Chapter 2 #2
The sun was streaming into the room when Eugenia woke up the next morning, and the TV was still on.
She turned it off and opened the windows, as it was warm with a light breeze.
She could see the ocean in the distance, and they had access to the beach down a private pathway which she wanted to explore later.
She went downstairs, and the maids were busy, vacuuming the living room.
They seemed like pleasant young women and one of them offered her a cup of coffee, which she accepted gratefully, and then she went to sit on an old-fashioned porch swing as she surveyed her temporary domain with pleasure.
It was a little piece of heaven, and she was grateful to be able to do this for her kids, in spite of the last eighteen months.
She felt lucky to be there. She was smiling, thinking about it and enjoying the peaceful moment, when a station wagon drove up the driveway and stopped in front of the main house, a dozen feet from where Eugenia was sitting, swinging gently.
Her smile broadened immediately when her daughter Daphne emerged from the car.
She looked like a cartoon of a balloon with pretty face and legs attached.
She was almost eight months pregnant with twins, with six weeks to go, due the week after her sister’s wedding, and hoped she’d make it until then.
Twins were likely to come early, which would be all right too, and almost welcome.
Daphne smiled as she made her way to her mother, climbed the steps to the porch, and collapsed in a big wicker chair next to the swing.
She looked as though she would explode if she got any bigger.
She’d been shocked when she learned she was having twins, but now she thought it would be fun, after she got the delivery behind her.
Like her mother, she’d had easy pregnancies, for her first child and even the twins so far.
Eugenia was happy to see her, and Daphne was smiling and a little out of breath.
Eugenia leaned over to kiss her. Daphne was twenty-eight years old with dark hair in a braid down her back, big green eyes, and a tan from the summer in the Hamptons.
They’d been living there on her husband’s estate since the pandemic started.
It had been easy and relaxed and felt safe.
They were planning to move back to the city after the twins came, since the city seemed safe again and Tucker was starting nursery school in September.
They lived a few blocks from Eugenia’s apartment in an elegant town house Phillip had bought when they married.
But in the meantime, they were enjoying the summer, and now her family’s visit for a week.
It was the first time they would be together since the pandemic started, and they were all looking forward to it, especially Eugenia.
“How do you feel?” Eugenia asked her.
“Huge. If I drop something now, I can’t pick it up.
If I did, I’d probably fall over and never be able to get up.
” Daphne laughed, but she looked happy and relaxed.
“They feel like baby elephants.” They knew that the twins were fraternal, a boy and a girl, so she and Phillip would have two sons and a daughter.
And fraternal twins were hereditary. Umberto vaguely remembered twins somewhere in his family tree, but couldn’t remember who.
Phillip and Daphne were delighted, and Eugenia was happy for them.
“When is everyone arriving?” Daphne asked, pleased to have her mother nearby for a week, and then again for the week of Gloria’s wedding before Labor Day.
Although Eugenia always firmly insisted that she had no favorites, she and Daphne had the easiest relationship, the most in common, and were closest, now that all her children were adults.
Daphne had such a stable carefree life, because of Phillip and a solid marriage, that her life was less stressful than that of the others, and she was a good-natured, upbeat person.
Phillip took care of everything for her, and his main goal in life was to protect, love, and please her.
Eugenia had no worries about her. Sofia was content in her life too, although it was very different.
But Eugenia wasn’t as sure about the others.
Stefano was wound very tightly, very driven and ambitious, and always seemed tense to her, and Liz pushed him hard too.
Eloise was perennially anxious and extremely stressed by her career.
Gloria appeared to be heading toward a potential disaster with her choice of husband, but Eugenia knew there was nothing she could do about it.
At least Daphne and Sofia seemed to have found their niches in life, which was something.
Hopefully, the others would get there too.
“Eloise’s plane from Paris lands at eleven,” Eugenia answered.
“With baggage, customs, and the drive here, I figure she’ll be here around two-thirty if the plane is on time.
Sofia’s plane from Memphis lands at one, so she could get here about an hour after Eloise.
Gloria and Geoff said they would be here in time for dinner.
And I don’t know what time Stef and Liz are leaving to drive up from the city. He said they both had work to finish.”
“That sounds like him,” Daphne said easily, admiring the property around them.
There were three gardeners tending to the lawn and flowerbeds.
“What about you, Mom? Can you take a break while you’re here?
” It was no secret that Stefano and Eloise got their intense work ethic from their mother.
Daphne had worked at a magazine briefly before she married Phillip but had no aspirations to have a career.
Eugenia was always working, either sketching or in meetings on the phone, lately more so with attorneys and accountants.
“I’m planning to take the week off,” she assured Daphne.
“Until Gloria arrives with another thousand requests and changes for the wedding of the century,” Daphne commented.
She had had a beautiful wedding four years before, and was far more relaxed than her sister was now.
The wedding had seemed like an additional joy for Phillip and Daphne, not the be-all and end-all it was to Gloria and Geoff, as though they had to prove something and validate their relationship by how elaborate their wedding was.
It added an additional layer of stress to everything about it, and made it much less enjoyable to plan with her.
They were all tired of hearing about it.
It was all Gloria had talked about for a year.
And Geoff wasn’t shy about wanting the best and most expensive of everything, as if to prove how important he was, as long as Eugenia was paying for it.
And he never stopped talking about all the fancy aristocrats on his parents’ guest list.
“Gloria texted me last week to ask if I would consider wearing a special matron of honor dress,” Daphne said with a grin.
“She said she was sure you wouldn’t mind making one for me.
I told her it would have to be made by the same people who are making the tent, and no, I don’t want one.
With any luck, the twins’ll come early, and I can actually wear something human scale, and not a circus tent,” she said with a sigh.
“Don’t do anything silly to provoke it,” Eugenia warned her.
“I won’t. I’ll come over after dinner tonight to see everyone. Phillip said he’d drive me. He doesn’t want me driving at night anymore. I can hardly get behind the wheel anyway. My arms aren’t long enough.”
“He’s right,” her mother confirmed, “and it won’t be long now.”
“I don’t know how you did it five times in five years,” Daphne said admiringly.
“This is only my second time, and I’m not sure I’d do it again.
Three children might be enough. I love Tucker madly, but I feel like the whole last year has revolved around my belly. It seems much longer than last time.”
“I never had twins,” Eugenia reminded her, “and I don’t know how I did it.
I was on a roll. I was young, although you are too.
Your father wanted lots of children, and I thought I could manage it.
It was a major juggling act with work, though,” and Umberto never lifted a finger to help her.
Italian princes didn’t, and he was in his fifties by the time Sofia was born.
He was not about to change diapers or take the children to the park to play.
He liked showing them off in their matching outfits before a dinner party, but not much else, and never for more than a few minutes.
“I couldn’t do this if I had a career too. I don’t know how you did, and with a big, demanding career in fashion too.”
“Oscar was very understanding when I worked for him. And I just managed somehow. I was crazy about all of you so it seemed worth it, and I was pretty well organized.” Eugenia knew that Phillip didn’t do a great deal more than Umberto had, and was also twenty-two years older than Daphne, having just turned fifty.
But he provided Daphne with all the help she wanted, which made things easier, and he was great with their three-year-old son, and would undoubtedly be with the twins too.
They were a sweet family. It warmed Eugenia’s heart to see them together.
“That’s why Eloise always says she doesn’t want kids. She says she can’t have children and a career, and it’s too stressful as it is, with only her career,” Daphne said.
“She might change her mind later, if she meets the right man,” Eugenia commented.