Chapter Text
If there was a time to do it, it was now. Or, at the very least, Miranda had reasoned it was now time to take the leap again. And, with all hope, for the final time.
Olivia was precisely what she needed. Not wanted. But desperately needed.
Respectful, mild mannered, although intelligent enough to carry on a conversation about something other than stocks or business-end, Olivia liked the theatre and other kinds of art, and she was well-read. Miranda could manage this relationship better than any other relationship she had ever had in her life. And all it took was four divorces.
Yes.
Now she had found a match. Someone fiscally responsible, and Miranda never thought she would ever use those words in particular – as they did nothing to incite fire in anyone’s loins – however, she was no spring hen and, she had to face fact, she was lonely. She was human. Mostly between the hours of five thirty pm to five thirty am Monday through Friday, and then she was just Miranda on the weekends. She had done better. Learned to.
Somewhat.
The ring in her purse weighed her down regardless.
Her eyes flicked to the rear-view mirror. Her driver had glanced back. She’d just caught it in her periphery.
“I’ll pick up the girls from the airport at 6:15 PM and drop them off, but Caroline forewarned me that she wants Shake Shack so we might be a little late.” Evan told her, primly.
The thirty eight year old man was Roy’s replacement since retirement became paramount to his happiness – Miranda, despite being incredibly inconvenienced by this change, had to let him go. He had stayed for longer than was ever necessary, only for her, and Miranda knew it. And she had let it happen for as long as he would allow without remorse.
There would be no other ‘Roy’. Miranda knew that too. Still, the girls and their dietary habits…
“I’ll never understand why my children choose to eat that when I could have an entire Nobu buffet flown in–” Miranda’s voice carried off and she returned to her prior view out the back passenger side window. To his credit, Evan chuckled. Miranda was serious. And she was sincerely baffled. Yet, still he chuckled and, somehow, she found she didn’t mind.
The remainder of the drive home was silent. All except for one brief confrontation with a police car stuck behind traffic. With her head inclined toward the window, she watched her young driver out of the corner of her eye, having to really hold his tongue while cars ahead refused to follow the typical rules of pulling over to the side.
Something about the way he was was familiar, comforting.
He was no Roy. But he was a fine replacement.
—
Unlocking the front door and stepping inside, she knew she was stepping into an empty house. Patricia had long since passed and the girls had long since moved out, leaving her with a brownstone, time, patience, hobbies – and this partnership.
The brief beat of heels before stockinged feet made their way up to the third floor, and to her bedroom, where behind closed door she wasted no time in taking the black velvet box out of her purse and throwing the bag on the chair in the corner.
Around the bed to her side, she sat and cradled the small box in her hands, running her thumb against the ever so slightly soft textured material.
Miranda’s toes kneaded into plush cobalt blue carpet restlessly.
She reached and opened her bedside table and placed the box carefully inside, after she closed the drawer.
Even if she wanted to be able to explain the feeling inside of her, she more than likely wouldn’t be able to. Sometimes it was hard to distinguish excitement from dread. That was what Miranda told herself while letting her hands rest on the edges of the bed beside her thighs. She looked down at the back of her hands, which were less… Full, she supposed, than she was used to seeing. Still alabaster. Still stark against the charcoal grey duvet cover.
Miranda focused on the fabric and the feeling of the fabric, of the quiet in the house, on her breathing, until she was able to properly look around her bedroom and see it for what it was. A bedroom. Nothing was squeezing in, narrowing, tightening... Only the muscles in her chest, that's all. The walls stood sturdy and strong exactly where they were supposed to be. And it was alright.
Or, at least, it would be when she discussed all of this with the girls. Miranda’s heart stuttered and she lifted a hand to rub her sternum sympathetically, she took a breath.
It would be alright. As everything would be. Because it simply had to be.
—
She heard them before she saw them.
They still had keys. She would never take them away. Never.
So, Miranda wasn’t very surprised when bags were just dropped onto the floor of the kitchen as her girls came up with beaming smiles and sun kissed faces, arms already up.
“Heyyyy–” Carol sighed.
“I got sunburnt.” Cassidy warned her, and thumbed to her back.
“Hello, darlings.” She was careful not to press her hand to Cass’s upper back, opting to squeeze her side affectionately instead and lean in, wrapping her other arm around Caroline. Kisses pressed to cheeks, the usual, and, without further preamble, it was bags upstairs and showers, changes of clothes, then upstairs in the living room with tea and blankets.
It was no longer something that was ‘called’ when they arrived home from wherever they landed last, it was just routine.
While some inane reality television program droned in the background, one that captivated and engaged the twins so much so that Miranda actually managed to get through a few emails for change, Caroline laid on the floor on some throw pillows while Cassidy curled up in the lounge chair. Miranda had silently judged for the better part of a half an hour as they passed a bag of liquorice back and forth from the dollar store. Her girls had grown up and become people who she didn’t realize were possible.
They were brilliant and highly motivated women. Ambitious. Tenacious. Hers. Through and through.
Cassidy worked for a developing non-profit while continuing to pursue her education, and continue on from her Social Science and Law degree. Whoever influenced her to such a field, Miranda had her considerations, but always remained silent. Cassidy was a passionate and empathetic child. Miranda was not surprised. In fact, she was pleased. More than pleased.
While Carol had chosen to get into the trades. She began working at a fine dining establishment in Chicago fresh out of culinary school in New York. She’d gotten a lucky break. And, truthfully, it had been luck. Miranda honestly hadn’t anything to do with it, even if it looked suspicious. It had been on Caroline’s merit alone, one competition after another, through school.
The twins couldn’t be more different.
Caught in her thoughts, Miranda was shaken out of them by the crinkling of the bag.
“Pass me those, please.” Caroline reached her hand up from the floor and Cass plopped the plastic bag in it, chewing on a long red stale string of solidified high fructose corn syrup like it had slighted every ancestor in every timeline.
Miranda couldn’t help but make a small noise of disgust as she returned to her emails.
Caroline and Cassidy heard it, looked at one another, and then looked back at their mother who was suddenly more interesting than The Amazing Race.
“Hey. You. What’s with the noise?” Cass called her out, having to crane her neck and push her head against the back of the lounge back cushion to see her mom, before twisting around a different way to lean on the arm of the chair for better, more comfortable, leverage.
“What noise?” Miranda played dumb, scrolling through the few junk emails she received. A rarity. And all for various supplements and de-aging creams. It was laughable… She'd earned every mark...
“Mom.” Caroline’s voice dragged her gaze upward, and she looked at her daughter with slightly raised brows.
“I don’t understand why you girls go out of your way to eat the most unhealthy things. That’s all.” Miranda made it known that she had heard them and fully understood what was happening here. Her girls just looked back at her a mixture of exasperated amusement. She wasn’t sure if she was beginning to lose her edge or if she was just getting used to being looked at this way by them. She bristled slightly, although she wasn’t truly bothered much by it. She had a façade to maintain.
“We like normal food, mom. And normal people. And to do normal things in normal places with said normal people, and eat normal food with normal people too.”
Cassidy leaned over toward her sister, voice lowered.
“Did you just make that up right now?”
“Yup, just yammering. Just got in the pocket that time.” Caroline replied, adjusting her pillows she could lay with her back to the tv instead.
Miranda was less than amused by that response however.
“Are you saying that Nigel isn’t normal, or I am not normal…”
She didn’t anticipate either of her daughters to appear so affronted. Miranda’s brow arched then her brows knitted, confused.
“I think Nigel would be pretty damn offended if you called him normal, to be honest.”
Cassidy raised her liquorice in agreement as she chewed.
“Of course, forgive me.” Miranda had to fight the urge to roll her eyes at the pair, they hardly seemed to take anything seriously anymore. Perhaps, that was for the best. Perhaps now was the appropriate time.
Gently clearing her throat, Miranda locked her phone screen and set her phone aside on the arm of the chesterfield she sat, legs curled, in the corner of. It had to be the right time.
“Actually, darlings… I do have something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you two,” She began as lightly, but as seriously, as she could while maintaining that her nerves didn’t decide she clam up. Her hands rubbed together, then laced, and she watched their attention lock onto her with curiosity. “I promise it’s nothing of a health related concern, or anything with your father, nothing of that gravity or variety, I assure you.”
She had seen it in their eyes, that moment, just as it had shone in their eyes a few years ago when she had to sit them down and explain that her heart was no longer willing to put up with her and her schedule anymore. One heart attack later and Miranda had managed to regulate her life. Through a lot of sacrifice. Always with the sacrifice. It never ended.
Relief seemed to settle between them and Cassidy looked less like she was about to crawl onto the floor with her sister.
“Jesus, thank you for clearing that up quickly.” Carol managed to awkwardly laugh as she sat up and sat cross legged on the floor, engaged fully now with the conversation.
“Oh! Your last appointment, you didn’t call me after, how did it go–”
“Later, bobbsey. Focus, please.” Miranda gently interrupted and didn’t fight the slight upturn at the corner of her mouth while her daughter gave her a little defiant look with a smirk.
“Holding you to that… You always avoid me.”
Miranda didn’t dignify that, she didn’t have to, she had already planned on handing over her paperwork to Cass, who had developed that particular anxiety, to take a small peek at. It had eased. Just not entirely yet.
For a moment or two, she let the understanding of what she was going to announce settle, and she pushed down that dreadful excitement, or excited dread, whichever it was – No better time.
“I plan on asking Olivia to marry me. Next month in October. She… Well. She likes the month particularly, and I don’t mind either way. It seemed a nice gesture.” Miranda announced smoothly, as though she hadn’t rehearsed it to herself many, many times in the prior hours; as though she was proud of this decisions because, frankly, she had no reason not to be.
When her daughters went still, wax-figure still, expressions frozen in something… Stunned, surprised, was there any amount of delight? She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t able to read that clearly…
“O-Oh my g-god, Mom!” Cassidy, never one for subtlety, swung the bag of liquorice in her hand half haphazardly and hit her twin in the shoulder, knocking her into awareness.
“That’s so great!” The words were too loud, too enthused, too false… They made Miranda wince, and Caroline’s face turned a shade of red Miranda was sure she hadn’t seen in a few years.
Clearly seeing how this was going to go down a rabbit hole very quickly if she didn’t point out the obvious quickly, Cassidy threw back her blanket and shot her sister a glare in passing, prompting Caroline to shrug helplessly, then stay quiet.
“Look, mom, we’re sorry. We’re happy for you, I swear to god, we are sooo fuckin’ happy for you,” Miranda was so thrown that she didn’t reprimand as her daughter sat down on the couch beside her and took her hands, holding them in her lap. The look of utter bemusement on Cassidy’s freckled, slightly sunburnt features didn’t make sense. “We are thrilled, we like Olivia, she’s nice. But aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Forgetting something–” Miranda repeated, not following whatsoever, and her daughter’s blue eyes were beseeching her to recall whatever it was she was wholeheartedly attempting to telepathically communicate. She actually looked like she might be straining something in doing so -- if one eye could have somehow popped just a tad comically larger as the seconds ticked by.
Eventually, not getting it, Miranda just huffed at the ridiculousness of the effort to pussyfoot and withdrew her hands, folding them on her lap.
“Cassidy, what are you trying to say, what have I forgotten? I have planned this meticulously, to the minute, I’m very aware of what a proposal entails, I have done this before, you know–”
“Mom, we know Andy left but did you guys ever actually sign the papers?” Caroline blurted out from her seated position on the carpet, her arms outstretched wide to reflect the very large question now filling up the space in the room they sat in.
Momentarily, Miranda looked at her adult daughter like she was a tried and true lunatic.
“The papers?” She scoffed, incredulous.
“The divorce papers. Did you sign them? Ever?”
“Of course, w– Of course, we d-d–” Miranda stuttered and then her mind, with perfect clarity, narrowed down to the very real understanding, that something as huge as that, and as important, could possibly be missed. And by her? No... No, no.
She shook her head, her pout parting a few times to form words which didn't quite manage to make it past the 'throat stage' in their formation. The papers. Her mouth snapped shut and her spine straightened impossibly as it finally dawned.
The colour drained quickly from her cheeks as her eyes began to slowly transition through a few different phases of emotion, locked onto Caroline but not really seeing her seated there looking a little grey herself.
“Ooookay. Uh,” Cassidy looked between her sister and her mom, and knowing full well that her mother was way too deep in the spiral to really hear anything they were saying, she whisper-yelled at her sister. “Go. Go get the wine. Go!Go!Go!GO!”
Up and off like a shot, Carol snapped out of it enough to fling herself up off the floor and race downstairs to the wine cellar like her life depended on it, leaving Cassidy to just brace and hope a good, moderately expensive chardonnay would help ease them through these trying times, or the next several hours. She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck at her mother’s despondency. How she managed to forget…
It made her wonder if Andy forgot too.
Cassidy and her sister wondered when this would finally come up. They'd almost thought it never would.