Caroline knocked on her mother's room and entered a second after, "are you ready for dinner mom?"
Miranda tried to dry the tears but she wasn't quick enough nor was the eyeliner forgiving enough to not show.
"Are you crying?" Caroline asks though she knows the answer. Olivia had left a few days earlier and her mother always cried after. They only saw Olivia every summer, ever since Andrea had left them on the airport stairs. A few weeks later adoption papers stating both women as guardians had arrived, yet the clause was that Andrea would keep the child and Miranda would only be allowed summers. The editor never contested the rights, in fact the two women had not spoken. The whole process was carried on by a Chicago law firm and it had been a ritual since then for Olivia to come every summer.
The truth is the twins had never seen their mother change so much after a breakup, they had never seen her so devastated, so reserved, so pensive. None of her other marriages had mattered, the previous husbands had been accessories to keep and discard along with a spread for Spring or Fall. The two sisters knew it and yet they did not dare to intervene.
"Why don't you call her?" They had asked multiple times.
Miranda always shook her head, "I can't. I was the one that hurt her."
"I don't think Andrea left because of that, mom you love her!"
"Sometimes love is letting go Bobbsey sometimes it is giving her space and time'"
"It's been five years," they would argue.
"It can be a lifetime for a broken heart to heal," Miranda would answer and gets up shooing her daughters out. Tonight, had been no different.
"Is she coming?" Cass asks at the foot of the stairs.
"She said she would in a minute. Tell Alma to get dinner set."
"Is she crying again?" the younger sister of a few minutes asks.
Caroline nods. The two young women are here on their weekly visit to their mother. They never thought they would worry about her, the dragon lady but they do. The war changed her, it made her humbler and sadder but loosing Andrea had made her vulnerable in a way neither twin is sure their mother ever had been.
~ Another Cartier gift arrived for Andrea. They always arrived on the same day of her birthday, every February. They were special commission Andrea knew because she had taken the first two to the Cartier store down in Polanco. The attendant had looked confused at first, then the manager had intervened.
"A commission from Mrs. Priestly-Sachs," she had paused looked very nervous, "Miranda Priestly that is all I can see here, was there something wrong with them?"
Andrea had shaken her head and assured the nervous manager that everything was perfect.
"Miranda's Office," the other voice at the end of the line had said. Andrea didn't answer, she wasn't sure why she called. She had never replied to the gifts. It was a mutual understanding. She got jewels and in return sent a Gucci scarf and Atelier chocolates from the little store down Plaza Santa Fe, Miranda had liked. She sent them every September on her wife's birthday.
"I would like to talk to Miranda," she says demurely. She knows the assistant is probably smirking wondering who this person thinks she is.
"May I ask who this is?"
"Tell her it's her wife," Andrea answers. She doesn't know why she said that, she has never said that to anyone. She could have said Andrea Sachs, or Andrea but no she had said wife. It felt strange in her mouth, like dried walnuts, like wine tannins, like speaking up in class when you're unsure of the answer.
The assistant put her on hold.
"Miranda?" the thin blond girl dressed in Vera Wang and Dolce had asked.
Miranda had turned as always annoyed by being interrupted in her talk with Nigel. She had glared at the young assistant, "I don't remember calling you."
"Um... you have a call," she said.
"Take a message," Nigel jumped to intervene quickly.
"She said it was your wife," the girl answered into immediate silence.
Miranda waved her hands and whispers, "I'll take it you may leave."
Nigel left with her, closing the door behind.
"Miranda is married?" the young assistant asked.
"Oh for Pete's sake, you won't last the week," he deadpanned and walked over to his office.
"Andrea?" Miranda answered tentatively. There was soft silence and she answered.
"Miranda, hi," it was soft, as if Andrea herself was not expecting to hear her own voice, there was a breath after it, velvet and lace.
"Is everything okay?" Miranda asks because the only reason she can think of for Andrea to call is that something has happened to her or Olivia.
"Yes.. yes …I ..I just .. I wante.. I got your gift," she finally stutters out.
Calling Miranda had not been a whim, it had been a carefully crafted thought. She had wanted to for months, years. She had dialed a lot of times never finishing the last number.
"Oh," Miranda breathes into the phone. She sits down and rests her elbows on the desk, she has tears at bay, her breath hitches and as much as she tells herself that she should not. She hopes. She hopes that Andrea says she misses her, that she still loves her. She hopes so much. She should not.
"I hope you liked it," Miranda says after beats of silence go by.
"I did. I always do. It's beautiful," Andrea answers. The line is plagued by silence.
"Well, that was it," Andrea sais again. Miranda wants to stop her, to tell her she needs her, she wants to ask if she still loves her but she doesn't. She dries the tears that are seamlessly falling with her free hand and steadies her voice.
"Oh, you don't have to thank me. Happy Birthday Andrea," she says.
"I have to go," the younger woman explains hoping that Miranda stops her. She does not.
"I understand."
"Goodbye," Andrea whispers.
"Andrea!" Miranda desperately speaks into the phone.
"Yes?" Andrea answers the same despair flinging from her cracked voice.
"you can always call me home, or directly, you know that right?"
"yes of course," Andrea answers relieved and deflated at the same time.
"Cancel the rest of my day," she tells the assistant standing outside the door, "have Roy bring my keys. I want to drive."
The rush feels like a whirlwind, she is met with her bag, coat and car keys.
She drives to the Hamptons, to her beach house. She drives alone, she drives crying. She wants to know why Andrea had called, she wants to call her back and say so much. She wants to. She wants to, but she can't. She promised she'd let the young woman be. That she would not pull her back ever again. She promised, she repeats to herself as she pours whiskey after whiskey. She's going to have a headache tomorrow it does not matter, she wants to forget. She wants to forget that day and the following morning when she blacks out again.
The phone call is not the only surprise that years brings. Oliva asks Andrea to let her spend Christmas vacation with Miranda. It breaks Andrea's heart. She always wondered what her grandmother had felt when she had been taken away, now she knew.
"Of course! Darling," she answers with the best smile she can muster. She sends Oliva off with well wishes and gifts for everyone. She takes her to the same airport at the other edge of city, large metal birds flanking in and out roaring as they go. She waves at the gate and musters all her strength to not cry.
She ends up having Christmas dinner with her mother who she barely speaks to, who has flown down uninvited and who has insisted they cook turkey even though it's only two of them. She ends up drinking too much, too early and wishing she could skip the holiday altogether. Christmas used to be her favorite holiday, full of wonder and hope. Andrea used to believe in her grandmother's arms that magic existed, that the world got kinder, that the star of Bethlehem guided them all. Growing up took all that away, the days got busy, sad, angry and expensive. Olivia had given her hope again, the chance to make someone else believe Christmas was beautiful and magical, take her to midnight mass, the red flowers and the incense imprinting in their memories.
Oliva calls to her surprise before midnight, "mom?"
"Darling! How are you? Are you having fun?" she asks.
She can hear the commotion of a party, she was sure Miranda had pulled out all the stops for their 8-year-old daughter, she was sure that there was music, and wonder and trees as tall as Olivia could imagine.
"Yes, Miranda had seats for the Carnegie Hall concert and we're going shopping tomorrow!"
"Oh, Olie I'm so glad," she says the childhood moniker she rarely used coming back. She had learned one thing about names from Miranda there was nothing more beautiful than using someone's full name.
"I miss you mom, Feliz Navidad, do you want to wish Miranda a Merry Christmas," the child asks.
"Wish everyone one for me okay?" she answers.
"I can go find Miranda?"
"No! no! no, just do it for me. Now go have fun."
"Okay mom!" the child hangs up and Miranda waits for her to do so. She was listening onto the call. She had hoped that Andrea would say yes, that she wanted to talk to her. She had hoped so since the phone call earlier that year, but Andrea had not called. The year had passed on quietly, the scarf had arrived, Olivia had called about the visit and yet Andrea had never called again. The twins insisted again, but Miranda was adamant, she would not corner Andrea. She would never try again.
'I don't know how you let Olivia go with that woman!" her mother had yelled from the kitchen.
"Mom, Miranda is a close member of the family," Andrea stuttered. Her mother knew, she knew about them, about Mexico, about the wedding. The press had hinted, the press had said, her mother had no doubt read something. They never talked about it, she never asked. The truth is her mother had never physically seen them get married, she had never seen them together and she choose to tell herself that it had not happened.
"It's not healthy for Olivia, what is she going to think? That you two are somewhat related?"
"Mother, Oliva knows that Miranda cares for her. I don't want to talk about it."
"Cares for her, my is that what we call it now? Your father would be so disappointed in you. What you and that editor did was a sin," her mother keeps yelling from the kitchen. She is washing the dishes, even though Andrea has insisted that Maria can do it. Maria has insisted she could do, but Mrs. Sachs has still refused to let anyone help.
"I don't want to talk about it," Andrea repeats.
"That woman was bad news, always since you went to New York."
"Mom! Stop it, not tonight! I don't want to fucking talk about it," she yells standing in the kitchen. Maria is picking up the plates, Maria remembers Miranda. She remembers the war, she remembers when Andrea came home from the airport, four-year old Olivia in her arms. Maria remembers the days it took for Andrea to stop crying, the time it took to pull herself together. Maria was the only friend Andrea had left, the only one that sat down with a bottle of tequila and listened to Andrea's moral dilemma.
"I'm going to bed. Maria go home, tomorrow we'll have lunch."
"Oh no, señora no quiero molestar," the dark -haired maid said.
"Maria, you are my friend perhaps more welcomed than my mother," Andrea said and walked off to bed, leaving the poor woman with a sobbing Anastasia Sachs and pile of clean dishes and food.
While Miranda and Andrea fought their own demons, their morals and the self-promises, Olivia was growing up in a curious world. A world full of classmates that knew who she was related to, who asked about her summers with the most fashionable woman in the world and who asked about Andrea and her humanitarian causes. A world that made her at a week shy of 13 ask about her past.
"Mom?"
"Yes, darling," Andrea looked up from the deep cherry desk in the study. Her glasses perched on the edge of her nose and her face illuminated by the light of her screen.
"I want you to tell me about mom," the young child stated. She had Natalie's eyes, green and gray, bubbling over with spark and cheerfulness. Her hair that had been blond like her mother's was now a dark shade of tan and her apple shaped face had high cheekbones. She barely resembled her mother, except for the eyes the eyes had her soul.
"You know everything about her honey," Andrea tosses non-challantly.
"I want to know where she's buried?"
"I have already told you," Andrea says looking back at her screen.
"That you don't remember," the child interrupts, "but you're lying. You have to know. Where is she mom? And who is my father? Why don't you ever talk about him? Why are you and Miranda apart? I know you are more than friends."
"Darling, you're too young for all of this, mommy has work," Andrea usually does not dismiss her daughter like that, but she's not in the mood. She feels like she's being ambushed and she has no answers, she doesn't like the feeling.
"No! I'm not. I'm 13 I know I'm not an adult, but I am old enough. I deserve to know. Mom?"
Andrea looks up, she knows she's lost the battle.
"You and Miranda are married. I'm not dumb, she has a picture. I looked it up. I looked up old articles about the war, and there is mention of you and her," the child walks over to sit facing her mother.
"Fine, if you want to know I'll tell you…." She pauses, she has always known she'd have to at some point explain. "The war was a horrible experience. We ran away, your mother and I. We were the best of friends, she was like a sister to me. You already know we met in college. Well Miranda came too, we were … we had something that was starting. I cared deeply for her and I wanted her to be safe. Caroline and Cassidy were in Europe with their father and so we ran to the only place I felt safe, here. While we were here, the US was falling apart, violence started to follow us here. Those were scary times, your mother got pregnant with you."
"Who was my dad? Was he a bad man?"
"No, he was kind and he cared for your mother. The war took him back to his country. He didn't know your mom was expecting you," Andrea hides the truth, she doesn't see a point in telling Olivia her father was married. She would take that secret to the grave.
"The city got to insecure after some time and with Natalie having you we wanted somewhere safer and so we went to live in the hacienda."
The child nods, she's listening, she's absorbing ever word her chocolate eyed mother speaks.
"Unfortunately, the cartels made up of bad people rose up there too, and the violence reached us there, they stole the lands from the owners with guns and bombs. That was the moment your mother died. She was protecting you, she was alone in the farm that day. I had gone to the market," she stops.
"And Miranda?"
"She was not there either, when I got back your mom had been hurt. She made me promise I would take care of you. She entrusted the most precious thing in her life to me, and I did everything I could to save you. I had to flee to save you. I had to leave," she knows this has been the truth she has been hiding.
"So… you left mom there? Is that why you don't know where she is? You left her there for the vultures? She rotted away? Or is she buried with some other 20 people in a common grave? How could you?"
"Olivia, I had to go! They were coming for us, if I had stayed we would have died, they would have killed me and you and your mother would not have wanted that. She would have done the same to save you. You would not understand," she explains.
"What? What would I not understand?"
She sees herself standing at the hacienda yelling the same words at Miranda.
"And Miranda?" the child asks.
"She … she had to make sure her own daughters were safe."
"She wasn't there?"
Andrea shakes her head.
"She betrayed us. It is true then. That she went with the cartels?" the child asks.
"No, Miranda never hurt anyone … she was making sure her children would be safe. The war made us do things we would never consider today, that we didn't think we were capable of."
"Is that why you married her? And left her?" the child asks again sarcastically.
Andrea knows this can possibly be easy to comprehend for a teen. She can't come to terms with it herself.
"No, I left her because my family did not approve of us. I left her because my own moral compass was torn. But Olivia I have never doubted that Miranda is a good person and she loves you immensely."
"I can't believe both of you," Olivia spits.
"Oliva there is so much I can't explain, because even for us grown-ups it's hard to explain. There is so many people to please, so many rules and expectations to come to terms with. I know a few things for sure though. Your mom meant the world to me and she trusted Miranda and I to take care of you. She believed we were good people and she would have done the same thing I did to save you. I know Miranda is a good person, I never would have forgiven her if I didn't think so. I know she never would hurt anyone willingly. I know she loves you the same or more than I do."
The child nods, "I want to go to boarding school. I hate you both."
The words wash over her like cold water. She had hoped that this conversation would happen later in life, that older Oliva would understand.
"Darling," Andrea tries, she tries to reconcile with her daughter. She tries to explain. In the end she agrees, because she too believes that maybe Olivia just needs space.
In the winter, she flies out to New Hampshire, and when the headmistress tells her that her daughter does not want to see her she almost loses her calm.
"Miss Sachs, I'm so sorry Olivia refuses to see you," there is a pause Frances M. the headmistress to the all girl's boarding school that charges per year more than four years of college cost smiles, "we can give you the key to her room?"
Andrea shakes her head, "No it's okay. I will try again later."
In the summer, it is Miranda who tries to the same result. "Miss Priestly, Oliva does not want to see you. Miss Sachs… your wife?" the headmistress asks.
Miranda nods, dressed in all pale blue her hand spreads out covering her mouth and she's trying not to cry. "she came earlier this year to the same result. We would recommend therapy? Olivia is doing good in school and sports but she is quiet and refuses to make contact with both of you. That worries us,"
Miranda presses her lips and shakes her head, "I'll decide what you should worry about. Just
Both women let the summer pass and a new term commence. They will let her have time, she reminds them of themselves perhaps, who else would she be like?
"Andrea?" Miranda answers her phone in late November.
"Miranda," Andrea's voice is again raspy and then there is a silence… "I want to tell you so many things."
Miranda breathes into the phone, "tell me."
"I miss you," it is as if she wanted to start the longest conversation but was afraid she'd run out of words, or breath or time.
Miranda doesn't answer, "Olivia sent a postcard. I suppose that's a start," Andrea says because she does not know what to fill the silence with. She had not called to talk about Olivia. She would like to talk about Olivia, she would like to talk about their shared daughter like normal couples did. She would like to talk about the price of avocado and how much they hated traffic.
"I'm in New York," Andrea says and again Miranda's heart beats wildly. She tells herself that she should not. She is not allowed to hope, she will end disillusioned like last time. She does not deserve to hope but she does anyway. She hopes against her better judgment because her body does if for her. She sits down on her desk, and feels the pit of her stomach fall.
"Oh," she whispers.
"I came for the peace symposium."
"Oh," Miranda whispers again. If it wasn't such a fragile moment Andrea would joke that her responses are not eloquent. If so much wasn't hanging on the line, she would say that she does not understand how Elias Clarke keeps her as editor.
"I could have sent anyone Miranda," Andrea explains.
Miranda wants to understand. She imagines the words that come next but does not dare to put them together.
"Would you have dinner with me?" the younger woman asks and Miranda nods before she can answer, "Yes."
"I'm staying at the Plaza, the main restaurant. I'll have them make a reservation? Seven?"
'I'll be there."
Miranda arrives before Andrea, thirty minutes to be exact. Andrea arrives ten minutes late, looking slightly frazzled in dark washed jeans and a black turtleneck. Miranda wears a grey wool coat and a black wrap dress.
"Miranda, I … I didn't know what to wear," the brown- haired woman confesses and it is almost cause for laughter. Two highly successful women, nervous over dinner.
"Andrea, you would look good in anything," Miranda wants to say she looks beautiful but she doesn't want to overstep.
"I miss you," the lawyer repeats.
"Not here Andrea," Miranda whispers painfully.
Andrea inhales, "I don't know what to talk about?" she smiles. Her smile is pure and clean and just as the older woman remembers.
They talk about the weather, and Olivia. No one orders steak or sole, they settle for pasta and a few glasses of wine. They talk about Paris fashion week and the new president. They tread lightly on everything, it is a game. They are playing charades.
"They have a beautiful view of the city in the back balcony, but I'm sure you have seen it," Andrea mentions. It is an invitation if Miranda is coy enough to take it. Miranda looks at Andrea with wonder. She is afraid the night will end, the sun will rise taking today with it. This night will fade into fantasy just like their love, like Mexico. A memory to archive into her mind.
"I haven't seen it lately," Miranda drops.
"Walk with me?" Andrea asks.
They do.
"I came for you Miranda," Andrea says.
She pulls away a strand from Miranda's hair. It is the same as she remembers back at the Nevada. Shoulder length, strait with volume. It suits her, makes her look more intellectual, not that she would ever look bad.
She tries to lean in, Miranda puts her hand to push her away, "Andrea, don't." she says.
"If you kiss me right now, and then leave tomorrow or the day after. I don't think I could stand it," her words are slow, punctuating the air, they are soft and come in full shallow breaths. "Andrea, it has taken so long to get here, to this passive feeling. When you left me in the airport, it took every ounce of strength, everything I had left to not follow you. To get on the plane and let you be. You left me there and all these ideas I had of what our life would look like. I had seen us spending summers in the beach house, raising Olivia together, of us in New York, of trips to Paris or Rome or Chicago. I had this vision of who we were going to be. You left me and took it all with you.
I had to fight to not come after you, to not knock on your door again. To understand you needed to be, that I had broken your heart, that I had hurt you."
"That is not why I left, " Andrea interrupts.
"Back then it took a long time, days, nights, months to be strong for the girls, for Olivia for myself. It took a long time, I loved you Andrea. I loved you more than I ever though loving was possible. I dare say I had never loved until I met you, truly loved. You broke my heart, I could hear it break amidst the journalist standing … "
They both stay quiet, there are tears streaming from Miranda's diamond eyes.
"I didn't even think that was possible, hearts breaking like that. If you kiss me, if I let you, if I let myself hope and I follow you into your room or wherever this," she signals to the two of them, "is going. If you tomorrow decide that you can't forgive me, or you don't want to face the world, the media, if you can't do everything that comes with me. If you can't fight your morals, or your faith or your family for me. If you don't want to sacrifice your humanitarian work, if you're not willing to live here for some time, if you leave Andrea! If you leave this broken heart, mended with string and barely holding, this heart resting upon itself to keep beating won't stand it. I don't think I could survive it my beautiful Andrea."
"Miranda, I came for you… I won't leave."
"No, Andrea I don't want you to promise anything here. I can only imagine the solitude of having Olivia away puts everything into different perspectives. She will come around, she loves you I am sure of it. And when she does maybe you will realize you don't really need me."
"That is not why,"
Miranda puts her hand up again, she leans over the railing to see the breathtaking city, the night contrasting the multitude of lights that shine. The view of the park that is nothing but trees and water and yet people pay millions of dollars to say they own the view.
"I want you to go home Andrea, go home and think all this over. I want you to do whatever you enjoy doing, tell your parents that you love me. If you decide you still want this. I want you to be sure, and if you still want to I will always be here waiting for you."
Andrea nods, "I understand Miranda."
"I… Happy thanksgiving," the younger companion whispers and trails her fingers slightly over her ex-lover's arm.
Andrea flies to see Oliva. It has been months since her daughter spoke to her.
"Miss Sachs," the headmistress shakes her head, "tell her I'm not leaving until she comes down. Tell her I went to see Miranda."
The girl comes.
"Are you going to forgive yourself?" the young girl asks. The question surprises Andrea in the way it is posed. She doesn't' ask if she has forgiven Miranda because the young girl has understood that the reason why Andrea left her wife was because she had not forgiven herself. She has understood that beliefs weight much more than love sometimes. Wars have been waged for religion. Fortunes squandered, lives laid down in the name of ageless churches proclaiming to know what is wrong and right.
She tilts her head, and asks again, "are you going to tell grandma? If the only reason is grandma you should tell her."
"you are so much like your mother," Andrea tells her.
"Which of the three?" the child jokes.
"All of us, you are so much like all of us," Andrea smiles and she also understands her own mother. She feels sorry that they are so different, that they were always at odds. She wishes she could be the perfect daughter Anastasia deserved, like her older sister. She really tried. And then she wishes she could have a mother that would have understood, that would have supported her always, like she would always support Oliva. She suspects that is the same reason Natalie made her promise she would not give Olivia away to the Aster family.
"I'm ready to come home, at the end of the year," Olivia announces while her adoptive mother is pondering all the preceding's of the last week. She smiles, broad and happy.
"I'm so glad Olivia," she breathes.
Andrea goes home alone. She tells Maria everything that has happened. Maria holds the medal of the Virgin Mary she always wears around her neck while she speaks, "Mrs. Miranda loves you very much. She sends you those nice jewels." Andrea laughs.
"You are very sad without her."
They drink tequila again.
Andrea lets the months sink away again. She busies herself with work. She works indirectly with the Human Rights Coalition, she owns a nonprofit called 'Indigenous Lives' that rallies for the rights of the native Indians that inhabit Mexico, in the beginning they fought for basic rights, education, freedom, equal pay and regaining the stolen lands. Eight years after many still don't have their little plots or homes.
The organization provides free legal help as well as education for children in remote or inner-city areas and food when necessary. Olivia tells her mother that she wants to help, she wants to fund a scholarship for disadvantaged youth to be able to go to college. She starts with only one, asking donations from her boarding school friends who drop money like nothing.
In time, her little-girl project will grow into a full-pledged extension of the organization called
Natalia's College Fund in honor of her mother, sending hundredths of indigenous young adults to college in Mexico and Internationally for science careers. At that precise moment in time however Olivia did not know it yet.
Six months go by, before Andrea picks up the phone again and dials Miranda. She calls her office again.
"Miranda's office," the assistant a different one no doubt answers.
"I need to talk to Miranda, this is Andrea Sachs," she opts for her name.
"Andrea?" the pick-up takes a long time. Andrea was about to hang up. She isn't sure if it's deliberate, if Miranda was busy, if the assistant was incompetent.
"I thought I had gotten disconnected," Andrea ponders out loud.
"The truth is I thought of not answering," Miranda confesses candidly. She's got nothing to lose. She convinced herself that she had been right, Andrea had been taken by loneliness, a moment of desire, the ashes of what was. She had been sure of it, when she saw that Andrea went back to work, when she saw her in the cable news she watched about Mexico. The organization had moved to some new legislation to release old records and give lands back. It was an unpopular move with the nation's elite but Mexico was surprisingly a more transparent country since the war and change was a possibility. She had been even happier when Olivia had returned, forgiven them both and promised Miranda she would visit for fall again.
"Oh, well that would be your decision," Andrea answers hurt.
"How is Olivia?"
"Olivia is good, I called to tell you that I talked to my mother. I went to visit her and told her the truth. I told her everything," there is radio silence from the other side.
"I still want you Miranda, not just for a night, not just to have you again on my bed," as she says it the thought of Miranda under her plague her mind and she smiles running her hands over her thighs, "I mean I do want that too, but more than anything I still want to be married to you not just on a paper and a few rings but in everyday reality."
"I see," Miranda answers, "and you've thought about the press? They will hound you Andrea. It isn't like last time. The press does not have wars to cover and returning heroes. They will follow you and ask you about us, and the past, and the separation and the betrayal and everything. They will unearth everything about Olivia and your family. They will have no mercy."
"I know."
"And you have thought about your work?"
"Yes."
"You've thought about having to actually live in New York for a few months at least? You've thought that I will want you here? Or I will be there with you? You've thought about Olivia and your organization?
"Yes,"
"And you are sure?"
"I am,"
"Well … okay."
The call was simple, everything else was not. It was hell. It was hell on Earth. The press, the move, the readjusting. It was complicated but it was worth every single thing.
Waking up with Miranda, watching their three daughters talk and joke. Watching Caroline get married. Walking down the street in New York, flanked by a few body guards but holding Miranda's hand none the less. Spending summers in the Hamptons. Hearing Miranda a few years later give her goodbye speech and retire to live in Los Angeles with Andrea, having her help in the nonprofit. Her and Caroline work with indigenous women to help them design Mexican inspired couture. Watching Cassidy become a member of the UN and Olivia follow in Natalie's footsteps and become a doctor.
There were still days when Andrea went to church and still felt guilt. She was still afraid her grandmother would be disappointed, like her mother had been. She felt afraid that God would be disappointed. That she was not worthy of heaven. Those days still existed, brooded over her like a dark cloud but she fought them. There were days when Miranda doubted that Andrea truly loved her, truly had forgiven her, doubted this peaceful happiness they had found in the California waves. There were days when Olivia wishes she could mourn her mother in a grave instead of a monument to the fallen lives of the war. There were days when Caroline and Cassidy could not comprehend everything that had happened in their once ordinary lives. There are dark days for all of them, but the truth that this whole twist to their lives had been uncharted, like war terrain, like new chapters, like undrawn maps and unsung songs.
Yet, saying she was Andrea Priestly-Sachs made the storms worth every drop of rain.