Later he joined me in the kitchen, where I was making tea.
“That was amazing. How did you do that?”
He smiled, shrugging. “I’m good with people.”
“Was that on your list?”
“Probably. I’m like… a fixer.”
“Afixer?” I laughed.
He nodded, watching me pour the hot water. “I’m like the one they send in to calm down all the crazed hyperventilating fans.”
“I thought you didn’t do well with women who freak out.”
“Idon’tdo well with women who freak out. But I can handle girls.” He smiled, easy.
“Thin line…”
“Sometimes.” He moved toward me then, wrapping his arms around my waist. “And, you know, I make all the girlssohappy…”
“Apparently,” I said, kissing him.
“And occasionally, I make their mums happy, too.”
“Very…”
“Very.”
miami
Things were not perfect. I did not kid myself into believing that Isabelle would miraculously be okay with the idea of Hayes and me, just because Hayes had willed it so. But I had hoped she would ease into it. Make her peace, gradually. Like she had with the divorce. But she had been younger then, less sensitive, less likely to view things as a personal affront. It had been surprisingly easy to rationalize with her. Now everything was the end of the world. Battle Hymn of the Teenage Girl.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, at least once a day.
“No,” she said each time, slipping into her room. “I’m okay.” And then the door would close and the Taylor Swift would begin.
We were not yet out of the woods.
Daniel broke the news to her about Eva. According to him, she’d sobbed and wailed that everything was changing. And he’d agreed that it was, but that we would never love her any less and that she would always be our firstborn. She would always be the first best thing that had happened to the two of us. She would. She was.
That Sunday evening, after he’d dropped her off, she came into my room and curled up on my bed like a snail and cried. And the fact that she let me comfort her was progress. The fact that she let me hold her and breathe her in and marvel at the beauty of her was its own sweet reward.
“I’m sorry,” she said eventually. Her voice hoarse, broken. “I’m sorry about Daddy. I’m sorry about Eva. I’m sorry about everything.”
My heart ached for her. Her world was shattering, unrecognizable, and there was little I could do to fix it. I lay there, my body curled around hers, wondering at how we’d gotten here. Our family so fractured and rearranged. Like the faces in a Picasso.
“I love you,” I said.
She nodded, threading her fingers slowly in between mine. “I love you, too.”
“We’re going to be okay, Izz. We’re going to be okay.”
We spent the first week of December in Miami for Art Basel. On the flight out, Lulit gave me a stern talking-to.
“You’re not leaving me this go-round,” she said. “We’re a team. No afternoons off to go gallivanting with your boyfriend.”
“Okay.” I nodded.
