“Nah, I’m a one-trick pony,” he joked. “I can pick out meat and potatoes, but the rest is beyond my skill level.”
“You’re hilarious,” I said dryly, shooting him a grin as I put my napkin on my lap and picked up my knife and fork. “But seriously, this looks delicious.”
“I aim to please,” he said with a mouth full of baked potato as he sawed at his filet. He ate like a man who had a limited amount of time to ingest his food before it was taken away.
“Slow down, we’re not in a race, sailor,” I laughed. He gave me a sheepish grin as he lowered his utensils and took a sip from his glass of water. We were quiet as we ate, but Brian watched me with a questioning look and I knew he was itching to ask something.
“So, I have to ask you,” he said on cue. “We’ve been together for almost a week now and there have been some harrowing moments that I’ve reported back to HQ, but something is puzzling me.”
“I know,” I said. I’d been prepared for this question from the first day. “You want to know why my parents never call me, right?”
“Yeah, actually, that was my question,” he said, amazed that I’d somehow read his mind. It wasn’t so much that I’d read his mind as it was that I’d been answering this same question for most of my life.
I explained to him that everyone at boarding school and then at college talked about weekly obligatory phone calls or having to check in with their parents or having to ask for money from their parents, and so kids were always asking me why I never had to do anything of these things. No check-ins and no calling to ask for money, instead, once a month I wrote a summary of my activities, printed it out, and mailed it to my father. The money was automatically deposited in my account on the 1st and 15th day of the month, and I was given such a generous allowance that I usually ended up depositing what was left over in a separate savings account I’d started at the boarding school.
“I’m not sure if my father was being savvy and teaching me business skills or if he simply didn’t want me to bother him and my mother,” I admitted. I couldn’t condemn my father, after all, he’d never been cruel to me, just indifferent. My mother was a whole other matter, and one that I didn’t really feel like sharing over dinner.
“But how can they not check in and see how you’re doing?” he asked.
“Easy, they just don’t,” I said matter-of-factly. “It’s not a crisis, it’s just the way my family operates. I think my grandfather raised my father the exact same way, so what do you expect? We do what our parents teach us to do.”
“But if that’s the case, then how did you get involved with Dominic?” he asked as he shoved another loaded fork into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully as he waited for my answer.
“I already explained that,” I said. “I was duped by his personality and the money.”
“That makes no sense to me,” he mused. “You have money, and Dominic is a sociopath! He doesn’t care about anything except his reputation and his stuff.”
“Like I said,” I replied as I stared at my meat while I carefully carved a bite-sized piece from the juicy filet. “We do what our parents teach us to do.”
Brian watched me closely as he continued to chew. Suddenly the light bulb went on and he leaned across the table. “Are you telling me—”
“Just let it go, Brian,” I said pointedly. “Just let it go.”
He looked at me thoughtfully for a few moments, and then cut another piece of meat and popped it into his mouth.
“But what about your grandmother? You said she loved you,” he said.
“That was a whole other matter,” I said quietly.
“Tell me about it,” he urged as he looked into my eyes. “I want to know you — all of you.”
“My grandmother was the center of my universe,” I began. “I told you about our last trip together and what happened afterwards.”
Brian nodded and continued picking at his food. I picked up a piece of asparagus with my fingers, bit off the tip, and chewed as I thought about how to explain my grandmother to him.
“My grandmother was the epitome of high society,” I said as I thought about how she’d always dressed for dinner and insisted that I do the same when I was visiting her. “She had impeccable taste and valued courtesy and manners above all else. She used to say that without manners we were no better than a tray of ice cubes.”
Brian laughed out loud as I giggled remembering how every time she’d said this, I’d laughed because it was so ridiculous. I told him about how she’d once spent my entire spring break teaching me how to curtsey and pour the perfect cup of tea just in case I was ever invited to meet the Queen of England. Then I told him about how she’d made a habit of sending me books by Miss Manners and Leticia Baldridge in order to drive the lessons home. I was expected to read and memorize certain portions of the books so that I could recite them to my grandmother on command. It was nerve-wracking because she was demanding and did not suffer fools, but she always stepped in and helped me fill in the blanks when I couldn’t remember the exact words I’d read. It was the spirit of the law that mattered to her, not the letter of it.
“Didn’t she see what was going on with your parents?” Brian asked.
“Of course she did,” I replied. “That’s why she spent so much time with me. She knew I was lost and lonely, and that I had no idea why my parents ignored me.”
“But couldn’t she have said something to your father?” he asked.
“Oh, she did,” I said as I shook my head, recalling all the times my grandmother had confronted my father about his neglectful parenting. “She was merciless in her critique of his failure as a parent.”
Brian nodded as if he understood what I was explaining. I told him about the frequent fights between my father and my grandmother, and the way in which she berated him and made him seem small and weak. I was never sure if he knew I’d heard the abuse, but I was fairly certain she’d known that I had often been lurking outside the sitting room where they had their conversations. She was cruel and spiteful, and she said some incredibly awful things to him and about him.