Soaring (Magdalene #2)(53)

I don’t wish to hurt or offend you by suggesting you or Mom are distractions, however, I’m sure we all can agree that Olympia and Auden, as well as myself at this current juncture, are the priorities.

I wish to assure you I’m here. I’m safe. The house is even more wonderful than I thought it would be. I’ve met people and made friends. I’m volunteering. And although the road has been very bumpy, I’m settling and have hope I’ll find happiness here…with Auden and Olympia.

You have my sincere apologies I didn’t share that with you sooner. I’m sure you were worried and I’m terribly sorry I made you feel those feelings. But I must share now that there may be lapses between you hearing from me because the work I must do must take all my attention. I’ll try not to let the time go on this long before you get an update from me.

I would enjoy receiving emailed updates from you and Mom as well. I’ll do my best to reply as soon as I can.

My love to you and please extend that to Mom.

-Amelia

I only read it once for typos before sending it.

I held absolutely no hope that it would stop my father from attempting to get in touch with me to lambast me verbally, but I didn’t care. I was beyond caring. I was tired of being bested. I was tired of allowing myself to feel less than I was. I was tired of being what others wanted me to be and not being me.

So I did my daughterly duty.

If Dad couldn’t read that message and decipher what I needed and instead demanded what he needed back from me, he could go jump in a lake.

I shut down my computer, waltzed back to the kitchen, opened a bottle of wine, poured a glass in one of my exquisite new glasses and walked to my armchair that was made of leather so supple it was buttery.

I turned on the light.

Having used up large reserves of courage I didn’t know I had, I didn’t curl up in my chair and call Robin like I should.

I called my brother.

It was the right thing to do.

We both bitched about our parents, Conrad, and I told him about the way my kids were behaving and the things Alyssa and Mickey had said about Conrad and Martine.

With all of those things, supportive to the last, my big brother forcefully agreed.

Alas, he was extremely angry at my children, but then again, maybe he (and I) should be.

In the end, it was exactly what I needed.

We hung up and I did it smiling.

All my life, I’d allowed myself to be beaten, even gave away the ammunition to make that so.

Right then, I was curled in my chair in my elegant shoes and pretty dress with my exquisite wineglass and I decided on yet another part that was me.

That shit was going to end.

Completely.

Chapter Nine

Nice Dress

“From the gentleman down the bar…for you,” the bartender said.

I looked from him down to the fresh cosmopolitan he put in front of me then down the bar at an attractive man with blond hair, a little gray at the temples, his smiling blue eyes on me.

“Holy shit,” Alyssa said, sitting on a stool at a nice restaurant with a respectable bar one town over called Breeze Point.

“Lovely,” Josie, sitting on my other side, murmured.

We were out “trolling” as Alyssa put it, or “having girl time with the possibility of something happening” as Josie put it.

I decided to think of it as the latter as well as an opportunity to wear another of my going out outfits.

But at that moment, when the possibility of something happening happened, I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t had a man buy me a drink in so long that I forgot what I’d done when they did.

Since my current drink was running low, I lifted it to my lips, finished it and put my fingers to the stem of the glass of the new, shifting my eyes back to the man.

I smiled.

He smiled back again.

“Pure cool,” Alyssa approved.

“Well done,” Josie did the same.

I looked to Josie and noted, “He’s only sent this because you both have huge rocks on your fingers.”

They did. Although Josie’s was a fair sight bigger than Alyssa’s, neither ring failed to state the giver’s intention that these two women were t-a-k-e-n, taken.

And they were far more attractive than me, both tall, both blonde and both stunning.

“You say shit like that again, I’m bitch slappin’ some sense into you and don’t you doubt it,” Alyssa muttered.

I looked to her to see her eyes squinty on me, but I did doubt it.

Alyssa would never do that. She’d threaten it repeatedly (if needed), but she’d never do it.

“You’re hot,” she went on to declare.

“I’m not a tall, built blonde,” I pointed out.

“No, you’re a petite, beautiful brunette with big knockers, awesome gams and a great ass even though you pushed out a coupla kids and the rest of you is still too skinny,” she retorted. “Now shut up or I’ll bring a catfight to Breeze Point, I don’t care how ritzy this place is.”

“She’s right, you know,” Josie said and I looked her way. “There are many varieties of…hot.”

Josie using a slang word, something she rarely did, made me giggle.

“Now grab that drink, sister, and get that great ass over to that hot guy,” Alyssa ordered.