Lizanne sighed. “I suppose so. But don’t give me a lecture about how me pressuring her ended up working out to her advantage.”
“Alright then. I’ll just think it.” Pat smiled and played on her tablet instead.
“Uh oh.”
Lizanne looked over. “Oh, oh what? You can’t just oh oh all over my car and not follow up. What?”
Pat held up her phone.
“I’m literally driving.”
“Fine. It’s GTC news. The gossip rag? Headline reads:TRINA HOLMES AND MARCUS LANCE: IT’S OVER.
At the next light, which could not come fast enough, Lizanne snatched the tablet. There was a photo of Trina in the airport, alone. Looking miserable. She didn’t even know what to name the mix of feelings that came over her. Her Gilden Duchess writers would have called that a tempest of feelings. In the here and now, it was more a tornado.
“When did this happen?” Lizanne asked. She would have read the article, but the light had turned green.
“Last week, apparently. He was in Milan. Someone caught him with another woman and Trina caught him. She flew out tosurprise him, apparently.” Pat put the tablet away. “Sources say it’s done.”
Lizanne sat with that. She thought about Trina in the kitchen on that last morning, the smell of her perfume, the way she’d saidI’m falling in love with him.
Trina had broken her heart. No…she’d broken the illusion of their life together. In hindsight, she had made room to let something potentially real come in. In a way, she felt bad for her. She hadn’t expected that, but she did. It lasted until she remembered watching that video on her phone and seeing Trina look into the camera like the wedding was just an old chore.
Her hands curled tighter around the wheel as anger surged through her.
“I’m fine,” Lizanne said, before Pat could ask.
“Okay,” Pat said.
When they got back to the house, Pat got into her own car and drove away while Lizanne stood in the driveway with the toy store bag, the afternoon light coming through the trees and the house quiet in front of her.
Then she heard Daisy.
It wasn’t a cry—it was the high, loud pitch of a kid who was happy and wanted everyone to know it. Lizanne followed the noise around the side of the house to the pool.
Rose was in the water up to her waist. Daisy was in front of her in a yellow swimsuit and arm floats, her face set in a look of pure determination. She was splashing her legs in a way that wasn’t quite kicking yet, but she was trying.
Daisy saw Lizanne first. She waved, nearly tipped over, and Rose caught her.
“Come swim!” Daisy shouted.
Lizanne walked to the edge. “You’re learning?”
“Mom is teaching me. You can help.” Daisy looked at her very seriously. “My friend Alfredo has two daddies and they both taught him. So I think it’s right that I have two mommies to teach me.”
The pool went quiet aside from the occasional splash. A bird flew through the trees at the end of the yard.
Lizanne looked at Rose. Rose met her gaze, her hands still holding Daisy, and her expression was completely open. Would Rose correct her? Tell her that Lizanne was not her mother and would never be?
She didn’t. Instead, she smiled.
“I could use some help teaching her.”
“Be right there,” Lizanne said and hurried to get her swimsuit. How odd it was that in the space of half an hour, her old life had tried to haunt her but failed. And her new life lay right in front of her. Just waiting for her to take the next step.
Chapter 23
Rose
