Romans & histoires The Nineties

It’s like having a warm blanket wrapped round you in the cooler months of Fall. “Good morning, Miss Tate.” Nina says with a broad smile on her warm and loving face. I love her, she’s the best nanny, cook, housekeeper in the world. She’s like a second mom to me. If I had to choose a different mom, it would definitely be Nina. She’s wearing her grey dress uniform with starched white collar and cuffs on the short sleeves. Over which she has on her usual white pinny edged with white lace. She reminds me of Jennifer Lopez from Maid in Manhattan, with her olive skin, dark as dark hair tied in a smart bun at the base of her neck and large gold hooped earrings. Nine comes from Mexico but has lived a

Strange didn't begin to cover it. And yet the commenters kept calling him dumb.

So I sat alone in the apartment where we'd built so many memories and I whispered his name into the empty air, over and over, like a prayer. Two years. I could survive two years. I had to.

I leaned against the cold brick wall, my hand trembling as I pulled my phone from my pocket and called my assistant, Maria, to come get me. The ninth time. I thought back to the ridiculous bet Julia had proposed a year ago. "Nine choices, Leona. Let's see who Isak really picks. The loser walks." The first time was at my mother's funeral. A rival family crashed the service and opened fire. Isak dove to shield Julia without a second thought. The second time was at his succession ceremony. A bomb went off, and his first instinct was, again, to protect Julia. The third, fourth, fifth time…

“Nine hundred and ninety-nine roses. It’s quite a sight.” I didn’t even look up. “The usual. Split them among the staff.” That was the third time that week. It was obvious Annie was trying to recreate the early days of our relationship. Back then, it was flowers, gifts, and her waiting downstairs for hours just to see me. However, that was then. Now, those same gestures didn’t touch me. They just wore me down. Nurse Lisa hesitated for a moment. “She’s out at the front desk again. She said she has to see you today.”

“I just want to know if I am really a barren, I want to know if I can actually get pregnant, I want a child, I want to have kids and live happily with them, I want to have someone to yell at.” “You know that’s not going to be possible with me right?” “Yeah, I know. At least I have only sixty days left, so I will go make a family with someone else.” “Do you think I will allow that?” “What?” “Ninety days can end up being forever, have you thought about that?”

Nine-fifteen. Nine-twenty.