Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 130022 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130022 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
I didn’t stop to greet him at the door.
Before I’d fully arrived, he turned to the side, an indication to come in.
I only spoke when I’d squeezed by him, he’d closed the door and turned to face me.
“Hi.”
He smirked, I felt my vaginal walls contract, and he replied, “Hi. Hungry?”’
I nodded.
He took my hand (yes, took my hand) and led me to his kitchen.
And right into it.
Okay.
After he’d walked out on me, he’d spent precisely (I counted), five and a half months in his apartment before he moved into this house.
As such, I’d been to that house for another family meeting, before the one Yves had called last week, to discuss Manon’s high school graduation party.
Also, as we decided was fair to each other and the children so they didn’t have to split their celebrations, Remy had hosted each of our children’s birthday parties once in the time since we’d been apart (I had the other times, it was coming up to his turn again), and I’d attended.
And in the beginning, pre-Myrna, when we were attempting to be good, divorced parents, I had spent Christmas Eve there and Remy had made his mother’s (read: one of his mother’s housekeeper’s) famed etouffee. It was our family’s Christmas Eve tradition and one of the few things he allowed into our lives that had anything to do with Colette.
In other words, since it was open to the family room, I’d seen it. I’d walked by it.
But I’d never walked into his kitchen.
And I didn’t understand why being in his kitchen felt so profound.
But it did.
He let my hand go, went to the oven and opened it, asking, “Do you want wine or a martini?”
“Wine,” I answered as he pulled out the takeaway from keeping warm.
“Right,” he murmured, setting the food containers on the counter and reaching to get down plates.
“You do drinks, I’ll serve up,” I offered when he had the plates on the counter.
He looked at me, nodded, then moved out of the kitchen to his wet bar where he stored his wine.
Though, Manon told me, in the other wing of the house there was a walk-in wine room that was, “So rad, Mom, you wouldn’t believe.” Apparently, you could see it from the pool. However, I had not seen it as I had not been in that wing or near his pool.
Remy had lived there two and a half years, and I’d been in the living room and family room.
And that was it.
I shook off these thoughts, and how they were distressing me, and got down to sorting the food.
When I opened the lids, it was no surprise to see he got me my favorite. Combo platter with pulled pork and brisket.
It was also no surprise Remy got a combo too: pulled chicken and turkey.
He had always, from the time I’d met him, had a mind to healthy living.
This didn’t mean he didn’t drink or eat sweets or snack. He did.
Just that, for the most part, he selected healthy choices and never really went overboard on anything.
It also meant, even after he quit training for triathlons, he ran, went to the gym and lifted weights, and always played rugby.
Rugby was his thing. He went out of his way to follow the MLR in the U.S., the same with the European, Australian and New Zealand leagues.
He was so into it, he’d played in a league in New York, and one of the first things he’d done when we moved to Phoenix was find one here.
Then, in usual Remy fashion, five steps ahead of any game, he got deeply involved in the junior league, building that up, as well as the senior league.
He did this because he loved the game. He did this because he wanted others to love it.
And he did it because he knew he couldn’t play in the adult league after a certain age because he might get hurt, being mid- or late-forties and playing with guys in their twenties and thirties. But he wouldn’t want to quit.
He’d also given this to our boys.
Sabre and Yves both played junior, Yves still active, and Sabre had found a team in Tucson.
They loved playing and I loved watching, regardless of the fact that, more often than not, they’d end up bloody.
Still, they were all very good at it, the best on their teams (I will admit to some prejudice about that). And it was an interesting sport, far more than any other (I will admit to some prejudice about that too).
I, on the other hand (and I’d given this to my daughter), loved food, but hated physical activity.
I’d struggled with this in my twenties and thirties.
But in my forties, I realized it was who I was.
I was not sedentary by a long shot. And although I could go overboard, sitting around eating wasn’t my way of life.