“The name sounds vaguely familiar,” he says. “But I have never been big on politics. My grandpa would probably know.”
“Ah, well, he died years ago. But my grandfather had found out about my mom and dad because of her sister—my aunt whom I’ve never met. My mom had confided in her about my dad, just wanting someone to talk to, and my aunt had gone home and told my grandfather.”
“Wow, what a bitch,” Liam says. Then, he immediately says, contrite, “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that about your family.”
“No, you’re right. She was a bitch. My mom had trusted her, and she’d stabbed her own sister in the back. They never spoke again after that. After my grandfather had learned of their relationship, he hit the roof. His main concern was his political career. If it got out that his daughter was having a relationship with a professor at her university…apparently, it would have looked bad on him.”
“The British press have a great way of angling a story to make it sound juicy.” He sounds like he’s speaking from experience.
“My grandfather told my mom to end the relationship. He told her that he’d have my dad’s job taken from him and that he’d have my dad deported back to the States. My dad was from Boston and here on a work visa,” I tell him. “My mom didn’t want to be the reason that my dad lost his job, and she didn’t want him to be deported. So, she did as my grandfather had told her, and she ended things with my dad.”
“But that didn’t stick,” Liam says, gesturing to me.
“No.” I laugh. “My dad is…was…” I take a deep breath. Talking about them like this…for a moment, it almost feels like they are still here. “My dad was stubborn. He wasn’t going to let my mom go. He finally got the truth out of her, and the next day, he handed in his resignation. But giving up his job meant his visa went, too. He tried to get another teaching job in the UK, but he couldn’t get one. I don’t know if that was because of my grandfather, but my mom believed it was.
“Then, he got offered a professorship at Harvard. He couldn’t turn it down. So, my mom went with him. She finished her degree in Boston. Then, she got a job working for The Boston Globe as a political journalist. She scaled it back when she had me and Parker, and then when Tess was born, she left her job and stayed home.”
“Parker and Tess…” His words are soft, hesitant.
“My brother and sister.”
Liam glances at me. The sadness in his eyes nearly unravels me.
I feel myself shutting down. This is getting too close to talking about what happened, and I can’t talk about that.
Liam seems to sense that because he doesn’t ask me anything more.
I lay my head back on the headrest, turning my face to stare out the side window, while the sound of the radio softly plays Zara Larsson and MNEK’s “Never Forget You.”
And I just let myself think of my family.
I let myself feel the agony of their loss. I let it curl around my insides and crush my heart.
Because I need the reminder.
I need to remember the reason I’m doing all of this. Why I’ve chosen the path I have.
For them. To be with them.
And Liam is making me forget that.
He’s making me feel things I shouldn’t feel.
It shouldn’t be easy to talk about them. It shouldn’t make me smile.
It should hurt. It should cut me to the core.
But, in that moment, talking about my parents with him…it felt…good. Manageable.
I want to blame him for that. I want to feel anger toward him.
But it’s not Liam’s fault. It’s mine.
I have no one to blame for everything that’s happened in my life and everything that I have coming to me but myself.
And I need to stop feeling…for him.
We don’t talk on the journey after that. It’s not an uncomfortable silence. More that Liam knows I need time with my thoughts, and he gives me it.
When I see the first sign for Oxford University, I wonder if Liam’s grandpa lives near here.
But when he pulls onto campus, I know that’s not the case.
He’s come here first for me.
Tears push at my eyes. I have to take a few calming breaths before I speak, “You came here.” My words come out quieter than I intended. I bring my eyes to him.
He presses his lips together before casting a glance at me. “Was that the wrong thing to do?”
No, it was the right thing to do.
Everything you do is right.
I need now more than ever to remember my parents…my brother, and my sister. I need to remember why I’m letting myself die.
Because, sometimes, with Liam…it doesn’t seem so clear anymore.
“It…” My throat thickens on the word. I pause and take a breath. “It was the right thing. Thank you.”
The smile that touches his lips is beautiful. And it hurts me.
It hurts even more when he says, “Don’t thank me. I know, coming here…it’s important to you. That makes it important to me.”
I’m important to him?
My brain is screaming to me that I have to stop this—whatever this is that’s happening with Liam—before it goes any further.