It’s your turn to ask about my childhood. I tell you about my parents and the kind of marriage they had, that my father was my hero. There are stories about shoestring holidays at the shore in Bournemouth, my brief stint with the cricket team, my misspent days at university. Finally, I tell you about my father dying a few years ago—a blood clot no one saw coming—and how his old boss at the London Observer hired me out of loyalty, even though I’ll never be the writer my father was.
You listen to it all with your eyes closed and your face tipped to the sun, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of your mouth, as if you’re seeing and smelling and tasting every word. But your eyes open when I say that last part, and search my face.
“Do you believe that? That you’ll never be as good as your father?”
“Everyone believes it. Except my mum, of course.” I manage a halfhearted grin. “She thinks I hung the moon. But it’s her job to believe in me.”
“I believe in you,” you say softly.
I look away, swallowing the words that are on the tip of my tongue. That you shouldn’t—and won’t when you know what I’m really after. “How is that possible?” I say instead. “When you’ve never read a word I’ve written.”
“That’s not true. I’ve read all your stories. For weeks now.”
I wave the words away. “Those aren’t me. That’s just the stuff I write to get paid.”
“So let me read the novel.”
“No.”
“Because it has no pulse?”
“Yes.”
“I still don’t understand what that means.”
“It was something my father said to me once after he read a piece I’d written. I’ve never forgotten it. He said all truly good writing—fiction or nonfiction—has a heartbeat, a life force that comes from the writer, like an invisible cord connecting them to the reader. Without it, the work is dead on arrival.”
“Did your father’s writing have a heartbeat?”
I smile. I can’t help myself. “Like thunder. Unfortunately, it isn’t genetic. You don’t inherit it, and you can’t imitate it. It’s something that’s unique to every writer. But you have to find it.”
“And how does one find the heartbeat?”
“I asked my father the same thing.”
“And his answer was?”
“By writing. And then writing some more. He rode me hard.”
“Because he believed in you,” you say quietly. “You were lucky to have someone like that in your life, someone who wanted you to be and have what you wanted.”
I study your face as I sink my teeth into one of the apples from the basket, wondering about the sadness that’s suddenly crept into your tone. I want to know who put it there and why, and how I can make it go away. It’s not the first time I’ve sensed it, the melancholy air that settles around you when you think no one’s looking. The way your gaze drifts from mine when I ask certain questions.
“I can’t imagine you ever went without much as a tyke,” I say between bites, aware that I’m risking that frosty veneer you often don when I probe too deeply.
You pluck several blades of grass and begin braiding them in your lap. You’re silent for a time, your eyes carefully averted, and I assume you’ve decided to let the remark pass. Finally, you look up. “I would have liked a family vacation at the beach,” you say quietly. “I would have given anything for a summer like that.”
I crane my neck, taking in the bucolic setting, the soft roll of deep-green hills, the shimmery surface of the lake beyond the brightly leafed trees, and I can’t quite find it in me to feel sorry for you. “How tragic,” I reply drolly. “Having to suffer all those summers in a place like this. And then having to wait so long to get your birthday ponies. However did you survive it?”
“Yes, that’s me,” you fire back, flicking the braided blades of grass away. “A spoiled brat who’s never known a day’s disappointment.”
You’ve gone sulky now, hoping to mask the fragility you’re always trying so valiantly to hide, but I see it. I’ve always seen it. Your inexplicable and incandescent sadness.
No, I realize suddenly, startlingly. Not sadness. Resignation. For things left unfinished, unattempted, unrequited. For what could have been but won’t ever be, because you’ve chosen something else. Something less. Something safe.
“Go on,” you say peevishly. “Tell me what else you think of me.”
I hurl my half-eaten apple into the trees and wipe my hands on my trousers. I want to reach for your hand, to wind my fingers through yours and never let go, but it isn’t a good idea. Not when you’re looking at me with daggers in your eyes.
“I think,” I say gently, “that when one grows up with the kinds of privileges you have, it’s easy to forget that not everyone had such a cushy childhood. It doesn’t make you a brat—necessarily—but it does mean you’re less likely to understand how the real world works. Money has a way of sparing the haves the kinds of trials the have-nots grapple with on a daily basis. There’s nothing you can’t buy or arrange. Nothing out of reach.”
“So after a handful of afternoons together, you know all about my dreams and disappointments, do you?” Your chin lifts a notch. “It might interest you to know that I’d trade every one of my Hampton summers for one shoestring vacation in Bournemouth.”
The heat in your voice, such a departure from the chill you normally exude when piqued, surprises me. I’ve touched a nerve. Not pride. Something else. “I didn’t mean to presume—”
“Never mind. I don’t want to talk about summers anymore.”
“Tell me about your mother, then.”
You go strangely still. “Why?”
My conscience prickles. I’m aware that I’ve wandered into uncomfortable territory. Still, I press on, determined to draw you out. “Because no one ever mentions her. Your father comes up over and over, but you never talk about your mother. What was she like?”
Your eyes cloud and drift from mine. You’re silent for a long time. So long, I think you’ve decided not to respond. Finally, you answer without looking at me. “She was French.”
“Surely there was more to her than that.”
I watch as you deliberate. Am I worthy of your memories, of exposing your vulnerable places? Finally, your face softens, and I see just how badly you want to talk about her——as if you’ve been waiting for the chance to share her with someone. “There was. So much more. She was wonderful and so lovely. Always the most stunning woman in the room.”
“The belle of the ball,” I say softly. “Like her daughter.”
“No. Not like me. Not like anyone I’ve ever known.” Your eyes cloud again, and your expression grows wistful. “She was . . . exceptional. She had this dreamy, faraway quality about her. As if she came from an entirely different world than the rest of us. It’s what I loved most about her. But my father never quite forgave her for it.”
“Because she was French?”
“No. It wasn’t that. Or it wasn’t only that.” You smile then, and for a moment, your eyes kindle with girlish memories. “We had secrets, she and I, from my father and my sister. Stories she only told me and then made me swear not to tell. She used to call me ma toute-petite—my little one.”
“She sounds wonderful.”