While rolling the dice for the fortune-telling game that promised Natalie a tiger in her future, they came up with theories. Rachel, whose daughter considered Chris one of few acceptable adult men, was staunch in her conviction that he was in witness protection. Gillian concocted an elaborate drug-running scenario. Serena, pandering to her sci-fi loving boyfriend, claimed it was an alien abduction, although she conceded they were considerate aliens, since Chris had been able to quit his job and drop Nat a kiss-off letter before beaming aboard the UFO.
Elaine let stricken tears flow when Natalie showed her the note. "Oh, baby girl, oh no! What could have happened? Do you think he's okay? Is he sparing you the news of something terrible? Who's going to give the toast at your birthday party now?" On and on in that vein, ricocheting between fretting over Chris's safety and Natalie's ability to get through the next days of her life. She'd finally extracted herself, stuffing her mom's list of odd-jobs-men in her purse, and spent the next weeks convincing Elaine that a mother's birthday toast was preferable to a boyfriend's.
By party time, Natalie was heartily sick of Chris. Her mother's messages about the ways her life was suffering without the support of the man. Her friends trash-talking the negative qualities they'd left unsaid while she and Chris were together. Her gift to herself was to enter her thirties as an independent, self-sufficient woman. And as far as possible, to cajole Elaine to enter her sixties the same way.
Every few days, she regaled her mom with the details of some accomplishment that didn't rely on a man's help. She took to forwarding YouTube tutorials featuring women performing manual tasks, and pics of herself at work. She snaked her shower drain. She power-washed her driveway. She installed a dimmer switch for her dining room lights. She made all of their travel plans for the Turkey trip, which almost backfired with Elaine's conviction that Chris could have pulled some top-secret airline employee strings to recover her lost suitcase.
With each brag on herself, Natalie crashed into Elaine's resistance. It was active. She texted a selfie with her newly-hung floating shelves, and Elaine countered with a story about the gardeners prepping her beds for spring flowers. Natalie extolled her kickboxing class, and her mom mailed a newspaper clipping about a women attacked when out jogging alone.
"I think I'm turning her into a men's rights activist," Nat told her friends. It was her turn to host the four of them plus little Hannah for dinner, a monthly tradition they'd begun after Gillian had moved to Houston several years earlier. Natalie tried to keep griping about her mom to a minimum, but that afternoon Elaine had called to get Natalie's opinion on the father's rights in cases of unplanned pregnancies. "If she hadn't dealt with her own circles of hell just getting my dad to be available on his custodial days, I think she'd be out there campaigning against paternity fraud and judicial bias and all that."
Rachel's jaw tightened, and Gillian wrapped her arm around her, shooting Nat a narrow look. "I'm sure she wouldn't really."
Natalie grimaced. "Of course not really. Between her history, and knowing what a rat-fink Sergei the Idiot is, she's got a few lines she won't cross. Barely."
No one thought Rachel's ex-husband, Sergei, could do greater emotional damage during the divorce than he'd done during the marriage, but they'd been proven wrong. He'd only capitulated to sanity and the courts thanks to the intervention of his mother, Depy, who was determined to keep links to her precious grandbaby. Although Rachel and Depy hadn't truly bonded, they both knew--everyone who glanced at Hannah knew--Sergei was the father. The paternity test was just one of the hurdles designed to put off the day when he would have to finally take some responsibility, even if it was only financial.
Gillian had campaigned until Rachel relented and used Hannah's connection to Yia Yia Depy as a bargaining chip. She hated to reduce her infant to a pawn. Serena kept pointing out how expedient it was, ignoring the emotional gut-punch. Natalie had been the one who'd understood, and agreed. Thinking of it now, a year and many empowering links later, Nat was angry at herself. Because she hadn't nodded sympathetically about being forced to use Hannah for the right reasons. It wasn't to support Rachel's worries about the long-term consequences to the father-daughter relationship, or because she'd seen as clearly as their friends that Sergei was unrepentant about his failures as a parent and as a husband.
No, Natalie had interpreted the crap Sergei had his lawyer pull as sincere. Even witnessing his disinterest in Hannah, seeing the circles of exhaustion growing daily under her friend's eyes, and overhearing Sergei's scornful dismissal of his family, a part of Natalie had sided with the rat-fink. She loved Rachel unreservedly, and baby Hannah had stolen her heart with one blink of her solemn eyes, but Natalie's gut reaction to Sergei's legal manipulation was to consider it justified. Because he was a man. And as Elaine had taught her, men knew what they were doing.
Natalie pushed back from her chair abruptly, circling to Hannah's portable high chair. At one, Hannah was all messy eating and half-comprehensible babble, and even her occasional outrage and tears brought Natalie joy. She loved the girl's fierce spirit and total engagement with her world. "What's up, Monkey? Are you done eating? Want to help me get the watermelon?"
Hannah threw the pita bread she'd been chewing to the floor and stretched her arms out to Nat.
"Food goes on plates," Rachel reminded her daughter.
Nat scooped up the crust before Rachel could bend for it. "No worries. It's not like we're at Serena’s.”
"Hey," Serena said, but there was no force to her tone. And she was straightening the placemats into a precise line, which killed any protest that she wasn't a neat freak.
There was nothing in the world like burying her nose in a baby's curly mop of hair, Natalie thought. She carried Hannah into the kitchen to wash her hands and face before handing her a serving spoon. "You're the yummiest monkey in the land."
"Monkey," Hannah said.
"You got it." She set the bowl of watermelon in the middle of the table and took Hannah to her seat instead of strapping her back in the highchair. She offered a chunk of fruit and tugged at the spoon. "Trade you."
Gillian took over filing the dessert bowls, and Natalie sat back, enjoying the warm weight of the toddler and the warm lightness of filling her house with her friends. "Hey, Rachel?"
They all looked at her, and Natalie kissed Hannah's crown before meeting Rachel's gaze. "I figured it out a while ago. Maybe even before Chris left, but I didn't spend enough time thinking it through. So this is long overdue. My apology. You're an amazing mama, and you haven't done anything in Hannah's entire life except the best possible thing for her. Including the divorce. I never told you that, and I should have, and I should have been more supportive of you while you were going through it. I'm sorry I wasn't."
She shut up then, because there were only so many words she could say with a one-year-old trying to stick watermelon in her mouth. And because it was hard to chew watermelon and fight tears at the same time, even without the complication of speaking.
Braving a glance up from Hannah's sticky fingers, Natalie saw she wasn't the only misty one. She swallowed. "I'm sorry to you guys, too. Neither one of you whapped me upside the head and asked me why I wasn't being a better friend to Rachel, and while I appreciate your restraint, I'm sure it wasn't easy. Sorry my--you know, my whole mommy issue stuff--got in the way of me being a grown up and a good friend."
Gillian and Serena opened their mouths, but it was Rachel who spoke first. "If Hannah Banana wasn't sitting there," she said, and Nat fought off the tension in her limbs. Rachel huffed out a breath. "I'm not threatening violence, Natalie. Honestly, have we just met? I was just going to say that I can't say the bad words I'm inclined to say at the moment."
Natalie relaxed, but her arms tightened on Hannah. "Sorry."
"Stop apologizing! You i-d-i-o-t woman, there's nothing to apologize for. It's not your fault I married that b-a-s-t-a-r-d, and not your fault he was a rat-fink during the divorce, and it's certainly not y
our fault that your mother thinks it takes a Y chromosome to make the sun shine and the engines of the modern world to turn."
"I wonder what she thinks about solar power," said Gillian. "Does that make her cosmology stronger or weaker?"
Rachel wrinkled her nose at Gillian. It was what she did when she was dismissing trivialities so she could get on with business, and Natalie was never sure if Rachel knew how cute a tic it was. She met Nat's gaze steadily. "I mean it. We're fine. Don't fret."
"Look, hon, you and me, we're children of divorce," Serena said, patting Natalie's arm. "It causes some knee-jerk reactions about the whole marriage thing. We're allowed to bring that baggage with us when we reach adulthood."
Gillian snorted. The constant recalibration of what constituted a household for Serena during her parents' several marriages and divorces had given Serena a matched set of extra-large polycarbonate baggage. She had only figured how to stash it in her emotional attic once Dillon came along and picked a few of the locks.
Natalie said, "You never asked if Rachel was sure this was the right choice. Or advocated for more counseling even after it was clear Sergei was flat-out lying to the therapist about their homework."
"No," Serena said. "But my parents instigated almost every one of their divorces. They raised me to think if it's not easy, it's easiest to bail as soon as possible. Your mom got left both times, and even if we can't know how your dad bailing on the wedding changed her, I know full well you saw her pleading for another chance and promising to change if my dad would just come back to her."
Natalie flinched. Despite all the things Serena didn't remember about their year of step-sisterhood, she had an unfailing memory of the demise of their temporary family unit. Over the years since they'd reconnected in college, Natalie had realized Serena had the same eidetic memory about all of her parents' divorces. She counted herself lucky in comparison.
But she wasn't done being self-accusatory. "You didn't act like Sergei had the right to ask for full custody." That had been after the paternity test came back.
"Well, no. Neither did you, exactly. But also, I never liked Sergei as much as you did."
"I didn't like Sergei," Natalie told Serena.
At that, Gill guffawed.
Rachel came around the table and hugged Natalie from behind. "You liked him. You fell for his charismatic thing, and I can't blame you really, since I did the same thing. So unless you were lying to my face during my months of colic and court papers, you were a good friend to me. You always have been, and I'm not just saying that because your falafels are sinful."
"It's not the falafels, it's the tzatziki," Serena said.
"It's all of it," Gillian said. "And you even managed to clean most of the kitchen before we came over, so we barely have any dishes to do."
"Don't do the dishes," Natalie said, but Hannah was still in her lap, and Rachel was still hugging her shoulders, so she sat, pinned in place by a mother-daughter show of trust and support.
"We okay?" she asked Rachel.
"We're totally okay. We already were."
"Your daughter is the best kid in the universe, by the way. She's a credit to her mama."
Rachel perched beside them, taking another piece of watermelon. "Well, now we're even more than okay. Keep her entertained for an hour more tonight while I fix a schedule snafu, and we'll even be perfect."
Nat kissed the sticky-sweet little girl cheek. "Deal."
Natalie spent half their twenties talking up the joys of long-term relationships at Serena. She was a regular crusader for settling down, and smug about being right when Serena finally gave Dillon a chance to break through her barriers. Their relationship was new, and not just in terms of longevity. It was new for Serena to have opened herself up--opened her heart and her mind and, most difficult for her, her home--to the security and happiness of love.
It hadn't occurred to Nat that she'd swallowed the propaganda Elaine had swallowed from her grandparents. Or that she'd been regurgitating it. Not generous, to press regurgitated propaganda on her friends, and to judge them when they recoiled. It all gave Natalie a lot to digest.
When she'd decided that she and Elaine both needed to embrace their independence, Natalie hadn't been looking outside herself. Every brag about her ability to do her own heavy lifting had been designed to assert her newfound 'we don't need men' philosophy forcefully enough to sway her mom. Or to at least get her to accept that her daughter was single by choice.
She'd turned the campaign into anecdotes for her friends. She'd blithely accepted that they would cheerlead her triumphs and snicker over Elaine's affronted reactions. She'd received their kudos as her due.
And not once had she considered that she had failed them, repeatedly, by tossing her worldview at their issues. Not once had she taken the time to evaluate what was right for them, regardless of her mom's 'woman needs man, man must have his mate' philosophy. Not once had she applied her revolutionized attitude to her past actions towards her friends and let them know she was sorry to have judged them.
Chapter Ten
Evan became Uncle Evan when he was nineteen. All his brothers and sisters had embarked on their careers and banded together into a gang of young professionals. Much like when Evan was still in elementary school and the others were in high school and college, he was suddenly too much the baby for them to bother with--unless he was making them laugh. And they were happy to laugh at him if he wasn't giving them a reason to laugh with him.
He wrote doggerel for Alice's wedding, and again for Ben's. As baby Lizzy grew up, and was joined by her sister Jane and cousin Marcus, Uncle Evan was their go-to for galloping, mock-wrestling, knock-knock jokes, and loud, off-key songs. Every holiday he took during his years as an analyst, and every vacation during his MBA program, Evan came home with another trick. Juggling. Coin sleight-of-hand. Scavenger hunts with rhyming clues that sent the kids dashing from room to room in search of the piñata or water cannons he'd hidden. Just when he thought they were outgrowing the nonsense and he was settled enough in his career to earn some adult conversation with his siblings, Danny and his wife had twins. So back to 'Knock-knock / Who's there? / "Shamp" / "Shamp" who? / It's time to wash your hair!' he went.
He still wrote poems for all the birthday cards, but Rowan and Laurel were four, which meant Evan had retired a few of his broader antics. He could finally refuse to engage. Let the grandparents and other aunts and uncles be the funny ones. But Evan's nieces and nephews clamored for him, and his siblings did appreciate his entertainment value to the kids. Since their other main use for him was as a target for teasing, Evan didn't rock the boat. Unless he was deliberately rocking a rowboat on the lake in front of the zoo, while Lizzy and Jane squealed about falling in.
The limerick for Natalie had come easily, and judging by her rhyming reply she'd enjoyed it. Or at least not thought him a total idiot, which put her a step above Alice, Ben, Chloe, and Danyal. Because Natalie also treated Evan as a fully-formed human being, not some tag-along.
He determined to show Natalie a good time at the theatre, without specifically thanking her for taking him seriously. Because contrary to his siblings' opinions, he wasn't a value-free child. Evan had worked his ass off twice over to get where he was professionally. He'd logged hours researching and compiling reports, networked relentlessly, studied like a demon to graduate at the top of his class, and aggressively applied for the jobs that would bring him up the banking ranks. None of which was abnormal for Marisa and Koray Lee's children, but somehow the older four had managed to miss the fact that Evan was just as much a Lee as the rest of them.
It figured that now Evan was able to relax a bit and bask in his success, the Lee clan acted like he should be seriously considering settling down. All those years of practically being a monk, and he was ready to sow his wild oats. Danny had spent his entire twenties partying and jumping from one woman to another, if the stories he wove for his teenage brother were true. Maybe it was juvenile, but Evan ha
d made a point of remembering a couple of those stories as he dragged himself to work early and home late. Kind of a promise of the rewards to come. A reminder that the path he'd undertaken would be worth it.
Not that he'd been chaste. He'd just picked easy relationships. Women who were equally focused on their careers. Pals willing to enjoy his company and body and vice-versa--no expectations of advancing to the next level, and no need to carve time out for romantic gestures.
Chloe was the other single Lee. She was forty-one now, and had gained immunity from the nagging about finding her life partner. She could kick back in New Orleans, dating someone new every other month, and even their parents didn't blink. Apparently it was only Evan who needed to shop for ethically-sourced diamond rings.
Screw that. He was catching up on years of missed partying. Marisa and Koray could try their matchmaking, but he and Natalie had agreed. It was nothing but friendship and some fun.
Unless he was late picking her up, in which case the fun would be delayed for awkward apologies. Evan pulled over so he could fiddle with his map app again. Dark blue door, he reminded himself, scanning the street in front of him. It curved ahead, well past where his phone claimed Natalie lived, but he eased his car around the bend and spotted her address. He took a sec to brush down his hair--he'd never broken the habit of running his hand through it when he was frazzled--and tucked his shirt more firmly in place as he walked up her sidewalk.
Her house was appealing. Classy neighborhood, upscale cars in the drives, eclectic but well-maintained homes. Hers was red brick with black shutters and trim painted a creamy off-white. It suited the version of Natalie he'd first met in Black Gold Coffee. Neat and timeless.
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