Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 78011 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78011 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
He is my pride and joy, and I don’t regret having him for one minute.
“Mommy!” I hear Aiden yell my name from somewhere in the house. “Grandpa said it’s time for breakfast.”
I take my final stretch. Yelling, “Coming,” I throw the covers off me and grab my robe to head downstairs. “Good morning,” I tell the three of them when I get to the kitchen. My father has Aiden on his hip, showing him the food trucks that are setting up. “Don’t you think this is a touch extreme?” I ask, hugging my mother who stands at the island pouring us both a cup of coffee. I pick up my cup and walk over to Aiden and my father and look outside. There are even more workers in the backyard now.
“I’ve missed five birthdays,” my father says, looking over at me. I want to roll my eyes because he didn’t miss any birthdays. He and my mother flew in each year, no matter what day of the week it fell on. This is just the first one he’s had in America. “Besides, he’s my only grandchild.” I take a sip of coffee and roll my eyes. “So I have a surprise for both of you,” he says, and I close my eyes because I can’t even imagine what he has in store for us now. My father is the most generous man I have ever known. His family came from the South, growing cotton, so he was born into money. If you listen closely enough, you will hear his bayou accent. He shocked his family by going into law instead of the family business. He worked his ass off and refused to take any handouts. Now he has one of the most sought-after law firms around.
“What did you do? Did you buy him a pony?” I joke but hold my breath because it would be just like him. “You didn’t buy him a pony, did you?” I hiss and then look at my mother, who just stands there grinning.
“No, silly,” he says, looking at me and kissing Aiden’s cheek. “We bought you a house.”
“What?” I shriek. Looking at him and then my mother, I put my cup of coffee down on the table. “What?” I say again but now with my hands.
“Nice going, Leonard,” my mother says. She walks over to the stove to take the pancake off, and then she opens the oven to take out the sausage and the bacon. She slides off the baking mitts and starts to plate everything, then she looks at my father. “You were supposed to ease her into it, Leonard.”
My father rolls his eyes. “Maryse,” he says softly. He always sounds like that when he talks to my mother. “Honey.” He now looks at me. “It’s more for Aiden than it is for you.” He starts with the guilt trip first before anything else. “You said that you didn’t want to live here, so …” He puts Aiden down, who runs to the table to eat the pancakes my mother just finished plating. “So this is a happy medium.”
“How is this a happy medium, Dad?” I look over at my mother, who sits at the table to cut up Aiden’s pancake. “Did you see this house?” I ask her.
“I did, and it’s beautiful.” She smiles at me, handing Aiden back his plate and leaning over to kiss his cheek.
“You lived in a shoe box in Paris.” My father sits down, putting food onto his plate. “Aiden had nowhere to run and play. Now that he’s home, he should have the backyard he deserves.”
“Dad,” I say, sitting down at the table now, but he just puts up his hand.
“Please, honey, let me do this for you and Aiden.” He looks at me, and I can see the hurt in his eyes.
“Dad, I can afford my own house,” I say. “I have a job.” I’m an interior designer, and I work directly with contractors and designers to stage their projects.
“I know you can, honey,” he says, taking a bite of pancake. “But—” He stops talking when my mother cuts in.
“What your father is trying to say and failing at miserably is that he’s sorry for how he acted all those years ago. And he wants to make it up to you,” she says, looking at my father, who just glares at her.
“I don’t know why it’s so hard for you to say sorry, Leonard. She isn’t a client. You can mess up.” She takes a sip of coffee and smiles at him. “And for the record, you messed up big time.” My parents have been together for forty years. They grew up one street away from each other and hung with the same crowds, but only really started something when my father went away to Harvard to study law.