Chapter 2
She squeezed my arm.
“The rest is.”
We continued walking.
Boston traffic hissed over wet pavement.
After another block, Nora said, “Did Preston really move out already?”
“Yes.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“He texted me.”
“And?”
“He said there wasn’t anything more to discuss.”
Nora’s jaw tightened.
Unlike me, she had never liked Preston.
At first I had thought she simply disliked anyone I dated because she considered herself my unpaid older sister.
Eventually, I realized she disliked Preston because he had a talent for making my needs sound mildly inconvenient.
“Are you going to answer him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want to?”
That question was harder.
For three years, I had imagined that if Preston ever left me, I would fight.
I would demand explanations.
I would show up at his door.
I would remind him of everything we had built.
But now that it had happened, the thing I felt beneath the grief was not urgency.
It was exhaustion.
“I think,” I said slowly, “I want to know why he thought forty-two seconds was enough.”
Nora nodded.
“That makes sense.”
“But I’m not sure knowing would fix anything.”
“That also makes sense.”
I looked at her.
“You’re being annoyingly balanced.”
“I contain multitudes.”
My phone buzzed.
For one irrational moment, I thought Preston.
Instead, it was my mother.
CALL ME WHEN YOU’RE DONE. YOUR FATHER IS PRETENDING HE ISN’T WORRIED.
I smiled.
My parents lived outside Providence in the same cedar-sided house where I had grown up.
My father, Henry Bennett, was a high-school history teacher who considered personal concern a private matter between himself and his lawn mower.
My mother, Claire, ran the office of a community health clinic and believed most problems could be improved by soup, careful listening, or both.
They had met at nineteen.
Married at twenty-three.
Stayed married through bad jobs, mortgage payments, my father’s brief attempt to build a deck himself, and my mother’s conviction that every room looked better after rearranging the furniture.
For years, I had measured my relationship with Preston against theirs.
That suddenly seemed foolish.
“Maybe I’ll go home this weekend,” I said.
“To Rhode Island?”
“Yeah.”
Nora smiled.
“Your mother will feed you until your organs recover.”
“That is the risk.”
—
I arrived at my parents’ house Saturday morning.
My father opened the door before I reached the porch.
He looked at my suitcase.
Then at me.
Then said, “I never liked his shoes.”
I blinked.
“Hello to you too.”
“I’m establishing my position.”
“What was wrong with his shoes?”
“Too pointy.”
My mother appeared behind him.
“Henry.”
“I said what I said.”
She pushed past him and wrapped me in her arms.
Unlike Adrian Sterling, my mother was an expert hugger.
She smelled like lavender detergent and coffee.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
That was all it took.
I cried again.
Not airport crying.
Quieter.
The kind that came from finally reaching a place where you did not have to pretend you were okay.
My mother held me.
My father stood nearby with both hands in his pockets until I reached for him.
Then he hugged both of us.
“Still hate the shoes,” he muttered.
I laughed into my mother’s shoulder.
That afternoon, we made soup.
Not because I wanted soup.
Because Claire Bennett believed chopping vegetables created emotional order.
My father sat at the kitchen table grading essays.
“Apparently,” he announced, “the Louisiana Purchase occurred in 1812.”
“Be compassionate,” my mother said.
“I am considering whether to award a point for confidence.”
I leaned against the counter.
For the first time in days, my nervous system seemed to remember what normal felt like.
My mother slid chopped carrots into the pot.
“How was Boston?”
“Good.”
“The presentation?”
“Good.”
“The client?”
I hesitated.
My father looked up.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
My mother pointed the wooden spoon at me.
“That was not a nothing pause.”
I sighed.
“I met the CEO before the meeting.”
“Professionally?”
“At JFK.”
My father lowered his pen.
I told them.
Not every detail.
But enough.
By the time I reached the handkerchief, my mother was covering her mouth to hide a smile.
My father did not bother hiding his.
“I raised you better than this.”
“I was emotionally compromised.”
“You returned the handkerchief?”
“Technically, I still have it.”
“Evelyn.”
“I washed it.”
He nodded.
“Good.”
My mother looked thoughtful.
“What did you say his name was?”
“Adrian Sterling.”
The spoon stopped.
Only for a second.
But I noticed.
“Mom?”
She turned toward the stove.
“Nothing.”
There it was again.
The same pause I had just made.
My father’s pen had stopped moving too.
I looked between them.
“Why did you both just become strange?”
“We didn’t,” Dad said.
“You absolutely did.”
My mother stirred the soup.
“Sterling is not an uncommon name.”
“Adrian Sterling is.”
She did not answer.
A small uneasiness entered the room.
“Do you know him?”
“No,” my mother said.
Too quickly.
My father looked at her.
She looked back.
Twenty-seven years of marriage passed silently between them.
Then Dad said, “Claire.”
“I said I don’t know him.”
“But you know the name,” I said.
Her shoulders lowered.
“A long time ago.”
“How?”
She turned off the stove.
The kitchen suddenly felt very quiet.
“When I was young, before I met your father, my mother worked for a family named Sterling.”
“What kind of work?”
“She was a housekeeper.”
That surprised me.
My grandmother, Ruth, had died when I was eleven. I remembered soft cardigans, peppermints in her purse, and a talent for completing crossword puzzles in ink.
She had never spoken about working for wealthy people.
“Where?”
“Outside Boston.”
I glanced toward my father.
He was watching my mother carefully.
“You knew this?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Because there wasn’t much to tell.”
My mother removed her apron.
“The Sterlings were simply an employer. Your grandmother worked for them for several years before I was born and again when I was very small.”
“What Sterlings?”
“I don’t remember all the names.”
“Mom.”
She sighed.
“Arthur Sterling. His wife was Margaret.”
The names meant nothing to me.
But my phone was on the counter.
I picked it up.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Searching.”
“Eve.”
It took less than ten seconds.
Arthur Sterling.
Founder of Sterling Capital.
Grandfather of Adrian Sterling.
I looked up.
“My grandmother worked for his family?”
My mother nodded.
“When?”
“The late seventies. Maybe into the early eighties.”
“And you’ve never mentioned this?”
“Why would I?”
I stared at her.
“Because three days ago I randomly cried on their grandson in an airport.”
My father rubbed his forehead.
“When you put it that way, it does sound statistically interesting.”
My mother gave him a look.
“Not helping.”
I searched again.
Old photographs appeared.
Arthur Sterling beside presidents, governors, philanthropists.
A younger photograph showed him outside a large stone house in Massachusetts.
Beside him stood Margaret Sterling.
And in the background, almost beyond the frame, was a woman carrying a tray.
My breath caught.
“Is that Grandma?”
My mother came closer.
The photograph was grainy.
But we both knew.
The posture.
The dark hair.
The familiar shape of her face.
“Yes,” Mom whispered.
My father rose from the table.
My mother stared at the screen for a long time.
Then she said, “There’s something else.”
I waited.
“My mother left that job suddenly.”
“Why?”
“She never told me.”
“You never asked?”
“Many times.”
“What did she say?”
“That some doors are kinder left closed.”
I frowned.
“That sounds dramatic.”
“My mother could be dramatic.”
Dad coughed.
My mother ignored him.
“She kept a box from those years.”
“What box?”
“It’s upstairs.”
—
The box had been sitting in my parents’ attic for twenty-one years.
A plain cedar box, no larger than a shoebox.
My mother set it on the guest-room bed.
“I found it after your grandmother died.”
“You never opened it?”
“Once.”
“And?”
“I didn’t understand most of it.”
She lifted the lid.
Inside were photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, two old Christmas cards, and a silver compact mirror wrapped in tissue paper.
I picked up a photograph.
My grandmother stood beside a young woman in a white summer dress.
They were laughing.
On the back, in my grandmother’s handwriting, were the words:
Ruth and Margaret, Cape Cod, 1978.
“Margaret Sterling?” I asked.
My mother nodded.
“They were friends?”
“Apparently closer than I knew.”
Another photograph showed my grandmother holding a baby.
I assumed it was my mother.
Then I noticed the date.
1979.
My mother had been born in 1981.
“Who is this?”
“I don’t know.”
I turned it over.
No name.
Only three words.
Little A. again.
May you like
My stomach tightened.
“A?”
