2. Chapter Two #2
Having Yui there rallied my wives like perhaps nothing else. I helped Samantha stand, then leaned down and used both hands to aid my princess in getting to her feet. Yui got Samantha seated on a stool at the kitchen island and handed her a glass of water, then watched her drink it.
“Rough morning,” she said mildly.
Samantha’s laugh nearly led to her spitting out the water. “You don’t know the half of it.”
Yui leaned in close. “I meant what I said to you last week, darling girl,” she said, the therapist dropping out of her voice for a moment. “If you need me to perform the duties of a mother, I am ready and willing to assume the role whenever you require it.”
I watched Samantha’s bottom lip tremble. “I think I do,” she said, reaching out to embrace the woman who’d become all three of my wives’ surrogate mother. “I’m not doing well, Yui, I’m really not…”
“We’ll talk about that,” she assured my babygirl. “We’ll talk about a great many things, Samantha. And I promise you, I can be extremely discreet.” She glanced at me with a smile. “Just ask your husband.”
The way Samantha looked at me, she just might. “Okay.”
Yui gave her a smile that was half momma’s here, half doctor’s orders. “Let’s get you upstairs, alright? We can have a quiet talk there.” She held Samantha close, then glanced at the rest of us over my babygirl’s shoulder. “I think your husband and my Yuka-chan need to have a talk as well.”
We most certainly did. “Thanks, Yui.”
“There is no need to thank me,” she insisted, putting an arm around Samantha’s shoulders. “I’m only doing what any good mother would do.”
And didn’t that just say it all?
Marcie volunteered to help Samantha up the stairs. Yui went with them both, leaving me alone in the kitchen for the moment with Kiki. As soon as we were alone, she turned to me, her brow furrowing with worry. “Okay. What the hell happened with you and Marcie in the office this morning?”
I told her.
I’d seen Yukiko absorb a lot of things through our marriage.
Jessamyn Fawkes’s betrayal, Daniel’s stroke—the sight of me in a hospital bed merged with the uncertainty of not knowing when or if I was ever going to get out of it again.
She was good at weathering a crisis. It was why she was head wife, why she was my second-in-command at the Avery Company.
The news about Caroline still rocked her back on her heels.
“She… what!?” Kiki stared at me for a long moment, her expression filled with disbelief. “They led her out of the office in handcuffs!?”
“Mona and Tasha have her in hand,” I explained, remembering. “They’ve taken her to the same hotel we put Jessamyn Fawkes in. Or a similar one.”
“I just…” Yukiko shook her head. “I can’t believe it. Caroline is some kind of spy? That seems insane. She got along so well with everyone!”
“I’m not sure what she is,” I admitted. “Mona and Tasha will probably be able to tell us more soon. Whatever else she said, she seemed pretty eager to cooperate with us.”
“It sounds like it,” Kiki mused. “You think that thing about her giving back the money is true?”
I thought about it. “I do,” I said. “She sounded like she meant it.”
Kiki nodded. “What did she say her real name was again?”
I told her.
“That… that rings a bell for some reason,” Yukiko said. The troubled look was back on her face; whatever she vaguely remembered, she didn’t like it. “I’ll have to do some research. I mean, I’m sure Mona is doing the same thing right now.”
Doubtless she was.
A short while later, Yui came back down the stairs. “Our first impromptu session is done,” she told Yukiko and I as she took the cup of coffee her daughter offered. “I obviously won’t be sharing any details, no more than I would tell her about anything we spoke about in one of your sessions, Jack—”
I raised a hand, showing I understood. “Absolutely. Privacy is important.”
“I left Marcie with her,” Yui said, glancing up at the ceiling. “Even among women as close as the ones you surround yourself with, those two seem like they have a special bond.”
“Marcie was Samantha’s little in Delta Rho,” Kiki said. “I swear sometimes Marcie views Sam as the big sister she never had.”
Yui gave that a nod. “She did give me permission to share one detail we talked about with both of you,” she said, clearing her throat. “In addition, I have a question of a… delicate nature I want to run by you both.”
I couldn’t quite understand the way my princess managed to both freeze up in shock and look excited when Yui said that.
“Question first, okaasan,” Kiki whispered, switching to formal address. “Please.”
Yui took a sip of the coffee, gathering her thoughts.
“I offered my services to Samantha as a therapist shortly after she learned about her potential diagnosis,” she explained, working her way slowly around the issue. “I am still offering. But this new revelation about her parents… it changes the calculus.”
I blinked. “I’m not sure how.”
Yui nodded. “Your wife needs my services as a therapist,” she said.
“But she also needs me to be something for her right now that’s much closer than a therapist—especially after learning that the woman she believed her whole life was her mother might not be.
” She paused, letting those words sink in.
“I’m experienced enough to keep those roles from coming into conflict, but I will have to be careful about the line.
” She shared a long look with her daughter.
“It’s very easy to cross them without meaning to. ”
Yukiko swallowed hard. “Duly noted.”
“I just want to give you the option,” Yui said, setting the mug down on the kitchen island. “If either of you are uncomfortable with a family member treating Samantha, I can withdraw and set her up with someone else.”
“Of course not!”
My own response shocked me a little. It must have shocked both Yui and Yukiko, too—both of them turned and stared at me.
“Yui, you’re amazing,” I said, meaning it.
“I mean… you’ve done such an incredible job with me.
I’m aware that it might not be ideal on a professionalism level for you to be treating Samantha and I, given how close you are to both of us.
But I think the work/family divide left this family behind somewhere between Stillwell and Boston. ”
Both mother and daughter shared a long, knowing look.
Blame Dawn Lowry. Blame Caroline. Because I should have one thousand percent picked up on what thoughts were going through both Yui and Yukiko’s minds, and it flew directly over my head. My thoughts were just not capable of traveling along that track at the moment.
“I wouldn’t have made it out of Morning Harbor in one piece without what you taught me,” I told her.
“Hell, I don’t think I would’ve made it through my wedding.
What I’m saying is, I know you can do Samantha some good.
And if the day comes where you have to choose between being her therapist and being someone she can look up to like a mother, then we can talk about our options. ”
Yui gave me a long, measured look. “Alright. If that changes, let me know.”
“It won’t,” I assured her. “Will it change for you, princess?”
Yukiko gave me a look like a woman snapping out of a trance. “Hmm? No, I think it’s wonderful that you’ll do sessions with Samantha,” she said, waving a hand. “What was the thing she wanted you to tell us?”
Yui hesitated even longer this time. “Obviously, Samantha is in a vulnerable place right now,” she began. “I hesitate to voice any opinion she’s stated at a time like this as fact. It’s very likely that she could change her mind, regardless of what she claims…”
That didn’t sound very likely to me. I knew my babygirl. “What did she say?”