No Strings Attached(47)

“She’s nice,” Christopher said.

“He means she’s hot.” Olivia’s lips were pursed together. They were at an age where they didn’t seem to agree on anything. Olivia in particular made a point of challenging her brother every chance she got. Still, the comments about Lisa being nice and hot stung Micky on quite a few levels.

“No, I don’t,” Chris snarled.

“At least she doesn’t have any children,” Olivia said, doing what she did best: ignoring her brother.

Micky turned back to the stove and started frying more toast. With her back to her children, her voice barely audible over the sizzle of the pan, she asked, “What was it like? Seeing your dad with someone else?”

“It wasn’t too bad, as long as you’re okay with it, Mom,” Christopher said.

Olivia sighed, and said, “Why must you be such a suck-up?”

Micky could vividly imagine how she was rolling her eyes.

When Micky turned back around and presented Olivia with a plate of French toast, Chris held out his phone. “We took a photo at Gigi’s after.”

Micky took the phone in her hand and looked at the picture of her family, of her former life. Her space in the picture was taken up by a tiny woman who looked at least fifteen years younger than her.

“Oh, she’s Asian,” was all she said.

“Can you believe Lisa is thirty-nine, Mom?” Chris asked. There was a note of enthusiasm in his tone that Micky wasn’t too fond of. “It’s because she’s Asian. They always look much younger than they actually are.”

“That’s so racist,” Olivia started.

“What’s racist about that?” Chris replied.

Micky let them bicker while she stared at the picture a little longer. Lisa looked perfectly nice. She had a very photogenic face—okay, she was hot. What caused the biggest twinge in Micky’s stomach, though, was the fact that they’d all gone to Gigi’s for ice cream after the movie. They always used to go there as a family. Before.

Micky put the phone down. She should be happy that Darren had met someone new, someone who her kids didn’t immediately dislike. This was actually good news, she tried to convince herself.

“Mom, please explain to my idiot brother why what he just said about Lisa is racist.” Olivia’s voice was full of teenage indignation.

“Let it go, darling,” Micky urged. She looked at her children, her beautiful boy and girl, and was overcome with a bout of nostalgia.

“How about you, Mom?” Chris asked. “Have you met someone else yet?” That snapped her right out of it.

Micky didn’t believe in controlling anything physical with the mind, yet she hoped that how she was feverishly wishing not to break out into a telling blush would keep her from doing so.

“No. No, I haven’t,” she said quickly. In that moment, Micky knew she would have to tell her children sooner rather than later. Before she met someone and got serious about her. They were her children; they deserved to know. Yet Micky had no idea how to tell them. She was barely coming to grips with it herself. She would need to tell Darren first, which made her think about how he had inquired about her sexual preference with Amber. Perhaps it wouldn’t come as a surprise to him, but it would to Liv and Chris.

“It was Mom who wanted her independence,” Olivia said. Christ, the girl was on a roll this morning. At least she was eating.

When Micky and Darren had informed the children about their decision to divorce, they had told them what Micky then believed was nothing but the truth. Their mother and father had grown apart. They loved each other but weren’t in love anymore—that old chestnut. It was better for everyone, the children included, if they didn’t live in the same house anymore. Micky had tried to explain it in as gentle terms as possible and had tried to assure them that the pending divorce had nothing to do with them, that it was just a fact of life that, sometimes, it didn’t work out between two people the way they had both hoped.

“It’s not as if we didn’t see it coming.” Christopher was speaking for the both of them—Liv still kind of looked up to him back then.

It was the moment Micky had realized she was doing the right thing and that hurt her the most. She had always believed she and Darren had contained their differences, that their arguments couldn’t be heard outside the closed door of their bedroom, but, of course, she realized then, children always know.

Micky didn’t feel like getting into an argument with her daughter about this right then. Olivia was already on the war path this morning. It was high time for a change of subject, anyway. Micky needed to gather her thoughts, come up with a plan of action to tell her children eventually.