“Oh, but do we have to do it now?” Neil complained.
I shook my head vehemently. “Nope. Absolutely not. Because I want El-Mudad to be a part of that conversation. This is a family thing.”
Whether Valerie and Laurence liked it or not.
At the house, they waited in the formal living room. We spotted them standing stiffly in front of the windows when we entered from the foyer.
“Mariposa is getting Olivia’s things together,” Laurence said. “So, that will save you any effort, Sophie.”
“You know what?” I snapped, then took a deep breath. I refused to rise to his bait. “Listen. You guys have somewhere to be, so you don’t have time tonight. But when you bring Olivia back on Sunday, let’s have dinner and talk. Because it feels like there’s something wrong here, and it’s not getting any warmer or friendlier by ignoring it.”
“There’s something very wrong,” Laurence said, crossing his arms.
“I agree,” Valerie said to Neil. She turned her attention back to me. “We would love to discuss things over dinner, Sophie.”
“Just the four of us,” Laurence added.
I swallowed, too afraid to do anything but agree. I’d just opened my mouth when Neil said firmly, “I think not. The five of us.”
“This is a family concern.” Valerie’s icy tone was a dare.
Neil took it. “El-Mudad is a part of Olivia’s family. I’d like you to remember that.”
Laurence took a step forward; he’d done that more than once in confrontations with us, and it made me incredibly nervous. So did the anger that flared his eyes wide with surprise. “I’m not going to entertain—”
Valerie put her hand out to stop him. “The five of us. I have some questions for your friend, as well.”
“His name is El-Mudad, Valerie.” Neil’s jaw looked tight enough to burst his teeth. “You know that.”
“Neil, why don’t we go see if there’s anything we can do to help Mariposa,” I said and slipped my arm through his to drag him away if necessary.
As it turned out, he almost dragged me. I tripped over my own feet as he stalked down the hallway toward the nursery.
“The gall! The gall of them, to come in here and start issuing their edicts—” he raged.
“I know.” I cut him off before he could get too loud; the house was huge, but the hallways were echoey. The last thing I wanted was to give Laurence and Valerie the satisfaction of knowing they’d caused a fight.
Or to have Olivia overhear us, of course. That should be your primary concern.
“You can’t fly off the handle right now,” I went on. “It’s not going to be good for anyone. I promise, the second they leave, you can take all the wine glasses out to the driveway and smash them with a hammer if you want.”
“I might,” he grumbled.
I patted his elbow. “Take a broom with you.”
That got a rueful chuckle out of him, at least.
When we walked into the nursery, Mariposa was dutifully packing up everything Olivia ordered her to. And it was everything; four pieces of Olivia’s little eight-piece luggage set were out on the floor, and she struggled to pull another from the walk-in closet.
“I think you have plenty of room for everything you need,” Mariposa said gently, her expression troubled. When she spotted us in the doorway, she looked relieved. “Olivia, why don’t you tell your Afi and Sophie why you need to take so much.”
“Because I need so much!” Olivia stamped her foot, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she veered close to a tantrum.
Neil went to Olivia’s side, helped her with the suitcase, then stooped down to meet her eye level. “You’re only going away for three days.”
“That’s two sleeps,” I clarified for her.
Olivia shook her little blonde head stubbornly. “No. They’re going to keep me.”
“Wherever would you get that idea?” Neil glanced to me then to Mariposa, who shrugged helplessly, just as confused as he and I were.
“They said that when I was sleeping in the car,” Olivia responded, smacking her open palm with the side of her opposite hand as she laid out the relevant points. “They said when I stay forever. They said when they keep me.”
Oh, the fuck they were keeping her. Neil’s shoulders visibly bunched beneath his shirt.
“There must be some misunderstanding,” Neil said with cheerful calm. “You’re only going for two sleeps. I promise they are not going to keep you.”
“Are you sure?” she asked doubtfully. “You could come visit me.”
“And I absolutely would.” He scooped her up and hugged her tight, blowing raspberries on her neck while she squealed and giggled. “But there’s not going to be any need to visit you because you’ll be home in two sleeps.”
“Or you’ll come get me?” she asked.
“I will always come get you,” he promised, and I saw the reluctance in him as he set her down again. “Now, let’s unpack some of this. You won’t need it all.”
She went to one of her suitcases and began whipping toys out of it. Neil motioned to me, and we both faced away from Olivia. He asked softly, “Did they return her passport and birth certificate when they came back from London?”
A chill raced over my body at the implication of the question. He was afraid they were going to try something. “I don’t know.”
“Go and check the safe, please.” The calm in his tone was utterly forced. To Olivia, he instructed, “Don’t forget your Gizmo watch.”
My stomach pitched, and my knees wobbled as I left the nursery and headed for Neil’s study. We hadn’t bought Olivia the child-friendly GPS tracker just for fun. Neil had always been upfront with me about the dangers of kidnapping when someone could pay a large enough ransom. We’d never been afraid that the person who would take her might be her freaking grandparents.
Well, her grandma, at least, I grumbled in my head. Laurence wasn’t her grandfather. I wouldn’t call him that. And yes, it was petulant of me, like a kid saying they wouldn’t call their stepdad “dad” or something, but I was angry that a simple weekend visit was causing so much stress. We’d never had these issues with Valerie before—
Well, before Emma had...
Back then, there had been a whole different set of issues. But losing Emma had put most of our animosity behind us. Especially when it came to Olivia. Everything had changed, though, once Laurence had figured out that the dynamic between Neil, El-Mudad, and me was more than just friendly.
In the study, I punched the code into the wall safe and found to my relief that Olivia’s passport was still inside, with her birth certificate; it was the only copy outside of the clerk’s office, so we didn’t need to worry about that.
I went back to the nursery and gave Neil a nod. He clapped his hands together and said, “All right, my sweet girl. I think you’re all packed.”
“I brought my pull-ups,” Olivia said proudly. “I remembered them.”
“Good job!” I held out my hand for her to give a high five and to give my bruised wrists a vacation from her fist bumps. “But also, let’s remember to go potty before bed.”
“I do! Every time, I do!” she insisted, while behind her, Mariposa shook her head slowly with a knowing smile.
We took Olivia and her two suitcases—one for way too many clothes, the other for way too many toys—back to the living room, where Laurence and Valerie were involved in a heated but quiet conversation. They stopped when they saw us.
“So,” Neil said, clapping his hands together and faking a friendly smile. “She’s ready to go. Just staying in town this weekend?”
“Well, aside from our dinner tonight,” Valerie said, tilting her head slightly. “Does it matter?”
“Not at all. Just curious.” Neil stooped down to hug Olivia and kiss her cheek. “Have a wonderful time with your grandmother and Laurence.”
Olivia reached her arms out for me, next. “Bye-bye, Sophie.”
I hugged her
tight, still irrationally terrified to see her go with them. “When you get back, we’ll do a princess movie night with Rashida, okay?”
“And Amal?” Olivia asked, her eyes sparkling with admiration at merely uttering the girl’s name.
Poor Rashida just wanted to be Olivia’s favorite, but aloof, glamorous older teen Amal had captured Olivia’s rapt interest. Sadly, Amal was unlikely to be down for princess movie night with a preschooler. “We’ll see. She might be busy.”
“And of course, we’ll see you for dinner on Sunday. Do let me know if there’s anything you aren’t eating these days,” Neil told Valerie and Laurence as we all walked to the door. With every step, my heart pounded wildly. Were we just going to let them take her?
Calm down. If Neil isn’t actively setting things on fire, maybe everything is fine. We watched them load her bag and install her booster, and we waved almost nonstop while they buckled her in and pulled out of the driveway. Neil’s fond smile never faltered until the door closed behind him.
“I’m getting John Orton on the phone immediately,” Neil seethed, stalking away to the study.
“Why?” Could our lawyer stop Valerie and Laurence from taking Olivia? What would he do, chase them down with paperwork?
“I want to know what our legal recourse is. If they can challenge our guardianship or if there are any precautions we need to be taking. I know there is a high probability that they simply made an off-handed remark, but…” He grimaced. “You must be thinking I’m overreacting.”
“Not at all.” I didn’t like admitting it. “They’ve been acting weird. And yes, maybe they just were saying, oh, it’s nice to have her around, wouldn’t it be nice if we could do this all the time. You know. The way Holli always says she’s going to eat someone’s baby, and I have to remind her that it’s extremely weird for strangers to hear that because they don’t know she’s not going to kidnap and cannibalize their babies?”
“Slightly different,” he said after a thoughtful pause. “But we’re on the same page, then?”
“If that page is that Laurence and Valerie might be up to something sketch that we need to be concerned about, then yes. Same page.” My phone chirped. I pulled it from my pocket. “Text from El-Mudad. Julia wants to know if we’re eating in the indoor or outdoor dining room?”
“The girls wanted to eat outdoors,” Neil said absently. “But tell him we need to see him privately for a moment.”
I texted him back. “I told him to meet us on the terrace, sans kiddos.”
By the time we reached the sitting area outside the formal living room, the sounds of the girls’ bickering already floated up from the sunken outdoor dining area. So, we had a precious few moments before one or both of them stormed up to find their father.
“What happened?” El-Mudad asked as soon as he saw us. So, we must have looked just slightly pissed off or something.
“Olivia was madly packing up everything she owns. In case Valerie and Laurence planned to keep her.” Neil didn’t add anything to that. The alarm on El-Mudad’s face meant no further explanation was necessary.
“They don’t have her passport, do they?” was the first thing out of his mouth.
“You guys are so...well, I don’t want to say paranoid, but that was Neil’s first reaction, too,” I said, amazed by their protective instincts.
“International custody disputes change your way of thinking,” El-Mudad said grimly. Though the conflict with his ex had never involved us, we’d picked up on the animosity.
“We decided it was time to have a family discussion about this. We’ll have dinner with Valerie and Laurence on Sunday night to try and smooth some of this over.”
“I will be sure to be...elsewhere,” El-Mudad assured us. He was so used to being pushed aside in all things Olivia that it had become a heartbreaking reflex.
Neil shook his head. “No. You’re Olivia’s family, too. It’s time we put that out in the open.”
“But that’s the problem, isn’t it? My involvement with the two of you?” El-Mudad shook his head. “Will further involvement improve things?”
“It doesn’t matter if it improves them or not.” I would stand firm on that point. “We don’t need permission from Laurence or Valerie to live the way we choose. We’re raising Olivia in a loving family, and that’s all that matters.”
“It’s all that should matter,” Neil said in firm agreement. “Unfortunately, others might not see it that way.”
“Which is why I’m not certain my presence at such a meeting would be wise.” El-Mudad shook his head. “If you want me to be there, I will be. But please, don’t do anything that could jeopardize things with Olivia. I couldn’t bear it if I were the reason you lost her.”
“Don’t talk like that.” I couldn’t stand to even think about it. “We’re not going to lose her, and we’re not going to lose you.”
At least, I hoped not.
“Hey!” Rashida shouted to us from beyond the gentle rise that disguised the sunken dining area. “Are we going to eat?”
El-Mudad scolded her in Arabic and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Neil put an arm around El-Mudad’s back. “She’s becoming our little American. So rude.”
“Hey!” I protested and heard Rashida’s outraged inflection in my own voice. Or maybe it was the other way around; possibly, I was not a great influence.
Our very mature decision to sit down with Valerie and Laurence had been all well and good in the moment, but once Sunday arrived, I wanted to travel back in time and kick my own ass. Neil was a ball of nerves, so El-Mudad was overly patient and calm, which just annoyed Neil and made me snippy, as well. Knowing that the emotional stakes of the day were high, we tip-toed on broken glass to keep from sending each other into a panic attack or depressive spiral.
When my mother made her weekly check-in call, I was already crawling out of my skin with anxiety.
I’d snuck off to my private sitting room to talk to her. Was it spoiled of me to have an entire room just to sit around with nobody bugging me? Probably. But I needed it to survive. Being in a relationship with one person made it hard enough to get alone time. With two other people? We all needed our space. El-Mudad had his den, Neil had his study, and I had my lovely pastel blue paradise where I could meditate, do yoga, read… But most of the time, I just watched TV and refreshed Instagram over and over.
It was nice to have privacy for calls with my mom, though. I paced the white-washed floorboards of my sitting room, phone in hand, as Mom recounted the details of a recent lunch with her mother-in-law.
“I said, Cynthia if you don’t like the geraniums, next year we’ll plant something else. It’s not a heart transplant. It’s a bunch of sickly flowers that are already dead.” Mom sighed heavily. “And that she asked for specifically, but she won’t acknowledge that, of course.”
“Of course,” I said, my gaze flicking out the window. This room didn’t have a view of the sea; from my second-story vantage point, I could gaze out the window at the rolling expanse of sparse woods that surrounded the property. It reminded me a little of home in the U.P., which had been part of the reason I’d claimed this particular room.
“You sound distracted, honey,” Mom said. It wasn’t a complaint about my attentiveness but a remark of genuine concern. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. No. Not really.” I knew she probably hated to even hear about El-Mudad and our relationship with him, but she had gotten a bit more accepting once she’d realized that his presence in our life came with two built-in granddaughters. “We’re having Valerie troubles.”
“Well, you know how I feel about her.” Mom had been #TeamSophie from the moment I was born, and woe to anyone who might cross me.
Which Valerie had already done—many times.
“There’s more to it than the Neil stuff.” That, we’d put behind us, at least. I was glad for it; catfighting over my husband with his ex hadn’t been a good look for either of us. “She and Laurenc
e know about El-Mudad living here, and now we’re not dancing around it with them anymore.”
“Oh…” There was no way mom knew how to respond to this situation. Her staunch Catholic morals were already at odds with the idea of her daughter getting doubled up. She was probably as horrified at the thought of Olivia being raised in a poly household as Laurence and Valerie were. But I could tell she wanted to be on my side so, so badly. “How did they take it?”
“We haven’t had a full-scale talk yet. That comes today. But things aren’t good.”
Though I’d tried to keep the anxiety out of my voice, Mom picked up on it. “You don’t think they’re going to try to take her, do you?”
My stomach knotted. I wished she hadn’t guessed our fear right off the bat like that. Somehow, that made the threat more real. “Neil wanted to make sure they didn’t have her passport or birth certificate. That freaked me out.”
“I don’t think they would kidnap her,” Mom said hopefully. “They wouldn’t risk jail time.”
“That’s true.” Although, it would have been fun to see Laurence in prison. Well, not actually see him. I wouldn’t have visited or anything. I just wanted him gone from our lives. “You don’t think they could get custody, do you?”
“I couldn’t tell you, sweetie.” Mom’s voice was like a hug. “But I’m sure Neil has talked to a lawyer about this, right?”
“He’s going into the city on Monday to strategize.” Being proactive would make him feel less helpless, at least. “But step one is having dinner with them. And having a really uncomfortable conversation.”
“You’ve already done the most uncomfortable conversation,” she reminded me. “And look, we’re fine.”
“I think it went better for you than it did for us,” I said wryly.
“Fair enough. But I’m coming around. I still don’t like to think about it—”
“I know what the ‘it’ is, and I would prefer you never think about it, either.” Maybe it was overly picky, but I really would have liked for my mother never to imagine me having sex. “Everyone is so hung up on that. Laurence thinks we’re deviants having some kind of nonstop orgy in full view of Olivia.”
Sophie (The Boss Book 8) Page 3
