“That’s a big trip to do on your own,” Dad says, keeping his face neutral. “You’ve never even gone to London by yourself, much less to another country.”
“I’m eighteen now,” Hugo points out. “And if we didn’t—if we weren’t—well, I could just as easily be going off to uni a lot farther away. I don’t see how this is any different.”
“Honestly, it’s different because you can’t make it half a mile without losing your keys or your wallet,” Mum says, sounding both apologetic and exasperated. “I love you, Hugo, and you’re brilliant in a lot of ways, but you’ve also got your head in the clouds more often than not.”
Hugo opens his mouth to protest, but he knows she’s not wrong. When he was little, she used to call him Paddington because he was always getting lost from the rest of the group.
“I’m close to pinning a note to your jumper,” she’d say, her face still white with worry after finding him under a clothes rack at Marks & Spencer’s or in a completely different aisle at the local Tesco. “Please look after this bear.”
There’s a banner at the top of her blog, an illustration of the six of them lined up from oldest to youngest, a fairly ridiculous distinction, considering all that separates them is eight minutes. In it, they’re marching one by one toward the right side of the page. First George, who is carrying a fishing rod and strolling in that jaunty way of his. Then Alfie, a football tucked under his arm and a hint of a grin on his face. Poppy—always in motion—is skipping after them, and Oscar is whistling as he makes his way leisurely across the screen. Behind him, Isla’s head is bent over a book. And then, last of all, there’s Hugo, forever falling behind, perpetually trying to catch up with his brothers and sisters.
He’s always hated that image.
“Darling,” his mum is saying, her voice gentler now. “It’s okay to sleepwalk your way around here. But I’d worry too much about you being on your own in a place like New York or San Francisco. The truth is, you’re just not…”
“Responsible,” Poppy offers.
“Ready,” suggests Oscar.
“Sensible,” says Isla, winking at him.
“Good-looking,” Alfie says. “Sorry, what were we talking about?”
Mum ignores them. “Can you not take one of this lot with you?”
“That’s not the point,” Hugo says, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks. He doesn’t know how to explain about the extra ticket without giving away his plan to find another Margaret Campbell. The rest of them know this, of course. They’re in on it too. But what they don’t know is this: even if he could bring anyone he wanted, he still wouldn’t be all that keen to choose one of them. Because this isn’t about his siblings. For once, it’s about Hugo.
“The point is to escape for a bit,” he says, sounding a little desperate. “To see what it’s like to be on my own. Especially since…”
“You’ll all be at uni together,” Dad finishes, and Hugo looks up at him gratefully. He’s spent the whole summer trying not to say this out loud. He’s not the only one who could’ve been accepted elsewhere, but he was always the one with highest marks, and because of that, the others have given him a pass for being so miserable about their lack of options. But what he hasn’t said—what he’s barely even let himself think—is that it’s about them too.
“It’s not that I’m not happy about it,” he says weakly, looking from Alfie to Oscar to George, who are sitting three in a row across the table, watching him with unreadable expressions. “You know how much I…well, you guys are my…” He turns to Poppy, whose mouth is twisted as she waits to hear what he has to say. On his other side, Isla is looking at her plate. “We’ve always been a team.”
“And now you wish you could be transferred?” George asks. His voice is intentionally light, but Hugo can hear the stiffness in it. When they were little, Dad used to joke that George was like a sheepdog, always looking out for the rest of them, trying to keep the pack together. To him, the scholarship isn’t a duty; it’s a stroke of good luck. A chance to keep moving through the world as they always have: as a unit.
Hugo shakes his head. “Not at all. It’s just…I can’t be the only one who’s wondered what it would be like to…” He doesn’t finish the thought, though he knows they understand what he’s saying. They always do. But if they agree with him—if they’re even the slightest bit sympathetic—none of them shows it. They all watch him impassively, the looks on their faces ranging from hurt to miffed to annoyed.
Hugo swallows hard, feeling like he’s flailing. But then he thinks of what Alfie said earlier, about pulling a Hugo, and fights his way forward.
“The thing is, I can’t imagine being anywhere without you all,” he says, which is true, the truest thing he can think to say. “But that’s why it feels like I have to try it. Even if it’s only for a week.”
They’re all quiet for a moment, even Alfie, until—finally—Dad nods. “Then you have to go,” he says simply, and at the other end of the table, Mum lets out a sigh.
“Just don’t lose your passport,” she says. “All things being equal, we’d prefer to get you back at the end.”
At breakfast Nana is telling a story about a boy she dated when she was eighteen.
“His father was a prince,” she says as she ladles some sugar into her coffee, “and his mother was a debutante. He was very handsome, and he took me to the most fabulous parties all over New York City. Once, we danced until five in the morning. Then he kissed me on a street corner just as it started to rain. It was unbelievably romantic.”
“Mom,” Pop says, looking at her over his newspaper. “You didn’t date a prince.”
She winks at Mae. “I didn’t say I did. I said his father was a prince. He decided to get out of the family business.”
“Sounds like a swell guy, Mary,” Dad says with a completely straight face, and Nana throws a balled-up napkin in his direction. He catches it and throws it right back.
“Enough, you two,” Pop says with a weary look. Ever since his mother came to live with them this spring, meals—at least on the days when she’s been up to joining them—have turned into sparring sessions, with Nana and Dad trading good-natured jabs across the table. They’re so eerily well matched that one day, while they went back and forth about the merits of green tea, Pop leaned over to Mae and whispered, “I think I married my mother.”
Mae finishes her cereal and rinses the bowl in the sink. “Well,” she says, her voice light as she turns around again, “I’m off.”
“What about the gallery?” Pop asks with a frown. She’s been working there a few days a week, packing boxes and answering the phone and talking to the more casual customers who come up from the city and act like they’re on the brink of buying a painting, before they move on to the antique shop next door and go through the same routine with an old lamp.
“Yeah, I was hoping I could come in later.” Mae does her best not to meet any of their eyes. “It’s just that Garrett is leaving this afternoon, so…”
To her surprise, they all look thrilled.
“Well, why didn’t you say so,” Dad says with a grin. “Please. Go. We certainly wouldn’t want to keep him. Not even a minute longer than—”
“Give him our best,” Pop says, ever the diplomat.
“I think it’s lovely,” Nana says with the same dreamy look she gets when they watch old movies together. “A dramatic send-off.”
“I’m not sure how dramatic it will be,” Mae tells her. “We always knew we were going our separate ways.”