“He’s smaller than the other two,” she said, as a statement of fact requiring no response.
She meant Sophia and Benny, Jeremy’s children with his wife. Sophia was five. Benny, eighteen months. Daisy filed reports on both at the Friday calls with the thoroughness of a correspondent filing from the field.
They had made peace, Rose and Jeremy. And Lizanne could not be happier. They’d never be friends, but they agreed on how to raise Daisy, and that was something.
Reality television was long behind them.Gilden Duchess in the New Worldwas in its third season, and Lizanne had found that the work still mattered. Quinn was somewhere in Vancouver filming the second season of a procedural in which he played a forensic accountant.
He and Kayla had married in October in a small ceremony in Ojai. Rose had been her matron of honor while Daisy had served as flower girl again – this time without spilling any. Lizanne had attended as a guest and hadn’t cried.
Regardless of what photographic evidence might suggest.
Rose Delaney Events had not merely survived but expanded. Rose and Kayla, who was a full partner now that Reality TV was behind her, had three associates, a waiting list, a reputation that had long since grown louder than any hint of a long-ago scandal.
Right now, none of that was in the room.
The room held only the four of them.
Lizanne looked at their boy and then at Daisy. Her children. She had children now. Who could have ever imagined such a thing? A few years ago, she’d settled with a woman who had turned out to be a manipulator in every regard.
She hadn’t actually thought about Trina in a long time. The last she’d heard of her was that she’d lost her label after yet another scandal involving … she didn’t even know. Or care.
Pat kept track of such things for her, as Pat always did.
“Hey,” Rose said softly. “Where did you go?”
“Nowhere,” Lizanne said. “I’m right here.”
Rose turned her hand over and laced her fingers through Lizanne’s. Between them Maxwell held his fistful of hospital gown and smiled up at them.
“He’s smiling,” she reported and Daisy looked up.
“He’s too young to smile,” she announced, as though she were an expert on the matter.
“He looks like he’s smiling,” Lizanne insisted.
“He does,” Rose declared. Daisy narrowed her eyes and got up.
Then, she too smiled. “I think he actually is.”
“See?” Lizanne said.
“Think he’ll like the stars as much as we do?” Daisy asked.
“I think so. When he’s old enough, we’ll take him to the planetarium.”
She glanced up at Rose who kissed her cheek.
“I love you,” Rose whispered.
“And I love you,” Lizanne replied.
She sat in the pale light with her family around her — Rose’s hand in hers, Daisy filing her notes, Max warm against her chest — and understood, finally, that she’d finally achieved the one thing she’d always dreamed of. Happiness.
THE END
