lara and kiss her goodnight as her eyes flutter and she loses the battle with sleep.
We pause in the doorway, and I tilt my head for a kiss from Damien before looking back at the kids, their faces softly lit in the glow of their nightlight. I press my back against Damien, and as his arms encircle my waist a shudder runs through me, like a cold chill coming off the ocean.
“Hey,” Damien says, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “What is it?”
I just shake my head and lead him into the kitchen, then pass him a bottle of wine to open. He does, then pours two glasses. “Tell me,” he says, as he passes me one, then leads me back onto the porch, the baby monitor clipped onto the waistband of the sweatpants he pulled on after the beach.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “It’s just—” I shake my head, cutting off my words as I try to gather my thoughts. “I never thought we’d have kids. Not at first. I didn’t think…” I raise my shoulders in a small shrug as I take a sip of my wine. “Well, you know.”
He nods, his expression serious. There were other reasons, of course, but mostly I feared that my history of cutting would mean I’d never be a good mom. Or, worse, that the stress of parenting would feed that urge I’d worked so hard to suppress.
Damien knows all that, of course. Just as he knows that I got past it. Or, rather, that we got past it together.
“Now I can’t imagine life without them. And standing there, watching them tonight…”
“Nikki.”
I put down my wine and hug myself, and my voice is hoarse as I whisper. “I can’t imagine losing them. I don’t think I could survive.”
“Oh, baby.” He has me in his arms within a second. I’m not crying, but I feel dried out and hollow, as if I’ve shed a thousand tears, and have a thousand more left. “You’ve had a hell of a day.”
I nod. He’s right, of course. This isn’t about the kids. It’s about everything that’s happened today. “Have you heard from Ryan about the office?”
Damien’s face goes hard. “The lobby security camera shows a teen with a plastic shopping bag going in. And he had a security card. Probably stolen. Probably hired by someone to get in and tag your office. I’m still guessing this Mary Lee person. Ryan didn’t have anything more on her when we talked,” he adds, anticipating my question.
I nod. “Well, that’s more than enough for today. Tomorrow’s going to be a doozy, too.”
He nods in acknowledgement. “You haven’t mentioned your speech at all today.”
I raise a shoulder, then slide out of his arms so that I can reach for my wine. He takes my free hand as we head back inside to our bedroom. “I’ve been in denial,” I admit, making him laugh. “A speech. What the hell was I thinking?”
“That the foundation means something to you, and you want to share that with the guests.”
He’s right. That’s why I agreed to give the keynote speech tomorrow. “That’s not the part that has my stomach in knots,” I tell him. “Public speaking isn’t one of my fears.” I don’t have much for which I thank my mother, but at least her obsession with entering me into every pageant imaginable eventually made speaking on a stage to large groups of people seem as natural as breathing.
But it’s one thing to give a speech that welcomes the guests and tells them about the mission of the Stark Education Foundation. It’s something entirely different to publicly share my battle with cutting. To reveal such a private part of myself, even if it was my idea, and for an exceptionally goo
d reason like bonding with the kids that make up the heart of that organization.
“I know.” His voice is soft, and he gently cups my chin then meets my eyes. “Have I told you how proud I am of you?”
“More times than I can count.” I squeeze his hand that’s holding mine. “I’m nervous, though.”
“Why wouldn’t you be?”
I can’t help but smile at that.
He shifts on the bed so that he’s facing me more directly. “I know how hard it can be to reveal something so personal,” he says, and I nod in understanding, my heart squeezing as I remember what he went through when he talked about everything he and Sofia went through with his tennis coach, Merle Richter. Secrets that he released so they couldn’t be held over his head, holding him hostage to a dark past. Instead, he embraced that darkness. He sacrificed privacy, and in doing so called on a strength beyond what he knew that he had.