Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
SHAE
F our thousand miles and almost nine hours later, I enter Maison des Rêves, coordinate with the concierge, and knock on the suite where my Mama and the twins are.
I’m tired, more so from my flight Xanax than jetlag, but my eagerness toward seeing my family outweighs everything.
I don’t have to wait long for the door to swing open, a flurry of tiny feet and shouts racing toward the front of the suite.
“Mommy!” Two bodies plow into my abdomen before I can greet anyone in the room.
“Tempest! Raiden!” I fall to the ground with the suite door open, clutching my babies tight to my chest.
And I don’t let go, breathing in the sweet Baby Magic lotion smell they’re already too old for. I make eye contact with my mom, who leans against the foyer wall, smiling broadly.
I know she’s pleased I made it.
“Mommy! Gigi told us you weren’t coming!” Tempest screeches in my ear. Raiden bounces up and down on my thigh and shouts, “Yay!” before hugging his thin arms around my neck.
“Well, I’m here! Surprise!” I say, smiling so hard it feels like my face might crack. “And guess what?”
“What?” Tempest and Raiden say at the same time.
“We’re extending our trip! Just the three of us.” When they don’t say anything right away, I pull back. They look at me with the same confused expression.
Raiden says: “Don’t you have to do your work?”
Tempest says: “What about Gigi? And the guards and?—”
“Hold on, hold on!” I say, laughing.
“Well, first, you kids have worn me straight out, so I’m going back home,” Mom pipes up, giving the twins a stern look. “I leave in a few hours, thanks to your mama. Gigi’s traveling in style!”
Mama strikes a pose, and I know I’ve made some progress in earning her forgiveness by setting her return flight up on a private plane for hire.
“Oh,” Tempest says, making a face. Seeing it sends a jolt of worry through my chest.
“But we’re going to make the most of our time together! What if I told you that tomorrow…. ”
Raiden and Tempest share a look, then say in unison, “What?”
“We’re going to the Palace of Versailles!”
They stare at me with bored, unexcited looks.
“Tems, think of all the new art you’ll see up close. Plus, you’ll get to see where kings and queens lived! It’ll be so much fun, don’t you think?”
Tempest gives me a skeptical look.
“From what art period?” she says slowly.
“Um,” I say, searching my memory. “Baroque?”
I think.
She hums, clearly weighing the merits. This girl is seven going on seventeen—brilliant, moody, and definitely not sold on dead white men in gold chairs.
“Will we get chocolate sometime tomorrow?” she asks suddenly.
I think about it for all of two seconds before saying, “Absolutely.”
She hops a little and screams, “Yay!”
Crisis averted.
“Okay, let me get up from the floor so you can show me around,” I say, groaning as I peel myself from the expensive tile. The kids jump up and run toward their rooms, and I take my time walking over to my mom.
She draws me straight into her arms, hugging me tight.
It’s everything I could ever need.
“What’s wrong, baby?” she asks, resting her cheek on my head. She’s a few inches taller than me, but most people are.
I don’t want to let my mama go. What’s wrong? It seems like everything is wrong.
Except I’m standing in a hotel suite that costs a night what my parents paid in their mortgage every month.
My children are happy, well-nourished, and excited to experience things I couldn’t have dreamed of when I was their age.
I’m healthy. I’ve got opportunities ahead of me that are one in a million.
Who the hell am I to complain about a damn thing?
“Everything is fine, Mama,” I say, and I get a flash of my therapist Joanne telling me what “FINE” meant.
Feelings In Need of Expression.
She’s probably, definitely right.
Mama hums and pulls back, looking at my face. I can tell she doesn’t believe me, but she’s not going to push.
God bless Opal Rivers.
“You gonna be okay with the two of them alone?” she asks, and I don’t want to get annoyed at the question. These are my children. Of course I can handle my children.
“Yep!” I say brightly.
“You don’t have to send the nannies off either,” she says.
I smile brighter. Tighter.
“It’s fine. They didn’t sign on for an extra week galivanting around Europe,” I reply. “And it’ll be good for it to be just me and the kids.”
“And security. You remember Kim Kardashian was robbed in France. Don’t trust none of these crazy people,” she says, her tone serious.
“Yes, Mama,” I say. “The guards stay. Happy?”
Mama looks at me hard as if seeing right through me. After a long moment, she says, “I’m happy when you’re happy, baby.”
And that right there has the power to thoroughly undo me, so I give her another hug in response.
By the end of the day, I’m wiped, even though we call it in early. We spent time exploring the city of Versailles. We ate at a cute restaurant with the best bread, walked around the outdoor market, and spent the rest of the afternoon in the suite before Mom and the nannies left for the airport.
I lean over one of the full-sized beds in the twins’ room, tucking Raiden into the sheets. Tempest was a ball of energy as she usually is, so she zonked out as soon as her head hit the pillow.
“Mommy?” Raiden’s soft, sleepy voice breaks the silence.
“Yeah, Rai?” I murmur.
“I’m really glad you came,” he says. “You’ll be here when I wake up, right?”
His innocent question has my chest tightening and my nose tingling. How have I failed my children so much that they question if I’ll be there in the morning?
Mom guilt on its own is a bitch. Pair that with very real guilt over missing so many milestones in the last year and a half….
“Yes, baby. I’ll be here when you wake up. And you know what? I’m going to be home a lot more. I’ve missed a lot with you and your sister, and I want things to be different.”
Raiden’s smile is so bright it breaks me. Tears pool before I can blink them away. He lost his front tooth while we were apart—and noticing that? It guts me.
I’m missing so much. Too much. And I hate it.
“Would you like that?” I whisper, rubbing his soft cheek.
“Mmhmm,” he hums, his eyes already sliding closed.
A few seconds later, he’s asleep.
Closing their door slowly, I stand with my back to the white, solid wood and scan the rest of the suite.
There are four bedrooms: two belonged to the nannies who left with Mom, one is for the kids, and one was turned over by the cleaning service after Mama departed, which I’ll sleep in.
The silence in the suite feels unsettling.
Finding comfort in familiarity, I go through my nighttime routine: showering, applying my fancy face oils, and brushing and flossing so thoroughly, my dentist would be proud.
But when I finish lotioning my body, the silence comes back, haunting me.
A sinking, suffocating sensation lodges in my throat, cutting off my air supply.
This is the feeling I avoid—the stunning, uncomfortable, agonizing fact that I am alone in this world despite often being surrounded by people.
There are those who need me, like my mom and my babies. Then there are those who rely on me, such as my employees and clients.
But who do I have to lean on? Friends are amazing, and Yenn and I are close like sisters, but relationships like that can be fleeting.
Case in point, I haven’t spoken to Ezra, our college best friend, since graduation.
And even Yennifer and I have gone longer and longer stretches of time without communication.
I’m in a different stage of life, a difficult stage of life. I only have space for my children and my work.
But in the rare moments when I have neither? Goddamn, it’s the worst feeling in the world.
The loneliness, the grief of losing that intimacy with someone who actually gives a damn…it feels like dying.
My phone vibrates on the nightstand, pulling me out of my morose thoughts.
“Yenn?” I ask, a smile coming back to my face. I’ll have to see her before she leaves France.
“Babe, you settled in your room?” she asks, sounding a little breathless. I’d told her my travel plans in hopes we could coordinate schedules to meet somewhere in the middle.
“Yes. I’m on the top floor, Presidential. You’d be proud of me.”
Yennifer hums.
“Okay, are you decent?”
“Huh?” I ask, pulling the shades open along the long set of windows and doors, which leads to the private balcony—the only one on this side of the building.
I take a second to draw in the sights, the shimmering lights just beyond the building. On the lit path, a couple walks arm in arm for a few steps, disappearing beyond the hedge.
Love. They’re clearly in love.
I close my eyes, thumping my head on the glass at the shifting thoughts.
“I assume the kids are asleep, so you have five seconds before I start pounding on the door.” Yennifer breaks my paranoia, and my smile returns as I head for the suite entrance.
Swinging it open wide, I lean out the opening in time to spot Yenn standing in the center of the rotunda with her phone pressed to her ear.
“Yenn!” I whisper-squeak, motioning her toward me. Was it just a minute ago that I felt like everything was suffocating me?
She hops into the room smelling like heaven and wearing a flowing outfit that looks like it’s made of several scarves. It’s very European, I guess.
“Bitch, it’s so good to see you!” she says, her eyes sparkling when she tosses her $20,000 bag on the plush sofa as if it were a Wal-Mart Birkin.
She pulls me into another tight hug, her long dreadlocks, which now hang to her knees, wound in a half-up, half-down style. The gold bands she’s artfully placed on different strands bring the entire look together.
“I was planning on meeting up with you before you or I left,” I say. “You didn’t have to come all this way so late.”
Not that it really matters. My body is still kinda on Chicago time, where it’s afternoon.
“As if I’d give up the opportunity to see my best friend as soon as fucking possible,” she says with a goofy scoff.