wanted kids before, because I was so unhappy as a child. I didn’t want to make someone else unhappy, and I guess I didn’t see it, but Amanda is like my mother, the bad side of her, the busy business side. I think my mom actually liked having kids and she loved us. Amanda is all about her work and her ambitions, and I don’t think she’d be capable of loving a child.” Taylor would be the perfect mother to his children, she was just the right woman for him. Destiny had given him a great gift the day he met her, and another chance. “How many kids would you want, by the way?” He had never thought to ask her, but it was obvious that she would want children. She was that kind of girl, and she loved kids, or she wouldn’t be an elementary school teacher.
“I’ve always wanted four,” she said, looking dreamy for a minute. And with him, they could afford them. She had always thought that in real life she’d have to settle for one or two. Phillip looked startled.
“Could we start with one, and see how it goes?” he said, looking strangled, and she laughed at him and kissed him again.
“They usually come one at a time.”
“Not always. And I’m getting a late start.”
“We’ll make up for lost time. Maybe two sets of twins would do it,” she teased him.
“I think I’m going to faint,” he said, and pretended to collapse on the sand. It was utterly amazing to him that a little over two months before he had been living with Amanda, and now he was here with this remarkable young girl, talking about having four children, and planning their future as though it were the most natural thing in the world. “It’s amazing how life changes, isn’t it?” he said to her seriously. “One minute you think you know exactly what you’re doing and where you’re going, and the next you’re ass over teakettle, and everything has turned around. It’s kind of nice, if you don’t mind the bumps.” He was happier than he’d ever been in his life.
“My brother said strange things happen in New York,” she said, laughing, “and he was right.” She had told her family about Phillip by then. She had explained that he had a good job, was a wonderful man, was forty-six years old and getting a divorce. They were nervous about his age but willing to give him a chance if he was good to her. And they had no idea about his relationship to The Factory because she had known nothing about it, and now that she knew, she didn’t want to tell them yet. She wanted them to be impressed by him, not by what he had, and the magnitude of that would be hard for them to ignore.
They walked down the beach together on Sunday, hand in hand. He said he wanted to take her somewhere for a vacation, maybe the Caribbean that winter for Christmas, and he wanted to introduce her to his grandmother before anyone else. She was the essence of the family for him, and what he loved most about it. He described her to Taylor as this adorable sparkling little old lady who loved to play cards. She had taught him to play poker and liar’s dice. And Taylor said she was dying to meet her. He suggested they go out to Long Island to visit the following weekend. They had nothing but time ahead of them now, and wonderful plans.
They had just walked back into the house on Sunday afternoon, and were talking about packing to go back to New York, when his cell phone rang. It was his mother, and she sounded strange to him. Distant, frozen, shocked. He knew something terrible had happened the minute he heard her voice.
“What’s wrong?” he said, and sat down as Taylor watched his face. She knew what those calls were like. She still remembered what her sister’s face had looked like when they got the call that their parents had been killed. Without knowing it, she held her breath, and so did he. He listened for a long time, and she saw tears spring into his eyes and roll down his cheeks. She went to rub his shoulders, and laid her face against his back, so he would feel her love for him, and her support.
The conversation with his mother was brief. All Taylor heard him say was that he