All Chapters of MARRIED TO MY EX-FIANCE'S RUTHLESS UNCLE: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

We enrolled Evelyn in kindergarten when she turned five. entire days. actual school. "I'm a big girl now," she declared with pride.The twins were three years old. still enrolled in preschool. My babies, still.However, Evelyn? She was maturing. autonomous. assured.I sobbed on my first day of kindergarten. I told Kael, "She's only five." I am aware. However, she's prepared. "I'm not prepared." You won't be. Parenting is like that.In kindergarten, Evelyn did quite well.Made friends. Loved learning. Came home excited every day."Mama! We learned about butterflies!" "Mama! I can write my whole name!" "Mama!I'm smart, according to my teacher.It was both lovely and agonizing to watch her blossom.She needed me less. Wanted independence more."Is this how it starts?" I asked Kael. "Her growing away from us?""This is the intended method of operation. We raise them to leave us." "It doesn't appeal to me."Neither do I. However, we are left with no option. The three-year-old twins were ch

Reality set in when Evelyn began her senior year.Lead roles. Standing ovations. Natural star."She's talented," her drama teacher said. "Really talented. Professional potential.""She's fifteen," I protested."And ready. If she wants to pursue acting seriously, she could."Claire did want to. Talking about LA. NYU. Juilliard.Another year. Next, college. After that, she would disappear.I told Sophie, "I can't believe this is happening." She is not going to die. Just going to college."Might as well be dying. I won't see her every day.""You'll adjust. Parents always do."However, I wasn't prepared. Not even near.Evelyn was submitting college applications. Fifteen applications. throughout the entire nation.Stanford?I perused her list. "That's California."Mama, I know where it is."That's everything so far.That's the idea.I'd like to have a new experience. My heart shattered even more.At the age of 15, the twins were doing well in their sophomore year.Every play included Claire.Lead

Five years later. I was sixty-five. Kael was seventy-five.We'd sold the penthouse. Moved permanently to the upstate house.The house Kael had designed. Where we'd gotten married. Where we'd built our family.Coming full circle.The girls visited often. With their families.Evelyn had two children now. Grace, five. And Thomas, two.Claire had adopted. A little girl from foster care. Lily, four.Nora was still single. Focused on her career. Chief of neurosurgery at Columbia at thirty-four."I'll settle down eventually," she would say. "When I have time."That particular Saturday, everyone was coming. Rare occurrence. All three daughters. All the grandkids. Together."Nervous?" Kael asked."Excited. I miss them.""They were only here for Christmas."That was three months ago.Too long.The cars started arriving. Kids spilling out. Running. Screaming. Excited."Grandma! Grandpa!"I scooped up Grace. "Hi, baby girl! I missed you!""Missed you too, Grandma!"Thomas toddled over. "Gamma!"Ka

The upstate house always does something to me.I don't know how to explain it except that the second we turn off the main road my shoulders drop about two inches. Marcus noticed it once, years ago. Said I became a different person the moment we pulled into the driveway. I told him that wasn't true. It probably is.Grace was out of the car before I cut the engine."The tree!" She ran at it like it had been waiting for her specifically. She does this every time. Tries to get her arms around it, can't, tries anyway. My mother planted it the year I was born and it's been Grace's tree since she was old enough to care about things.My parents were on the porch. My mother in a linen shirt, sleeves up, the particular relaxed version of herself she only gets here. My father standing at the railing doing his thing looking at the property like he's running a checklist. He designed this house. Thirty years later he's still checking it.Marcus shook his hand. I watched my father's face during it.

The Blackwell Foundation Gala was in December.My mother had co-founded it twenty years ago and she ran it the way she ran everything that mattered to her like failure wasn't an option she'd considered. Foster care programs, arts education, women coming out of the system. The causes were personal and she didn't discuss how personal. You just knew.My father attended every year like it was the only place he wanted to be. Thirty years of watching him be that way about her and it still did something to me.We arrived at eight. Marcus in a dark suit, me in something my mother had helped me pick out in October, back when October felt like a different life. The venue was the kind of place that knew what it was — high ceilings, good light, the particular sound of two hundred people trying to be heard over two hundred people.Marcus worked the room the way he always did. Names, details, the small personal things he kept filed away about everyone. He'd ask after someone's daughter's recital or