13. Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
Nicole
Alexander kept showing up. Over the following weeks, he handled preschool drop-offs and pickups, kept Prim and Rose with him two nights a week, and learned the ordinary work between those larger points.
He remembered the yellow and purple cups.
He packed safe snacks before anyone asked.
He bathed the girls, worked through arguments about bath boats, read the right stories, sang the final song, and stayed until both children were asleep.
He carried a canvas bag stocked with wipes, spare clothes, hair ties, leave-in cream for their curly hair that they got from their mother, and the small things he used to assume someone else would remember.
Prim and Rose stopped asking whether Daddy was really coming.
They started asking what they would do when he did.
Vicky returned part-time after her doctor cleared her, but Alexander continued managing his personal calendar and answering his own phone.
One afternoon, Nicole met Alexander and the twins at a playground after preschool.
The girls ran toward a climbing structure before Nicole had finished greeting them.
Their sneakers thudded over the rubber ground.
Swings creaked nearby, children shouted through a game Nicole couldn’t follow, and a little boy raced past with his jacket dragging from one hand.
Alexander sat next to Nicole on a bench, leaving careful space between them. It wasn’t enough distance to look strange, but it was enough to tell her he still remembered the boundary.
She noticed a purple star sticker on his sleeve.
“You’ve been decorated,” she said.
He looked down at it. “Rose said I needed something pretty.”
“Only one sticker?”
“Prim said the purple clashed with my shirt and refused to participate.”
Nicole glanced at his pale blue shirt. “She was right.”
“I told her that criticizing the work without offering an alternative wasn’t helpful.”
“How did that go?”
“She put a dinosaur sticker on my shoe.”
Nicole laughed before she could stop herself. Alexander smiled. He looked back toward the girls.
Rose stood at the top of a slide, waving both arms. “Watch me, Daddy.”
“I’m watching,” Alexander called.
She slid down, landed hard on her bottom, and jumped up as if the landing had been part of the plan.
“Did you see?” she shouted.
“Every second.”
Prim leaned over the railing above her. “Watch me too.”
“I’ve got both of you.”
The girls ran off together. Neither checked again to make sure he was still on the bench.
Nicole rested her hands in her lap. That small lack of worry reached her more deeply than Rose’s grin had. Weeks ago, the twins had watched doors and listened for promises to fail. Now they trusted Alexander to remain where he said he would be.
“They’re different with you,” she said.
His smile faded into something quieter. “I know.”
“You do?”
“They don’t look surprised every time I arrive.” His gaze stayed on the climbing structure. “I wish that didn’t feel like progress.”
“It is progress.”
“It’s also an ugly measure of where I started.”
Nicole studied his face. He looked tired.
Not the distant strain he used to bring home from the studio, when his body entered a room and his mind remained somewhere else.
This tiredness sat openly on him. A faint streak of something sticky marked one cuff, and his hair had lost its careful shape. He was still watching the girls.
“How’s full participation treating you?” she asked.
“Brutally.”
She lifted an eyebrow.
“You want me to pretend it’s easy?” Alexander asked.
“I’d know you were lying.”
“Then brutally is accurate.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “The physical part is relentless. Somebody needs food, help in the bathroom, a missing toy, a different shirt, a dispute settled, or a question answered every few minutes.”
“Sometimes all at once.” Nicole smiled with indulgence.
“Usually all at once. Rose asked me to peel a banana while Prim needed help with her shoes, and then Rose became furious because I’d peeled the banana she asked me to peel.”
“You opened it from the wrong end.”
He turned to her. “There’s a wrong end?”
“To Rose, there is.”
“Of course there is.”
Nicole smiled. “You’ll learn.”
“That’s the part I didn’t understand.”
“Banana technique?”
“The learning. The remembering.” His tone became serious again.
“Doing the thing in front of me is only half of it. I have to know what comes next. I have to notice when they’re getting hungry before hunger becomes a disaster.
I have to remember which clothes need to go back to preschool, when Rose has music, whether Prim’s waistband has been rubbing the faded mark on her stomach, whether we have enough safe snacks, and which bedtime book I read last night because they don’t want the same one twice. ”
“Unless they do.”
“Unless they do, and apparently I should know that too.”
“Correct.”
He gave her a brief look. “You’re enjoying this.”
“A little.” She laughed.
“Fair.” He leaned forward, forearms on his thighs.
“The mental part is worse than the physical part. Not worse in a bad way. Harder. It doesn’t stop when they’re playing quietly.
I’m still thinking ahead. I used to come home and see that everyone was fed and clean and where they were supposed to be.
I thought that meant the house ran well. ”
Nicole felt the warmth leave her smile. “Someone had to do that work.”
“I know that now.”
“Staff helped.”
“Yes. I used that help to dismiss what you carried.” He didn’t rush the words.
“I thought having Maya and everyone else made parenting easy for you. I never asked who knew what the girls needed, who made every decision, or who they came to when they were frightened. I saw the results and treated them as proof that there wasn’t much work behind them. ”
“There was always work.”
“I know.”
“I was tired even when everything looked fine.”
He faced her then. “I know.”
Nicole heard no defense in it. He wasn’t telling her that he understood so she would stop speaking. He was leaving room for the next truth.
“Some days, I didn’t want to decide one more thing,” she said. “Not dinner, not pajamas, not whether a cough needed the pediatrician. I wanted you to walk in, look around, and know what needed doing without making me explain it first.”
“You wanted another parent.”
“I wanted my husband.”
Pain tightened his expression. He accepted it without looking away.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Nicole looked toward the girls. Prim and Rose had joined two other children under the play structure. Prim was assigning roles with both hands on her hips. Rose nodded with great seriousness, then ran in the opposite direction from everyone else.
“I’m glad you’re becoming the father they need,” Nicole said. “That doesn’t mean I owe you our marriage.”
“I know.”
She turned back to him, ready for a qualification. None came.
Alexander sat upright. “You don’t owe me anything for taking care of my own daughters. Not forgiveness, not another chance, not even praise.”
“You seemed pleased with the dinosaur sticker.”
“The dinosaur sticker was earned.”
She almost laughed again. “That sounds like praise.”
“From Prim. Her standards are clear.”
“Mine are too.”
“I know that as well.”
The ease between them settled, but Nicole didn’t mistake it for safety. A good conversation couldn’t repair years. A run of dependable weeks mattered because it was a run of dependable weeks, not because she could build a whole future out of one afternoon on a bench.
Alexander glanced at her. “How’s your work?”
The question was simple. He didn’t add an offer, a suggestion, or a reminder that he knew people who could help.
“Busy,” she said. “In a good way.”
“The platform?”
“That too. But I’ve been working on something else.”
He waited. Nicole had meant to tell him eventually. Keeping the studio secret wasn’t important to her, but telling him made it feel exposed in a new way. He’d once been the person she told everything. Now every piece of her future had to be offered by choice.
“I leased a space in Beverly Grove,” she said. “I’m opening a private skincare studio.”
His eyes widened. “You are?”
“Two treatment rooms, a consultation office, and enough room to film. Appointment only. Small on purpose.”
“Nicole, that’s fantastic.”
The pleasure in his voice was immediate and clean. No alarm, no question about whether it would interfere with the girls. No claim that she already had enough to manage.
“It’s still mostly beige walls and bad carpet,” she said.
“But it’s yours.”
“Yes.”
“Did you already sign the lease?”
“I did.”
For a second, she expected him to be hurt that she’d made the decision without him. He only smiled.
“I’m proud of you,” he said.
Her throat tightened. “I didn’t tell you so you’d fix anything.”
“I know.”
“I don’t need financing.”
“I wasn’t going to offer it.”
“Or a contractor from the studio.”
“I wasn’t going to offer that either.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You learned fast.”
“Not fast enough.” He paused. “May I offer one thing?”
Her shoulders tensed. “What?”
“Time.”
She said nothing.
“If you need uninterrupted hours to work on the space, take them,” he said. “I’ll keep the girls. If you have an appointment, or a delivery, or need to stand in an empty room and think without somebody asking for juice, call me first.”
“You have your scheduled time with them.”
“I’m not talking about trading days or keeping score. I’m their father. I want more time with them, and you need time for your work. Both things can be true.”
Nicole stared at him. Alexander could’ve written a check without thinking.
He could’ve sent a team to finish the suite before she picked a paint color.
Money would’ve been effortless for him, and accepting it would’ve placed his power inside the first professional space she’d chosen for herself in years.
Time was different. Time had been the one resource his wealth had never given her. It had been the thing she begged for, protected for everyone else, and surrendered whenever his work became urgent. Now he was offering his own time and labor so hers could remain her own.
“Thank you,” she said.
He nodded. “Whenever you need it.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“I won’t.”
A cry cut through the playground noise. Prim had slipped from the lower part of the climbing structure. She landed on her hands and one knee, then sat on the rubber ground with her mouth open in shock.
Alexander was off the bench before Nicole had fully risen. He crossed the short distance at a run and dropped into a crouch in front of Prim. He didn’t snatch her up. He put one hand lightly against her back and waited until she looked at him.
“I’m here,” he said. “Tell me where it hurts.”
Prim’s first breath broke into a sob. “My hand.”
“Okay. Let me see.” He turned her palm carefully. “Can you move your fingers for me?”
She moved them.
“Good. Did you hit your head?”
Prim shook her head.
“Your belly?”
Another shake. “Just my hand and my knee,” she said.
“All right. Do you want me to hold you?”
Prim lifted both arms. Alexander gathered her against his chest and sat back on his heels. One broad hand covered most of her small back. He spoke close to her ear, too quietly for Nicole to hear, while her crying slowed.
Rose hovered near them. “I can count.”
Alexander looked up. “That might help. Can you count slowly while Prim takes breaths?”
Rose began at one with deep concentration. Prim kept her face against Alexander’s neck. By seven, her hands had loosened from his shirt. By ten, she lifted her head.
“Better?” he asked.
“A little.”
“Do you want Mom?”
Prim looked over at Nicole, who’d stopped a few feet away. Nicole held out her hand.
Prim considered it, then tucked herself closer to Alexander. “Daddy has me.”
“He does,” Nicole said.
Alexander’s gaze met hers over Prim’s curls. He didn’t look triumphant. He only kept holding their daughter until she was ready to stand.
Nicole’s chest ached. She loved him. The truth remained no matter how carefully she separated it from her decisions.
She loved the patience in his voice and the way he’d checked Prim before moving her.
She loved that he’d asked what their daughter wanted instead of assuming.
She loved the secure weight of Prim against him and the calm certainty on her face.
And Nicole wanted him. The desire struck with enough force to make her look away.
Alexander’s shirt pulled across his shoulders as he helped Prim rise.
She remembered those shoulders bare under her exploring hands.
She remembered his mouth against her skin, the rough sound of her name in his throat, and how easily her body had always answered his.
For one reckless second, she wanted to close the space between them. She wanted her hand at the back of his neck and his full attention on her.
She stayed where she was. Wanting him wasn’t proof that the marriage was repaired. Loving him had never been the problem. The problem was whether love with him could become a life in which she wasn’t left alone to carry everything that mattered.
Prim tested her knee, announced that it worked, and ran back to the other children with Rose. Alexander watched until both girls reached the slide. Then he returned to the bench.
“She’s all right,” he said.
“I saw.”
“You didn’t have to stop yourself from taking over.”
Nicole looked at him. “Neither did you.”
Something warm passed through his expression. He sat, again leaving space.
Nicole’s phone vibrated in her hand. Brian’s name appeared above a new message.
“Would you have dinner with me next week?”
Nicole read it. Across the playground, Prim called for Alexander to watch her. He lifted one hand and answered.
“I’m watching.”
Nicole felt the pull toward him, sharp and familiar.
She also knew her future was still hers to choose.
Brian wasn’t a weapon to use against her husband, and saying yes to him wouldn’t erase twelve years or the man Alexander was trying to become.
It would only let Nicole consider a future without pretending she’d already chosen one.
She typed her answer.
“Yes. I’d like that.”
With Alexander still in sight, Nicole pressed send.