Micky hadn’t asked Amber to join her this time. They were her children, and she could do this alone. Yet, when the bell rang on Saturday evening to announce Robin’s arrival, her heart leapt into her throat. Knowing very well who was standing outside their house waiting to be let in, Olivia didn’t rush out of her seat and yell that she would get it. Micky hurried to the front door, and as it opened, the biggest ball of nerves uncoiled in her stomach. It wasn’t so much that she automatically, magically, expected her children to like Robin just because she did, but just seeing her, having her near, gave her a confidence that had always been so foreign to her.
They hugged, and Micky inhaled Robin’s familiar scent, bolstering her confidence even more.
“I just brought this.” Robin held up a bottle of wine. “I had no idea what to bring for kids their age.”
“No need. They’re spoiled enough as it is.”
“I thought I’d be less nervous after having met your mother this week, but I’m really tense. It feels like going on a job interview for a start-up run by people half my age. I feel like I need to be down with the kids, you know?”
“Relax. They’re not monsters. I raised them, remember?”
“Off we go then.” Robin squared her shoulders and walked into the living room.
Christopher jumped out of his seat. He’d insisted on wearing a pristinely ironed dress shirt, even though Micky had assured him that was by no means necessary, which had earned him more scorn from his sister. He offered Robin his hand, but Robin sidestepped him and pulled him into a hug.
Micky hadn’t had a long conversation with Robin about this meeting the way she had before she’d taken Robin to meet her mother because some things simply needed to happen more organically. She’d told her about her children’s characters, shown her treasured pictures from when they were younger, but she hadn’t advised Robin on how to behave around them. Micky was sure Robin could figure that out herself.
Olivia had risen from the sofa as well and stood fidgeting uneasily with her hands. She wasn’t wearing her usual teenage facade of indignation.
“Hi, Olivia.” Robin pulled Liv into a hug as well, and Micky remembered how frightened she had always been of this moment. How the prospect of this was one of the biggest obstacles she’d had to overcome on this journey. And now there she stood. No matter how this evening played out, the most difficult part was already over. Robin was there in the house she shared with her children. They would eat a meal together—Micky had made macaroni and cheese because it was the kids’ favorite—and chat and start their lives together as an out-of-the-ordinary family perhaps, but one that was a million times happier than the one Micky had broken up when she’d asked Darren for a divorce. Not that any amount of her personal happiness could ever undo that dreadful moment when she’d had to sit across from her children and tell them their mother and father didn’t want to be together anymore. But this was life, and now they knew.
Micky could try to protect them all she wanted, could try to keep them stashed in a cocoon of fabricated, put-upon happiness and hope they wouldn’t notice, but what service would that do them in the end?
They sat down at the table, and Chris made a display of pouring Robin and Micky a glass of red wine, and Olivia didn’t even roll her eyes at him.
“When can I try some, Mom?” Chris asked, pointing at the wine.
“On your next birthday,” Micky said, looking at her boy who was growing up so damn fast. “If you’re lucky.”
“Last time I asked, you said I could have a small glass on your next birthday, which is only a month away, Mom, so I might as well have some now. This is a special occasion, isn’t it?”
Robin grinned. “You have excellent negotiating skills, Christopher.”
“If he’s having some, I’m having some,” Liv butted in.
As the conversation carried on, Micky realized that this was all so much easier than she had always believed it would be. The biggest hurdle had always been the one in her head.
“Mom?” Liv said.
“Yes, honey.”
“Can we have some wine or not?”
Micky shook her head. “No, darling, you can’t. You’re too young.” They could try to play her all they wanted, Micky was still their mother, and she knew when to put her foot down.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“I used to come here at least twice a week,” Micky said. She looked out over the ocean. It was her forty-fifth birthday, and Robin had taken the afternoon off to spend some alone time with her before the party tonight with her children, mother, and friends. Micky hadn’t taken the morning off from serving coffee because it seemed like such an essential part of her by then. To wake up every weekday morning with a clear purpose: go to work. It wasn’t the work itself, though Micky enjoyed that, too. She liked the customer interaction and picking up twenty-something lingo from Josephine and watching how Kristin stalked around the place, always with a sense of pride about her. She loved what the place had done for her, the confidence it had brought her and, more than anything, the woman it had introduced her to.