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Watching Danielle smile at him, pure joy on her face, is making my heart squeeze. She looks natural holding a baby.
“Nathan, I’ve heard you have a stunning view from your apartment,” Clayton says, popping a handful of pistachios in his mouth. “Do you like living downtown?”
“I do, actually,” I say, wrenching my eyes away from our sweet girl to focus on Michael’s father. “It’s very convenient for work, and I like the sounds of the city.”
“I always wanted to try out city life, but Lorraine’s career was really taking off at the university here, so we settled in. It was a good place to have a family, though. I can’t imagine raising kids in downtown Chicago.”
“I really can’t imagine that either, though lots of people do. I grew up in Winnetka, in the suburbs. Well, until I was twelve.” When my parents died. That’s not a topic for a happy Christmas lunch, though. “I’m impressed that you both managed your careers and raised six kids.”
Michael’s mother is a Lit professor, and his father is now retired but was a CPA.
“Oh, that’s all credit to Lorraine,” he says with a smile directed at his wife. “She has endless energy and is the most hardworking woman I know. Smart as a whip. She can manage circles around me.”
“Then my question is for you, Lorraine. What’s your secret? To having a career and raising a wonderful family?”
She takes the hand her husband offers her and smiles at me. “Patience. Being organized, very organized. Giving love and hugs and making time to eat dinner together. And respect. You have to both give it to your children and demand it in return.”
“I think it’s obvious you’ve accomplished that.” Thisisa family filled with love and respect. That’s very clear.
“Remember when Tonya called you a dictator, Mom?” Becca says, running her hand over her baby’s head as she walks past. She gives her sister an amused look.
“Why are you bringing that up?” Tonya asks, though she doesn’t sound angry. “I was twelve, and I wanted to stay out later. I think that’s totally normal at that age.”
“Oh, I remember that,” Lorraine says. “You thought you were grown and should be allowed to run around until midnight. I told you this was not a democracy, and you got no vote. You had two choices. You could be home by ten or not go out at all.”
“What did you do?” I ask Tonya. Michael told us she’s four years younger than him and a statistical analyst, which makes me instantly like her. “Besides call her a dictator.”
“I didn’t say that in front of her, just to be clear. I don’t have a death wish. Her eagle ears overheard me in my room.” She shakes her head at me. “Nathan, can you believe that I thought I would “show my mom” and just stay home? Like I was punishing her and not myself. So, then all my friends were out having a good time, and I was watching cartoons with my baby brother. And I had to write an essay on the difference between dictatorship and democracy.”
“Hey, I’m good company,” the youngest Hughes sibling, Garrett, says. He’s a student at Northwestern, though I didn’t catch what he’s studying.
“I like hanging out with you,” George, Tonya’s son, pipes up.
“I like hanging out with you too,” Garrett says, giving George a fist bump.
George turns and gives me a look of triumph. I smile at him, and he frowns. I’ve never spent a lot of time around kids. Not even when I was a kid. I have no idea what to say to him. “You like hockey?” I ask him.
He shakes his head. “No.”
So that topic is a dead end. I’m kind of amused by his honesty.
“George,” his mother reprimands. “Mr. Armstrong owns a hockey team, and Mr. McNeill is a pro hockey player.”
“Well, I still don’t like hockey.”
“George, come help me in the kitchen,” Lorraine says, giving him The Look.
George pops off the sofa instantly and follows, though he eyes me like it’s my fault he’s probably in trouble.
“Do you have kids?” Becca asks me.
“Me?” God, I hate this question. I’m sure I have “childless middle-aged rich man” written all over me, so I’m always surprised people even ask me. “No.”
“We always thought Michael would be the first to have kids,” Tonya says. “He was like our second father. Very patient, always the mediator when we weren’t getting along. When he wasn’t reading, that is. He constantly had his nose in a book.”
“He’s still like that,” I say. “He keeps me and Crew from killing each other.”
“It’s always Nathan’s fault,” Crew calls out from where he’s playing checkers with Braydon Senior in the corner.
