“I think we need stables. And a place for the girls to ride,” he said without hesitation, which meant it had been on his mind for a while.
“El-Mudad’s girls?” I knew they were both accomplished equestrians; Amal was very proud of her polo skills. I’d let her regale me with tales of particularly good matches she’d played in because it was the only time she’d ever spoken to me without her facial expression implying that she smelled something terrible, but I’d mostly nodded and smiled. Nothing about polo made any sense to me.
“Yes, of course. They’ll be spending time here. There’s no reason they shouldn’t have the facilities they need. And it will be good for Olivia, too.” He said as I grabbed my phone from my purse and left the latter in the closet.
“Whoa, whoa.” This was a decidedly different tune than the one he’d been singing since we’d become Olivia’s guardians. “You said that wasn’t ever going to happen.”
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said simply. “I’ve spent some time considering what would be best for Olivia regarding fitting into society when she grows up. I don’t see why she shouldn’t have all the advantages her mother had.”
“The advantages her mother didn’t want or use later in life because she was one-hundred percent against animal cruelty?” I reminded him.
His text alert went off. “Ah, El-Mudad and Olivia are in the den.”
As we walked that way, I didn’t let the subject drop. “Don’t you worry that getting Olivia a pony or whatever is going against Emma’s express wishes?”
“I know for certain that it would be,” Neil agreed, again crossing behind me to stand to my left. I guessed he was just all about lefts today. “But we have to be realistic and practical about this. Emma and Michael are...not here. We were tasked with giving Olivia the best life possible. And there will be no animal cruelty involved. You know how I felt about some of Emma’s more extreme stances. Her pony was never abused. It wasn’t starved or worked to death. Amal and Rashida ride and they’ll practically be Olivia’s stepsisters. I think she’d feel very excluded.”
“Okay, that’s a good point,” I agreed. It would break my heart if Olivia ever felt excluded from anything. “But another good point is that she’s three, and she’s not in preschool yet. We really dropped the ball on that, but you’re not terribly concerned about picking it up.”
“I think she’s still too young,” Neil confessed. “She has a private tutor, she has a piano teacher, she goes to her dance class. It isn’t as though her education is being neglected.”
“But she’s also not learning to socialize with anyone but adults. And believe that me, that’s not great.” Being raised by a single mother, I’d spent a lot of time either alone or at my grandmother’s house, interacting mostly with my cousins on Sundays. “When I went to kindergarten, I couldn’t tie my shoes, but I could tell anyone who would listen about what was up with Victor on The Young and The Restless. It didn’t make for instant popularity.”
“I see your point there. Perhaps a playgroup or—“
“Or she could go to school,” I stated firmly. “Neil, it’s like you don’t want Olivia to grow up.”
“It isn’t that I don’t want her to grow up.” He stopped walking and faced me. “I would rather she—“
“Oh my god, what is that?” I screamed, pointing at his ear with my full arm extended.
“Ah.” He reached up and touched the small barbell earring pierced through his red, slightly swollen earlobe. “Well, I thought it was time for a change—“
“Why? Why?” I shrieked, still pointing. “Neil, why would you do such a thing?”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, Sophie, do calm down. It isn’t as though I’ve had my head surgically removed.”
“What on Earth would possess you?” I demanded. “Why would you punch a hole in your perfectly good ear?”
El-Mudad entered the hallway at a run. “Sophie! Are you all right? I heard a scream—“
He stopped beside me, his eyes wide with horror. “What have you done?”
“I shot someone,” Neil said, exasperated. “Honestly, I’m surprised at the two of you. Both of you have pierced ears.”
“I have one pierced ear, and I haven’t worn an earring in it since nineteen-ninety-eight,” El-Mudad corrected him. “Why would you do this, now?”
Neil shrugged. “Because I wanted to. There was no deeper meaning behind it. I was stopped at a light, I turned my head, I noticed a shop, and I went in.”
“You didn’t...” I swallowed. “You didn’t pierce anything else?”
“What would it matter if I had? But no, I did not. It was a lark, is all. I didn’t tattoo myself or have my tongue split. It’s just one earring.”
“Yeah. That’s part of the problem. It’s so...lopsided,” I said, finally putting my finger on why it looked strange. Besides the part where it was in Neil’s ear.