Chapter 5

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"Have you heard anything from Mike?" Kara asked as she placed a cup of tea on the table before Maddie. Maddie would have much preferred a glass of the wine that Alisha and Sasha were currently enjoying, but she had learned from trial and error that alcohol irritated Nora's stomach.

Pretending it wasn't likely, in fact certain, that Sasha and Kara and probably Alisha already knew everything she was about to say, Maddie nodded. "He's on the island now. There are over 9000 people. It's probably the biggest community we found to date. It makes me wonder if there could be more of them out there."

"Their situation with the cruise ship sinking and losing communications is fairly unique," Sasha pointed out. "They were both stranded and cut off from the world."

"True, but think about how many isolated areas there are in the Pacific, even up in Alaska," Maddie argued.

"People might have turned off their communications on purpose," Alisha added, pausing and taking a drink before adding. "Some of the distress calls that I had to listen to from those early days still bother me, even now."

Kara reached over to squeeze Alisha's hand. "It was worth it, though, to find Bertrise."

"Anyway, back to Mike," Alisha said. "Go on."

Maddie sighed. "He's talked to Cristine and both girls. He told him about me. Apparently, it didn't go well."

Kara frowned, before confirming Maddie's suspicions that none of this was news to the other ladies. "I thought that Mike said it did go well?"

Sasha shook her head. "I'm not sure how well a conversation can possibly go when it starts with so I thought you were dead for three years and completely moved on in my life."

To hell with it. Maddie reached for a glass, pouring herself a healthy portion of wine. With Mike out town and Maddie still on 24-hour shifts, it had been easier to move into Kara and Danny's spare bedroom then transition Nora from one house to the other for Maddie's overnight shift so it wasn't like she had to drive home. Plus, Debbie had been a lifesaver on the not infrequent occasions when Maddie had to make a quick run in to work to handle some emergency. She might as well try to enjoy herself.

"I feel for Mike, I really do." Maddie took a swig of the rather expensive wine. "But I didn't sign up for this, you know?"

"Which part didn't you sign up for?" Kara asked. "The pandemic, the love triangle, or becoming insta-stepmom to two teenagers?"

"I'm not a homewrecker," Maddie responded instantly. "Hell, when Mike and I first..." she paused, not certain that Mike would appreciate her giving out this detail before deciding to hell with that too. "Mike and I hooked up a few times, but I didn't think it was going anywhere. Then he asked me to dinner and made it clear that this wasn't a casual let's get together kind of thing. I said no because he was still wearing his wedding ring. I said no for months. I have no idea how I got into this position."

"You and me both, sister," Kara said, sighing. Maddie blinked. It never occurred to her to wonder what the start of Kara and Danny's own relationship was.

"Oh please," Alisha scoffed. "You just claim that you were keeping casual in the beginning because you weren't convinced Danny was serious. It's like Sasha claiming that she's not back together with Tom when we all know that the only reason he would be caught dead at the ballet last week was because Sasha wanted to go."

"For the record," Sasha said, not looking the least bit embarrassed, "the ballet was excellent and that's all I have to say on the matter." She turned to Maddie. "None of this is on you."

"You fell in love," Kara said, turning back to Maddie. "It happens. And it's pretty clear that Mike feels the same way. He got a divorce to show you that he chose to be with you, no matter what happened."

Maddie snorted. "The height of romance. You're having an affair, your sidepiece gets pregnant, and you divorce your wife to marry her instead."

"Actually, that is pretty much the height of romance to Mike," Kara replied dryly. "If you were expecting sonnets and roses, you should probably rethink things."

All four of them chuckled, but the moment didn't last. Maddie swirled her wine. "Mike said that he'll be back next week. He needs to find a place for Christine and the girls."

"Already taken care of," Kara interjected.

Thankful that she wouldn't be in the position of having to cohabitate with Mike's ex-wife and two teenagers that she had never met but one of whom, apparently, already hated her, Maddie let out a sigh. "Mike wants me to meet all of them. What am I supposed to say?"

"You certainly don't say anything about the whole Mike-Christine mess," Kara said sternly.

"Agreed." Sasha took a sip of her own wine. "Stay out of it. To the extent the girls ask, and you're forced to answer, I would stick with something like not wanting to replace their mother, but hoping that you can build a separate relationship."

Maddie hesitated, not wanting to make Sasha uncomfortable, but also needing advice. "Did that work for you with Ashley?"

Fortunately, Sasha didn't evade the question. "Mostly. Circumstances were different, of course. I told the kids that I wasn't sure whether Tom and I were going to see each other, but I was hoping that I could be their friend either way. Ashley took a little while to warm up, but we got there eventually."

Alisha smiled. "Just introduce them to Nora. Everyone loves babies."

"Besides," Kara added, "to the extent that anybody's a bad guy here, it's Mike. He was the one who made a choice to start dating you knowing that this was a possibility. He's the one who should deal with the fallout."

Maddie swirled her wine again. "It feels a little unfair to blame him, to be honest. It's not like Mike had any more information than the rest of us and we were all certain they were dead. Really, I couldn't even imagine a scenario where they weren't."

"Absolutely true," Alisha said solemnly. "So, what are you going to do?"

Maddie shrugged, taking another fortifying goal of her wine. "What can I do? I'll wait till Mike gets back and then we'll figure things out."

"Oh no," Sasha jiggled her wine glass. "Don't you remember our resolution this year? We are all going to figure out what we want and grab it with both hands."

Kara's lips curled, and she turned to Sasha. "Speaking of which, how is that working out for you? From where I'm standing, Tom seems to be making progress."

"That is none of your business," Sasha retorted, before she turned back to Maddie. "I know what I want and what I'm doing. The question you have to ask yourself is what you want. Not what's best for Nora or Christine or Whitney or Hannah, but what you want."

"I want Mike. I want to be a family with him and Nora," Maddie said, no hesitation.

"Well, then, all we have to do is figure out how to make that happen," Sasha said firmly.

"But shouldn't Mike have some say?" Maddie protested.

"I'm pretty sure that Mike already made his choice," Kara said gently. "I know you think it was simply the right thing to do, but I think his choice to get a divorce was really a big step for him."

"I agree," Sasha said.

Alisha set down her glass. "I probably shouldn't tell you this but Mike and Christine were having problems even before we left for the Arctic. He made a couple of offhand comments about how mad she was that he turned down some desk job. I'm not sure that they would have stayed married anyway."

"Really?" Maddie asked, finding herself surprised. Mike had talked about Christine, of course, but mostly about things they had done together and funny memories. Never about the details of their relationship, and Maddie had never asked. It hadn't seemed important at the time.

Kara nodded. "Mike chose you. I'm sure that things will be confusing for a while, but don't give up on him."

Looking around the room, Maddie wondered how she could've possibly gotten lucky enough to have found such amazing friends. She lifted her glass. "To friends."

The other three women lifted their glasses. "To friends."