me when I meet them at Thanksgiving? How much interrogation will I have to endure? Quite a bit, I imagine. For all they know, I’m just out of prison, which might be a bit unsettling for them.” They had been dating for three months, and he had met Sophie, but not Carole, when she came home for a weekend. Sophie loved him, and Carole was sure she would from everything she’d heard.
“My family is going to love you,” Liz reassured him. Andrew was never insecure, but he was nervous about them. He knew all about The Factory and its remarkable history, and he was curious to meet her mother. He thought she should write a book about her life, although Liz said she would never do it. She was much too discreet and modest to write about her own life. He told Liz that she should do it in that case, but she didn’t think her mother would like that either. “Besides, my sister’s boyfriend is going to upstage you,” she said about Thanksgiving, “He’s twenty-four years old, a rock star, and they’re having a baby in June.”
“What a fascinating group of people you are,” he said, intrigued by her, and the stories she had told him about her life and youth. “I can hardly wait to meet them, although it’s disappointing that the rock star will upstage me. Maybe I should get a tattoo,” he said, musing, and then he pulled her toward him, and suddenly they were both laughing, and he was kissing her and they made love again. She always laughed a lot with him, and she loved his sense of humor.
And when they all assembled for the Thanksgiving weekend, it was like Maribelle’s funeral without the sadness. They were happy to be together and they missed her, but they chattered constantly, and the house was bulging at the seams. It was the first time anyone had met Taylor, and they were all interested in her. She was a little overwhelmed at first, but she was genuinely nice to everyone, and obviously madly in love with Phillip. She stayed close to him, and they held hands most of the time. And after talking to her for a while and walking with her in the garden, Olivia came back beaming and it was obvious that she approved. She was everything Amanda wasn’t and everything Olivia had always wanted for him.
Liz and Andrew were the next arrivals from the city, and he charmed everyone with his quick wit and very dry sense of humor. He regaled them with stories about allegedly ghastly hunting weekends in England, and his misspent youth. And he assured them all that Liz was a very, very talented writer, and he was sure that she would be famous one day. It was music to Olivia’s ears.
And the hit of the weekend was Danny Hell. He was funny, irreverent, and outrageous, he had a cockney accent an inch thick that Andrew imitated to perfection, and the two of them bantered endlessly in slang no one else could understand. He was young, talented, and hip, and it was obvious he was crazy about Cass, and he said he was thrilled about their baby, and played guitar with the kids while the adults stared in amazement. It was an utterly perfect time, as Cass watched Danny like a mother hen. Cass and her mother got a little quiet time together, and she stunned Olivia by asking her if she’d come to the birth.
“To be honest, Mom, I’m scared to death. Of the delivery and everything else. Danny keeps saying everything’s going to be fine, but what does he know? He’s twelve years old,” she said with damp eyes, and her mother was deeply touched. She gave her a warm hug.
“He’s right, it will be fine. And I’d be honored to be there.” She couldn’t believe that after all this time, Cass wanted her at her child’s birth. It didn’t get better than that. And Maribelle had been right. It had all worked out in the end. “I’ll come and see you before then. There’s a château in Provence I want to check out this spring, for next summer’s vacation. We’re going to need a very, very big place this year, with all of these new faces.” She was expecting Liz to bring Andrew, if he was willing. Taylor would be with Phillip instead of Amanda, and Cass was finally joining them, with Danny, the baby, and a nanny.