Melissa had arranged for a van and driver to pick them up at Logan airport in Boston and drive them to her home. She thought they’d be tired from the trip, so she didn’t schedule too much for the first day or evening, although it was hard not to. There was so much she wanted to fit in, and do with them, and show Michaela. David had a college roommate nearby in New Hampshire and was going to make a short daytrip to visit him. There would be enough leisure time to let everyone relax, and enough activities to keep them busy. Michaela had packed games and their iPads so the children could entertain themselves if they woke up early.
Melissa had tended to every detail. Norm had been impressed by how well she organized the week they were going to spend with her. They had discussed it, and had decided that he shouldn’t spend the night with her with the children there. They weren’t married and she didn’t want to explain it to them. And after only three months, who knew if he would still be in her life on their next visit. She hoped he would be, but was realistic about it. He was planning to spend time with them, show David the area, and still give Melissa and her daughter time alone together. She and Norm had carefully planned the meals he was going to cook, with his expert knowledge of French and Italian cooking. He was going to make homemade pizza for the kids, and real spaghetti Bolognese, which took all day to prepare, chopping and adding the ingredients and letting it simmer.
Melissa looked nervous as she waited for them to arrive from the airport, and Norm baked cookies for them while she checked their bedrooms again. She acted as though royalty was going to be visiting, and to her they were.
“Relax, they’re going to love it here,” he reassured her. She still had her tree up in the living room, and her presents for them were piled high, including two teddy bears she had had made especially for the children.
At last they heard the van come up the driveway and stop in front of the house. Melissa waited for them on the porch, and then ran down the steps to greet them. She hugged the children, and kissed her daughter, as Norm, David, and the driver took their bags inside. One of them was full of gifts Michaela had brought for her. She introduced them to Norm, who was waiting in the house.
Melissa took them to their bedrooms, and the children dove onto their beds with feather comforters and the brightly colored quilts. There was an antique canopy bed in Michaela and David’s bedroom. The house shone with all the burnished wood that Melissa had hand-waxed herself, and the doors she had sanded that summer.
“The house is so beautiful!” Michaela exclaimed, and Melissa beamed.
“Norm and I have worked hard on it. I did a lot of the work myself.”
“She’s become a master carpenter and cabinetmaker in the past four years,” he teased her, but it was true. She had taken classes in furniture making. The desk in her office looked like an antique, but she had made it herself. She was proud of every inch of the house and everything in it. It was a labor of love, which David and Michaela appreciated. Before starting dinner, Norm took Andrew and Alexandra outside and built a snowman with them. He’d had plenty of practice with his five nephews over the years.
Michaela sat in the kitchen with her mother after she unpacked, and David went outside to join Norm and the children.
“This place is fantastic.” Michaela admired everything around her. They had restored it as closely as they could to the original. It looked like an authentic Victorian home, with the finest pieces of the period, and all the comforts of a modern house.
“It kind of became my obsession,” Melissa said sheepishly, but the results were what she had envisioned. “It was part of the healing process for me when I left New York. I learned a lot from Norm about craftsmanship and restoration.”
The children were wet and happy, and their snowman was as tall as their father when they came inside when it got dark. It had started snowing, and made the place look like a Christmas card. Melissa had music playing on the stereo, the tree was lit, and Norm poured wine for the adults and started dinner. He had done all the prep work before they came. The meal he cooked for them that night was superb. He had his spaghetti Bolognese for the kids, delicate sole meuniere for the adults, with flawless mashed potatoes and tiny Brussels sprouts. They had cold crab to start, and chocolate and caramel soufflés for dessert. David and Michaela were in awe of his cooking, and said that it was better than any restaurant in L.A.
“He’s an incredible chef,” Melissa said, smiling at him, and leaned over to kiss him, as the children giggled. They had opened their gifts before dinner and loved them all. Melissa had bought a handsome heavy navy blue sweater for David, and a soft, off-white cashmere one for Michaela.
After dinner, they sat by the fire, while the children played quietly with their iPads, and then the visitors went upstairs to bed when they got sleepy, and Melissa helped Norm clean up the kitchen.
“Your dinner was a huge hit,” she thanked him. “David’s right. You should open a restaurant,” she said, as they put the clean pots away.
“I’d rather cook for people I love,” he said happily. “I’m trying out a new recipe tomorrow for Southern fried chicken, bouillabaisse to start, and chocolate cake for dessert, Sacher torte from Vienna, with whipped cream.”
“I’m going to get fat if you stick around.”
“No, you won’t. And I plan to stick around,” he told her, as they turned out the lights and left the kitchen, and they went back to sit in front of the fire. He didn’t want to leave her, but agreed that it was the right thing. He didn’t want to shock the kids.
Michaela told her about her job the next day, when they went for a long walk. There was a foot of snow on the ground from the night before, and it looked like the trees were covered in lace. Michaela was dedicated to her work, and enjoyed it, and she liked the contrast to the life she had grown up in, with Marla, and David’s clients, whom she met with him occasionally.
They took the children skating that afternoon, and the next day they were planning to go skiing. When they did, Melissa and Michaela stayed with the children, while David and Norm took off, and raced down the slopes together. David was faster, and still an expert skier, but Norm loved the sport and could hold his own.
Melissa thought of Hattie in Vermont, and wished that she could call her. She was worried about how she was after giving her testimony to the police. More names had been added to the list of sex offenders, and several more shows had been canceled. A number of politicians had recently been accused too. David said he thought it was going to touch every sector of business before it was over. Michaela said that Marla’s co-star in the next movie had been replaced at the last minute. It was a major purge. Hattie’s story wasn’t unusual, and many girls much younger than she had been assaulted. A famous child star had come forward, in her late teens now, and said that she’d been raped when she was twelve by a highly respected director, whose films were blackballed immediately. Two of the films favored currently for Oscars had been taken out of the running, because both the director and the male lead had been accused of rape. The entertainment industry had been hit hardest so far, but it was slowly seeping into other areas, and causing shock waves, in big business too. Men on Wall Street were running scared. Inevitably, there were some false accusations by dishonest women hungry for attention, but for the most part, the stories had the ring of truth, and even more shocking, the perpetrators were making no attempt to deny it. They had all been caught red-handed by angry women who had been assaulted by them in some way.