The days passed in a blur, too perfect to be real. We spent our days swimming in the saltwater pool, drinking frozen lemonade, and eating desserts, and our evenings reading by the fire or watching old movies and saying the lines out loud.Practical Magicwas Naomi’s favorite, and for several days afterward, we pretended to be the witchsisters, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, making margaritas and dancing around the kitchen in our pajamas.
It was a strange and magical time. It felt wrong to be happy again, after what had happened.But,I reminded myself, I had done what I’d set out to do. I’d built a better life for Naomi.
—
As the dayof her return flight approached, Naomi drew inward.
“Please don’t make me go back. I want to stay here with you forever,” she said, softly.
Her words brought tears to my eyes. I wanted her to stay here too, at least on the East Coast…There had to be a way.
Margaret and John had already been so generous to let us stay with them all summer. Margaret had taken us on trips into the city, showing us her favorite delis, buying us front-row seats at Broadway plays. She introduced us to the talented dancer Misty Copeland backstage after American Ballet Theatre’sFirebird,bought us clothes at vintage stores, and pointed out her favorite Vermeer painting at the Met. We’d laughed when Naomi had had her first taste of champagne at the “secret” bar, inhaled in surprise, and giggled as it came dripping out of her nose.
“Okay,” I said to Naomi.
She looked up. “Okay?”
I laughed at her shocked expression and took her hand. “You want to stay; we’ll find a way to make it happen.” I didn’t have a plan yet, but I couldn’t let her go back. I knew with Margaret’s help, and Cecily’s, we would make this work.
—
After we discussedthe options, Margaret asked if it would be okay with me if she and John were to petition the court to be Naomi’s legal guardians for the year, just until I graduated in May.
“Naomi loves it here,” I told her, after accepting her offer, and she hugged me. “Thank you.”
—
Senior year cameand went, and I visited Naomi in Greenwich often. She was happy, really happy. One Saturday in May, Margaret invited me over to the house. Naomi was in the backyard with her friends, practicing a dance they’d learned.
“We’re really looking forward to your graduation,” Margaret said. “Are you excited, love?”
“Very.” I tried to smile. I was excited, but I was also nervous. At the end of my internship last summer, Goldman Sachs had offered me a job in sales, but every day I showed up at the office, sat in my cubicle with the other interns, I felt myself slipping. They cared about investments and building their portfolio and it just wasn’t me. I felt like a fraud.
But if I quit, how would I support Naomi?
Margaret read my apprehension. “Everything all right?”
I sighed, set down my tea. “Yeah…I’m just nervous about being able to support Naomi on my own. And what if she’s not as happy with me as she is here…” My voice trailed off.
“It’s not something you have to decide right away,” Margaret said. “We love Naomi, and are happy to have her here as long as you need.”
She explained how she and John always wanted children but couldn’t have any of their own, how in that short year, Naomi had become like a daughter to them.
—
On the dayof my commencement, the three of them stood in the crowd with so many flowers that the people next to them had to move over to give them extra room. While Margaret and Naomi had collected the flowers from Margaret’s garden, John had gone out and printed giant cutout heads of me, Cecily, Daisy, and Kai. When I received my diploma and looked out at the crowd, he and Naomi were holding them, bobbing the faces in the air as they cheered.
That night after graduation, we went back to Greenwich to celebrate.
Margaret had baked us a raspberry cake and let us eat it on paper plates while we swam in the pool.
“Push off with your legs and aim down!” Cecily said. I looked over at Naomi standing at the edge of the diving board, her arms heldoverhead. Our half-eaten slices of cake were scattered around the edge of the pool along with margaritas and champagne. “You ready?” Cecily shouted.
Naomi’s little face was scrunched in focus. “Ready!”
Cecily counted down. “Three! Two! One—”
Naomi sprang off the diving board, belly flopped onto the water with a loudslap,and surfaced seconds later, gasping for air and then bursting into giggles.
