Chapter 17

Sissy went on the talk show circuit and did book signings to promote her stories. Jaime Lee Curtis did a glowing review that was picked up by the news outlets. She called her the future, and said when the time came, she could retire in peace, knowing she would be there to take up the mantle.

It was not pleasant being separated from my new bride, but we both realized we would have occasional separations because of the nature of our work. I took Katie and we flew to the city she was in, surprising her for the weekend. She cried tears of joy and we ended up being interviewed together by the local paper for the Sunday entertainment section. There were several pictures, including one of us separately, one of us together as a family, and even an individual picture of Katie. The reporter made a point of saying she had a big future ahead of her, being our offspring. “She can write and illustrate her own works.”

I’d kind of bragged about how good she was for her age, and Sissy told of several suggestions she’d made that helped her mothers’ books read better. It was a natural progression.

Three years went by. Sissy grew more beautiful, and Katie was rapidly becoming her clone. They came home from a shopping trip and I told them I had a surprise for them after we’d had our dinner. They tried to pry it out of me, and I just kept peeling potatoes. We were having shepherd’s pie for dinner, one of our favorites. Our housekeeper had taught me how to make it.

We hired her because the nature of our schedules didn’t allow us a lot of domestic time and we did not want to waste it in cleaning. Mrs. Kent would come by just after Katie left for school and usually stayed until four thirty, five days a week. We paid her well, and Katie adopted her as another grandmother.

Sissy gave up her office and had another built beside my studio, connecting to one wall with a door so all we had to do was open it and pop back and forth. She gave up the office so the groom we’d hired could use the apartment. We had four horses by then. Gracie was still there but was retired, living out her life in comfort. Katie would be graduating to a larger horse, soon if she kept up her growth spurt.

Our other two horses were rescued mustangs. They came about because Sissy had always been fascinated by them as a child in Ireland, and she supported a charity specializing in mustang rescue. The blood-red mare looked like she would be at home on the sands of Arabia, and belonged to Sissy. The black was big for a wild horse, and looked to have some draft-horse ancestor. He’d been gelded before we got him, and was as calm as Gracie. When I rode, it was on him. I’d gotten a little better, and it didn’t bother me as much as it used to.

Horace was an Irishman, a retired racehorse groom. He’d come to America to see his daughter and never left. Henry had inquired around when we told him we needed help, and a friend sent him to us. He was captivated by my girls, and their accents came back a little when we hired him.

He protested when we told him what we had, saying he didn’t want to work part time. We came to an agreement when I conceded groundskeeping to him. He mowed the fields, made sure the pasture and barn were in tiptop shape, even talked me into letting him put in a garden. We enjoyed the fresh vegetables, immensely.

It took both our employees a while to get used to having lunch with us, but we insisted. Sometimes it was just soup and a sandwich, sometimes it was a healthy lunch cooked by Mrs. Kent or Sissy. I’d grill every once in a while. They pretended to be shocked I could cook but tended to eat every bite.

Mrs. Kent was a widow, and things progressed to the point that she moved into the apartment with Horace. We held the wedding a year later at our house and paid for everything, including the honeymoon, a trip to Ireland. While they were gone, we expanded the little apartment, adding a bedroom so Mrs. Kent, now O’Shea, could entertain her grandchildren. It took her and Horace a long time to get used to our friends showing up in limos or helicopters, but they adjusted.

I made my girls wait until after dinner before leading them to the barn. There in a stall was a dapple-grey mare, a full-size horse with a pedigree a mile long. Her sire was the Grand National Champion in Steeplechase, three years in a row. In another stall was her sister, for Sissy.

They were all over me for a few minutes, and then Katie went into the stall to get acquainted with her new friend. Sissy stood by my side, holding my hand.

“We should breed mine in a few years. We’ll need another horse.”

“Why in the world would we need a third horse?”

She held my hand gently pressed against her tummy. “For the wee one who’ll join us in about seven months. It’s a girl, me darlin’, I can feel it.”