Isabelle is Isabelle. So different from the first moment she tumbled through the door that to compare them just cheapens everything she is. Everything she’s becoming to me.
But Alice has never been one to be caught on the back foot. She roared into life, ploughing through Isabelle like she’d once ploughed through me, through Sophia.
The timing is awful, coming so soon on the heels of Isabelle’s revelations. We should be sitting in a quiet room together, discussing the situation, or just reconnecting.
Perhaps I should take Alice’s reappearance as a warning. Hitting the brakes might be wise, with the current commotion still ongoing. But I don’t want to. If Isabelle isn’t the woman for me, I need to know now. Not a week or a month or a year down the track when it’ll mean deeper devastation.
I get to my feet. I’ve made the wrong decision again. Alice threw me. I should have ignored her presence altogether until I’d taken Isabelle and Sophia to a quiet room. Discussed the unexpected appearance with them.
I’m making so many bad decisions lately; one piling onto the next until all I can see ahead is danger.
The door opens, but it’s Yuri and Sophia—not the two I was expecting.
“Hey, Munchkin,” I say as she barrels into my lap, clinging like a monkey. “Did you want a biscuit?”
Judging from the chocolate stains around her mouth, she’s already had a treat, but another seems warranted. After all, it’s not every day you get to re-experience the trauma of a mother who doesn’t love you.
I wish she’d stayed a million miles away from the scene but it’s foolish to think I could have kept this visit secret from her. What Alice lacks in maternal instinct she more than makes up for in strategy and there’s no way she would have spared our daughter.
“Wow,” Alice says without inflection when she walks into the room, Isabelle a step behind her. “Didn’t realise this was going to be such a crowded affair.”
Sophia tries to snuggle deeper into my lap, but the laws of physics put a stop to that. When she can’t hide with any success, she wriggles around to face her mother instead. I wrap both arms around her waist, so she feels safer, her muscles relaxing as I bounce her on my knee.
Alice takes a seat opposite, Isabelle next to her, with Yuri standing behind, his normally blank face broadcasting that he’d rather be in a million other places than here.
My eyes run over Isabelle’s features, searching for signs. Did I just ruin everything with my impulsive retreat to gather my thoughts? Not that it did any good, they’re as scattered as ever.
Belligerence comes raging forward. “What is it you want, Alice?”
“I told you.”
“Wouldn’t a phone call have sufficed?”
The teasing curl to her lip fires a warning signal deep inside my brain. I move my gaze to her neighbour instead, my eyes tracing every feature on Isabelle’s face, even though it’s worn deep in my memory already.
She crosses her eyes and Sophia giggles, releasing stiffness from her muscles until she feels more like her usual squirmy self.
Alice sits on the edge of her seat, body tensed like a set trap.
“You should do it now,” Sophia says, twisting back to face me. “Tell Isabelle.”
“Tell her what, honey?”
“The marriage. Then we can all shop for a ring together.”
The room goes still and no matter how hard I try to keep my face immoveable, there’s no refuge from the heat rising from my neck, compounding with every second. “This isn’t—”
“Yes.”
I glance up, heart leaping, sure I must have mistaken the voice. Or the meaning. But no, Isabelle meets my gaze boldly, lips curling into a soft smile. “Unless you’ve changed your mind?”
A ferocious surge of joy lights up my chest and my head whips back and forth before the rest of my brain catches up with what’s happening. The elation sweeping into my mind makes my thoughts scatter, leaving me dizzy. “No, I haven’t changed my mind, but I did plan for something a little more…”
“Non-spontaneous?”
Now she’s pressing her lips together to keep from laughing at me. My ears are buzzing. Is this good? Bad? “I suppose I could make one exception.”
“And you know…” She puts a hand over the diamond necklace, one eyebrow raising in a tease. “I have it on good authority that this is an engagement necklace.”
