19. Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Nineteen
Alexander
Prim sat upside down on the living room sofa with Smudge pressed to her stomach. Rose sat next to her normally, which apparently gave her authority over the cartoon playing on TV.
“You missed it,” Rose told Alexander.
He returned from the kitchen with two bowls and set them on the coffee table.
“I was gone for thirty seconds,” he said.
“The bird did a bad thing,” Prim said.
“What did the bird do?”
“A bad thing.”
“Thank you. I understand everything now.”
Rose pointed at the screen. “He took the shiny key.”
“Which he wasn’t supposed to take,” Prim added.
“Because it was a bad thing,” Alexander said.
Prim beamed at him from upside down. “You got it.”
The girls had arrived at Bel Air talking about their Daddy sleepover and hadn’t stopped.
They’d inspected the kitchen, visited the bath boats, and made sure Prim’s bed still had room for Smudge.
Nicole was spending the day at her skincare studio while deliveries arrived.
Alexander knew there were treatment beds, pale oak storage, and enough equipment to turn the suite she’d described into a real practice.
He also knew he wasn’t entitled to ask for pictures unless she wanted to share them.
His phone lit up on the table. The text message said: EMERGENCY. CALL NOW.
The word struck with the force of an old command. Alexander’s body reacted before his mind caught up. He straightened. His hand closed around the phone. A list formed instantly: call Maya, call Vicky, call Nicole, get the car, reach the studio, take control.
He was already looking toward the doorway when Rose spoke.
“Daddy, the bird is doing another bad thing.”
Alexander stopped.
The girls remained focused on the cartoon.
Neither watched him with fear. Neither expected him to leave.
He could’ve handed them to Maya and been in Culver City before they finished the episode.
He could’ve told himself a true thing: the studio had used the word emergency.
That word had ended dinners, weekends, baths, and bedtime more times than he could count.
He’d treated it as proof that every other commitment had become optional.
He looked at his daughters, then answered the call that came through when he didn’t reply to the message.
The executive responsible for daily operations spoke as soon as the connection opened. “I need one answer, and I need to know my authority still holds.”
“Do you need me to take over?” Alexander asked.
“No.”
The old part of him wanted to ask for every fact anyway. It wanted names, costs, options, and a reason nobody had prevented the problem. Once he had the details, he would find a way to make the decision his.
He didn’t ask.
“What’s the one answer?” he said.
The executive gave him the narrow question. Alexander answered it.
“And your authority holds,” he added. “You don’t need another approval from me. Resolve it.”
“Even if the outcome is expensive?”
“Yes.”
“Understood.”
The call ended. Alexander stared at the dark phone in his hand. He felt wrong standing in his own living room. He should be moving. Calling. Checking. His entire professional life had trained him to believe that letting another person act was the same as failing to act himself.
“Daddy,” Rose said.
He turned.
“You missed it again.”
“Was it the bird?” he asked.
“No.”
“Did somebody else do a bad thing?”
Prim rolled upright and held Smudge by one arm. “Everybody did a bad thing.”
“That sounds badly managed.”
Rose patted the sofa between them. “Sit. We’ll tell you.”
Alexander returned to the sofa. Prim tucked herself against his side, and Rose climbed onto the other. They explained the plot at the same time, disagreed about every important fact, and blamed the bird for most of it.
His phone lit up once more. The message asked whether he was certain the executive should proceed without him.
Alexander typed quickly: “Yes. Proceed.” Then he placed the phone facedown on the table.
“No more work?” Prim asked.
“No more work tonight,” he said.
“Because it’s Daddy sleepover,” Rose said.
He expected the decision to remain difficult.
Instead, the discomfort faded while the girls argued over snacks and climbed across him to reach their bowls.
The studio didn’t call again. No one arrived to announce that Cohan Studios had collapsed because Alexander Cohan watched cartoons with his children. The company continued without him.
At dinner, Prim objected to anything touching anything else on her plate. Rose mixed everything together and called it soup.
“It isn’t soup,” Prim said.
“It is now,” Rose retorted.
“Soup has water.”
Rose lifted her purple cup. “I have water.”
Alexander caught the cup before she poured it over dinner. “Your creative process needs limits.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m the person cleaning the floor.”
Prim nodded with great seriousness. “Daddy knows floors.”
“I have hidden depths.”
The girls helped carry their dishes to the kitchen. Rose dropped a spoon. Prim stepped in something sticky that hadn’t been there moments earlier. Alexander cleaned both while answering a debate about whether bath boats could sleep.
“They live in water,” Rose said.
“They’ll dry out,” Prim argued.
“Boats are supposed to dry out,” Alexander said.
Both girls looked at him with pity.
“He doesn’t know,” Rose whispered.
“Apparently not.”
When it was time for their usual video call, Alexander set the phone against a bowl on the kitchen table. Prim squeezed into one side of the picture with Smudge. Rose took the other and held up a foam boat she’d brought from the bathroom.
“Mommy needs to see Captain Purple,” she explained.
“Captain Purple needs a bath,” Alexander said.
“He’s a bath boat.”
“Then he’s ready.”
He called Nicole. The screen rang until her voicemail answered.
Rose lowered the boat. “Mommy didn’t come.”
“She’s receiving things for her studio today,” Alexander said. “She may have both hands full.”
Prim looked at the screen, but she didn’t begin to cry or ask whether Nicole wanted them. “Can we call again?”
“We’ll send one message. She’ll call when she can.”
He typed that the girls were ready for their usual call and added nothing that would make Nicole feel guilty. Prim asked him to send a kiss. Rose demanded three kisses and a boat. Alexander sent three heart emojis and one boat.
“Now bath?” Rose asked.
“Now bath.”
The disappointment passed because the girls knew their mother would return. They carried that same security toward Alexander now. It was what dependable love gave a child: the ability to miss someone without fearing they’d vanished.
Bath time left water across the floor and one foam boat trapped under the cabinet.
Alexander stayed close, supervised the chaos, and had towels and pajamas ready before the girls entered the tub.
Afterward, he sat on the rug and worked leave-in cream through their damp curls from the ends, one small section at a time.
“Two puffs tomorrow,” Prim reminded him.
“One ponytail,” Rose said.
“I remember.”
“No bumpy part,” Rose added.
“I remember what you want. I can’t promise my hands will cooperate.”
She touched his fingers. “Tell them.”
“I’ll have a serious talk with them.”
The girls chose one bedtime book after a negotiation that required Alexander to reject several proposals involving three books each.
He pulled the chair between their beds. Prim tucked Smudge under her chin, and Rose demanded the bear voice before he’d reached the first line that could reasonably belong to a bear.
“He’s not in the story yet,” Alexander said.
“He can say the title,” Rose replied.
“Bears can read titles,” Prim agreed.
Alexander used the voice for the title. Their laughter made him do it again.
He read the book, sang the song, gave them water and kisses, then remained in the chair while their eyes closed.
Neither tried to stay awake to make sure he didn’t disappear.
Prim’s hand rested loose over Smudge’s flattened ear. Rose turned onto her side and sighed.
Alexander sat between their beds and thought about the studio emergency he’d allowed someone else to solve.
Nothing about the evening felt like a sacrifice.
He’d wanted to be here. That should’ve made the choice easy years ago.
It hadn’t, because he’d treated wanting his family as a feeling and serving the studio as an action.
Now he understood that love became real in the part where he stayed.
His phone remained facedown when he returned to the living room. He cleaned the last of the dinner clutter and put the bath boat back with the others. The message waiting on his screen said only that the problem was contained.
Contained without him.
Alexander set the phone down again.
Nicole’s video call came late. He answered quickly, and her tired face filled the screen. Her curls were pulled back, and a treatment bed stood behind her under a clear protective cover. Pale oak storage lined part of the wall.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
She looked behind him. “Are they asleep?”
“They are.”
Her face fell. “I missed the call.”
“The deliveries took longer?”
“Much longer. One piece had to be checked before the crew left, then the placement was wrong, and I kept thinking I’d call in five minutes.” She rubbed her forehead. “I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. They understood you were working. I did the same thing to you more times than I can count.”
Nicole frowned. Alexander knew he’d answered badly before she spoke.
“That doesn’t make it okay for me to do it,” she said.
“No. It doesn’t.”
“I don’t want some upside-down version of our marriage where my studio becomes urgent, and you stay home accepting every absence because you owe me.”
“I don’t want that either,” he said.
“Then don’t forgive everything I do because you were worse.”
The truth landed cleanly. Alexander had tried to make her failure harmless by comparing it to his own. In doing so, he’d lowered the standard instead of sharing it.
“You’re right,” he said. “You should’ve called.”
Nicole blinked, then gave him a tired, reluctant smile. “I should have.”
“I understand why you lost track. That doesn’t mean the call didn’t matter.”
“It mattered. I hate that I missed them.”
“They were disappointed, but they weren’t scared. Prim said you were making your workplace, and Rose asked whether the treatment beds had blankets.”
“They will. Not the kind she’s imagining.”
“She may demand approval.”
“She’ll get none. I know her design history.”
Alexander smiled. “The purple crayon era?”
“We don’t discuss it.”
The ease between them surprised him. It wasn’t the desperate closeness he’d tried to force after Nicole left.
It was quieter. She corrected him, and he listened.
He disagreed with the excuse she’d offered herself without turning the mistake into a weapon.
They were talking about balance as if balance might someday belong to both of them.
“The space looks good,” he said.
Nicole glanced behind her. “It looks beautiful. It finally feels real. The treatment rooms are nearly ready, and the filming corner is better than I pictured it.”
Pride rose in him. He kept it simple. “I’m happy for you.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you want me to bring the girls by? They’d like to see it.”
“Not yet. I want to keep the address limited while the stalker is unidentified.”
“All right.”
She studied him for a moment. “Thank you for asking.”
“How are Susan and Paul?”
“Still sick. Still arguing about which of them is the worse patient.”
“Your mother.”
“Obviously.”
They both smiled.
Nicole’s expression softened. “I’m glad the girls are with you.”
Alexander didn’t trust himself to answer quickly.
“They’re calmer,” she continued. “Happier. Their teachers say they’re more settled at preschool. They talk about your pickups and your house like ordinary parts of their lives now. They don’t wait for you to disappear.”
The words gave him joy and shame at the same time. He let both exist without asking Nicole to ease either one.
“I won’t disappear again,” he said.
“I believe you.”
Hope hit him so hard that he had to breathe before speaking. Nicole had said she believed him before. She still hadn’t offered the marriage. He wouldn’t turn her warmth into a promise she hadn’t made.
But he could ask.
“Nicole?”
“Yes?”
“Would you have dinner with me next week? Whenever you’re free.”
She went very still.
Alexander kept his voice steady. “Not a handoff, not a meeting about the girls. Dinner with me. If you don’t want that, say no. Nothing else changes.”
“Are you asking me on a date?”
“I’m asking my wife whether she’d let me take her to dinner. Yes.”
The pause stretched long enough for him to prepare for the refusal.
Then Nicole smiled.
“Yes,” she said.