Tossing the nine-carat diamond into the safe, it occurs to me that I never felt a connection to this ring. Telling, isn’t it? Something so beautiful, but not a feeling at all. To say the ring is ostentatious like Camilla wouldn’t be fair. I chose it because Camilla told me it was the one she wanted. In hindsight, I suppose that means I didn’t really choose it. Also telling.
I have only myself to blame. Not once did Camilla misrepresent herself nor did she make any attempt to make me believe she was someone she wasn’t. I meant it when I told her that she didn’t change, I did. What made me think I could have a marriage like the one Camilla and I would have had and been happy? If I had remained that same selfish bastard, then maybe. But I’m not the same man I was almost six months ago. Zinnie and Poppy changed that. And I would be lying if I said the change was unwelcomed.
A thousand pounds lighter, I change into sweats and grab a beer. Just as I enter into the living area, the elevator dings and Quade and Zinnie file out laughing about who knows what. Finn carries a passed out Poppy against his shoulder.
“I can take her.” I make to get off the couch.
“I got her. This is my favorite part,” Finn says, moving in the direction of her room. There’s an oversized foam hand with one pointed finger that says, “We’re #1” resting against his back, still attached to Pop’s hand. I have to give it to her, she can sleep anywhere.
“We didn’t expect you home this early.” Zinnie says, plopping down on the couch next to me. She types something in her phone then giggles before setting it on the cushion and looking my direction.
“I wasn’t in the mood for an outing. How was the game?”
“Rad. We had great seats and we won. Think I’ll head to my room,” she says, phone in hand again, responding to a beep.
“Thought you were waiting for Sam?” Finn asks her, walking into the room with two beers in his hand. He drops one into Quade’s waiting hand. “Pops is down,” he tells me.
“I was, but when I texted her she said she wouldn’t be back until morning. So, I’m going to talk to Claire. Good night.”
“What do you say?” I lean my head back against the couch and prompt her. She changes direction, coming back to the sitting area.
“Thank you. I had a great time.” She kisses Quade and Finn on the cheek, then starts back towards her room. A beat later there’s a kiss to the top of my head from behind me. “Good night,” she says, almost bashfully.
“Progress.” Quade tips his beer to me after Zinnie has rounded the corner.
“What is this?” I ask, nose scrunched up, surveying the food being plated. I refrain from using colorful expletives because the girls are in the room.
“Green eggs and ham!” Poppy exclaims in the kind of delight that I’m pretty sure she only reserves for glitter cannons or seeing a real-life unicorn.
“Green eggs and ham?” I glance up to see that she’s wearing a tall red-and-white-striped hat.
“Relax. It’s food coloring,” Sam whispers. She has on cutoff shorts and a T-shirt that’s not tight but fitted in just the right way to showcase her gorgeous tits, which I may or may not have jerked off to last night. “Sam I Am. I am Sam.” is printed in large red letters across her chest.
“Do you like green eggs and ham?” Poppy asks me.
“I do not like them, Sam-I-am. I do not like green eggs and ham,” I reply, snagging a biscuit off the counter.
She giggles out loud and I swear it’s connected to strings wrapped around my heart. How did it happen? When did it happen? I’ve asked myself this a hundred times recently. Sam laughs at something Finn said and it reminds me, once again, how much I misjudged her before she became the girls’ nanny—er, our family manager. I’m a hundred and eighty days in, and more times than not that this still feels like complete chaos. She’s got one month behind her and already life feels like it’s balanced again. Like we’ve all been brought back to center.
Poppy gets a mischievous look on her face, like she is about to test me. It’s clear she wants to see how far this can go. Her eyes narrow in challenge.
“Would you like them here or there?” Her lips slowly spread into a sly smile.
“Oh no you don’t.” I pick her up and swing her around. Her delight washes over the room. “We are not traveling down this street.”
“Not even for a beat? Come on, Walt. It’s just meat,” Zinnie says with a raised brow and a grin and it knocks the breath out of me. Fuck it. In for a penny, in for a pound. I close the distance of the few steps between us and kiss her on her temple.
“Good morning, sweetheart. You look like your mom today.”
She gives me a quick but heartfelt smile and her eyes glisten before she clears her throat and finishes setting the silverware on the table. Sam squeezes my arm in approval as I pass her on the way to the refrigerator. If I were the peacock type, I swear my tail feathers would be on full display.
Finn is theatrically recollecting a story from our childhood when Sam halts the conversation in the room with her reproachful tone. “What did you just do?” she asks.
I glance over my shoulder to see who has garnered her attention and am surprised to learn it’s me. I’m not the only one. We are all taken aback by her sudden seriousness.
“Um…got the milk out of the fridge? I was going to pour everyone a glass,” I offer as atonement for whatever sin I committed.
“You smelled it.” She accuses.
“And?”
“And now I can’t drink it.”
“Are we in a different Dr. Seuss book I haven’t read yet?”
“No. But it’s a rule. If you have to smell it, then I don’t eat or drink it.”
There is a look of utter seriousness on her adorable face. Hair piled high on her head with a yellow ribbon tied into a bow around it.
“I apologize,” I drawl like I’m addressing a cornered animal. The others are working to keep the smirks off their faces. And they’re not managing well, I might add. “I was taught you smell milk before you drink it.”
“That’s what the date is for.” She reaches past me for the cranberry juice instead.
“The date doesn’t…fine,” I relent when I register her frown. I put the milk back, letting the refrigerator door hide my grin. You know, I once, in the days of yore, was a feared hard arse. Now, I can be brought down by a tiny woman and a jug of milk.
“You’re eating this,” Sam threatens, setting my plate in front of me. We’ve each taken our seats at the bar.
“Sam, if you will let me be. I will try them. You will see.” I pick up my fork, encouraged by the laughter in the room.
“So, tomorrow is movie Monday?” Finn asks on his second helping of green eggs and ham. I have to admit, there’s no difference in the taste, and the scones Finn baked made it even better.
“It is,” Zinnie says. “Which one is tomorrow?” she asks Sam.
“Movie Monday?” I interrupt.
“Sam’s been taking us to movie spots on Mondays. We already had a Home Alone Monday, a Ghostbusters Monday. What else? Oh, An Affair to Remember Monday. That one was my favorite.”
“Home Alone was mine,” Poppy says, licking strawberry jelly off the side of her hand.
“Tomorrow is Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” Sam says. “We are going to have Danishes and coffee,” Poppy crinkles her nose. “Or hot chocolate,” Sam corrects, “outside of Tiffany’s and stare longingly into the window at the millions of dollars of jewels,” she says with the raise of a shoulder like it will absolutely be a glamourous experience.
Breakfast out of a paper bag, standing on the street. Yep. Glamourous.
Zinnie is saving for a new pair of boots she wants for the fall, so she elects to do the dishes for the extra cash. Finn helps. Any opportunity to spend time with her.
“You know, I love how much time you’ve been spending with the girls lately. I feel like I see you more now than I ever did before,” I tell him while the girls are all outside on the terrace. They gave in to Poppy’s begging and are now in Wellies, jumping in puddles. I see legs spinning through the air. Zinnie and Sam are teaching Pops how to do cartwheels.
“It’s because you do. See me more,” he clarifies.
“So, West isn’t going to work out?” I ask him about the man he was weak in the knees for a few weeks ago.
“No, he is hopelessly in love with Blake.”
“Are you seeing anyone?”
“Not at the moment, no.”
“What about just to get off?”
“Romantic, but no. Just me and my wanker.”
“Could we not.”
“You started it.”
“You can’t hide out here with the girls. You need to get out more.”
“I’m not hiding out.”
“You are. And you can for a while longer because I rather enjoy having my little brother around, but don’t wait too long. I don’t want to have to kick your arse into gear.”
“What are we doing today?” Zinnie asks, coming through the terrace door. Sam and Poppy are still hopping from one puddle to the next.
“What would you like to do?” Finn asks her.
“You said the headstones we’re delivered this week? I would like to put flowers on mom and dad’s grave.” Her voice is a mixture of nervousness and resolve.
“Sure, we can do that,” I nod.
“We can go dressed like this. Mom and Dad would want it that way.”
“Alright. Let me get my shoes and we’ll go.”
“Will you go with us?” Zinnie asks Finn, and I know there is no way he could possibly say no to her.
“Of course.” He kisses her forehead.
Everett and Jenny were buried in a plot Jenny’s family has owned for years. Her parents will be buried here when they pass. Her grandparents are laid to rest on the same section of land, two plots over. I had to grease some hands because, evidently, it’s illegal to bury two people in the same casket. I had one special made to fit the two of them together, then paid the family that runs the cemetery to look the other way. I just knew Everett would want to be with Jenny. So, next to Jenny, holding hands, was how they were laid to rest.
It’s a gray day and a long quiet drive to the small town in Connecticut where Jenny’s family is from. It’s about an hour from Greenwich where Everett and Jenny lived, a blue-collar town. No pomp and circumstance here like you’d see in a cemetery in Greenwich. This one is pretty and well maintained, but no flash. We pull up to a curve in the road inside the stone walls that stand guard over the loved ones buried here.
Slowly, almost cautiously, we exit the car. Sam pops the boot handing me and Finn each an oversized umbrella in case the dull mist turns into rain. She tried to insist on staying behind, but the girls weren’t having any of it. I can still sense some apprehension in her body language.
Leaning back into the boot, Sam hands each of the girls a bouquet of zinnias and poppies she grabbed from the open aired flower shop on the corner next to Eatly. I recognize them, because they are the same flowers she has placed on a weekly basis around the apartment and next to the girls’ beds. A small touch I’ve never thought to tell her I’d noticed.
She piles her arms with six bouquets of red roses.
“I want to carry some roses, too,” Poppy says.
“Actually, honey, you have your mommy’s favorite flowers for her grave.” Sam points to the blooms clasped in her small hands.
“Then what are those?” Poppy asks.
“For my family,” Sam explains quietly. “These are my mom’s favorite.”
“You have family sleeping here, too?” Poppy asks wide-eyed.
“Yes,” Sam answers almost inaudibly before clearing her throat. “My family is resting on the hill there.” Sam points to our right. “Under that tree. While you visit your parents. I’m going to go visit mine.”