business, which was very successful locally.
“Never.” She answered his question immediately. “You have to sell your soul to be a successful writer. I did that for ten years. And in my case, I needed to be angry to do it. I’m not angry anymore. I don’t need to write and won’t again. My books and our son held our marriage together and made it work, since my husband was my literary agent. He made some great deals for me. That’s all over. I don’t need it, and everything you have to do to stay on top. My life is better now.” She had that in common with him. They could have had bigger lives, and didn’t want them. She’d had all that for a while, and Robbie had been her excuse to give it up. She realized now that in some ways she’d been relieved to stop.
“What were you angry about?”
She thought about it for a minute before she answered. “Everything. Everyone. My parents. My mother, for sending me to Ireland and forcing me to give up the baby. She was a hard, unhappy woman with a sharp tongue. I’ve been more like her than I want to be since my son died. I guess she was angry too, at my father. He was a weak man, from a successful family with money. He lost most of it and couldn’t keep a job. He was an alcoholic, but a quiet one. He let her do whatever she wanted to keep the peace, and took a beating from her every day. She died when I was seventeen, less than a year after I came back from Ireland, which I never forgave her for. And he died a year later, of cirrhosis. I took care of my sister then. She’s six years younger. She was like my own child. She wanted to be an actress, and threw all of it out the window and ran away to become a nun. I never understood it, and I hated nuns because they took my baby away. So after that, I was angry at her too. I was angry at life when my son got sick and died. I’m not angry at my ex-husband. I don’t blame him for leaving me. There was nothing left of me by then, and he was in pain too. He’s married to a quiet, unexciting woman, a writer too, but she’s a nice person and she suits him. I hope he’s happy. We don’t speak. I email him once a year. I haven’t seen him in years, and don’t want to. So I guess you could say that anger has fueled me, and my writing. I don’t want to live like that or be angry anymore. That’s all writing was for me, a place for me to vent. The books were very dark, and for some reason, people loved them. They thought they were brilliant, and so did the critics. They were just the rantings of an enraged woman, mad at life.”
“They’re a lot more than that. I’ve read them. They’re dark, but there’s a soft underbelly to them, a tenderness and poignancy that shines through. They made me cry when I read them.”
“For the characters?” She looked surprised. “Some of them are pretty awful people.”
“I cried for you. I could feel your pain when I read them.” What he said touched her deeply and she was silent for a minute. “So we’ve both taken refuge here,” he commented to fill the silence. “I’m not hiding. I really love it,” he said, as they finished the lobster. They had eaten every bit of it, and the melted butter had been delicately flavored with truffle oil. She had noticed and loved it.
“Neither am I,” she said, and then thought better of it. “Well, maybe I am hiding. Or I was. I’m not hiding now. And life has a way of finding you wherever you are anyway. I’m stunned that my sister found my daughter. I had no idea she was doing that. She got lucky, and so did I.”
“Some things are just meant to be. You can’t stop them, both good and bad.” She knew it was true. Hattie had just demonstrated that.
“I’m glad my sister and I are close again. I missed her. I just couldn’t understand why she’d want to be a nun, and not an actress. But it seems to suit her.” He smiled at that.
“Maybe for the same reason you’d rather be a