I’m not sure we have anything in common. Besides you.”
“No, you have nothing in common. I can vouch for that. She’s not a bad person, and she and Matt make a good pair.”
“I guess so,” I said.
And that was the extent of our conversation on the subject of Faith.
That summer I returned to Monk’s. My mother had a new boyfriend, Michael Bialik, a bearded linguistics professor from the university, who was surprisingly grounded. He had his own place about a half mile from ours, a converted barn where he lived with his son, a piano prodigy named Sandy. Michael loved to cook, and because of this, my mother spent a lot of her time at his house, leaving Monk’s to me. My library job was only four hours a day Monday through Friday, and I spent the rest of my weekday time either reading or puttering around the property. I was in love, and I was at peace. I even returned to my favorite meadow, the final resting place of Chet. The well cover was still in place; it looked the way it had—years ago—when I had first discovered it, hidden by winter-yellowed grass. The nearby farmhouse was still unoccupied.
My plan had been to visit Eric in New York on the weekends, but when Eric came to visit Monk’s he fell in love with it, or at least he claimed he had.
“I want to spend every weekend here, Kintner. This will be the perfect life. Weeks in the city, and then I can take the train out Friday evening and be here with you. Country weekends.”
“You won’t get bored?”
“Not a chance. I love it here. What about you? I’d be asking you to spend all your time here.”
“You’re describing every summer I’ve ever had. I don’t mind. And I’ll have you to look forward to on the weekends.”
And so our summer turned out to be a replication of our school year. Weeks alone. Weekends together. I didn’t mind, because I had never minded spending time alone. And the days I spent alone were days that were getting me closer to the weekend, to seeing Eric step off the commuter train, overnight bag slung across his shoulders, huge grin on his face. And these weekends were that much more intense. Away from Mather, our relationship seemed more mature, more comfortable. We felt married. So, no, I didn’t mind just seeing Eric two days each week.
And Eric didn’t mind, for reasons of his own.
I might never have found out about those reasons, and might have left for London in the fall feeling as though Eric was still the love of my life, if it hadn’t been for my father’s visiting New York in the last week of August and asking to see me for lunch. He had a new book coming out, a collection of short stories, and was in New York to meet with his American agent and his American publisher, and to give a reading at Strand Books. He hadn’t invited me to the reading, which wasn’t a surprise. I’d asked him once—my junior year of high school, I think—if I could go to one, and he’d replied, “God, Lily, you’re my daughter. I wouldn’t expose you to that. It’s bad enough you’ll eventually feel the need to read my books, let alone have to listen to me speak them out loud.”
So I took a day off from the library and caught the train to New York City. My father and I ate lunch in a swank restaurant attached to the lobby of his midtown hotel, and we talked about my upcoming year in London. He promised to e-mail me a list of friends and relatives I had to visit, along with a few of his favorite London landmarks, most of which were pubs. Then he drilled me for tidbits about my mother and the new boyfriend. He was very disappointed to hear that the linguistics professor was, on the whole, a decent man. After lunch, we parted ways in front of the hotel. “You turned out all right, Lil, despite your mother and me,” he said, not for the first time. We hugged good-bye. It was a strangely nice day for late August in the city, so I headed downtown, toward Eric’s office, a place I had never visited. The air that had been stifling for the entire month was suddenly free of humidity, and I was just happy to be walking along the quiet midday corridors of the