exclaims in delight, as if it were a chocolate éclair. “Yum! Come in, sweetie. I’ve set the table.”
I smile at how pretty she has made it; white linen napkins, sparkling crystal glasses, and a vase of creamy pale pink roses in the middle of the table. All this to eat salad out of a plastic container and a sandwich.
“So what did he say?” I can’t wait until we sit down, patience never having been a particular virtue of mine. “How did you tell him? Did he remember you?”
Her smile fades slightly, and she nods. “I knew you’d want all the details. Let me try to remember everything. I had written to him, you know that. I told him how terrible I felt and that I was too young and too stupid to realize he deserved to know he had a daughter in this world. I told him about you.” She smiles again then. “In the letter I told him you have inherited his dark skin, his dimples, and his creativity, only you express it through words rather than paintings. I told him a little about me. That it hadn’t been a particularly good marriage, but that I never felt I had another choice. I told him that I had never realized, until you were born, how unkind he was. And particularly to you.” My mother blinks back tears as she says this, and I have to swallow a lump in my own throat. “He was not a good father, and I didn’t protect you. I am so sorry.”
“It’s okay, Mum.” I want her to carry on with the story. I know she’s sorry, and I don’t bear any grudge against her for not protecting me from my father. She did the best she could, and it has never occurred to me to blame her for any of it.
“I sent him a picture of you. Three, actually. One when you were very tiny, then another from that holiday in Disney World when you were about eleven, and finally one from your birthday last year. I said you knew about him, that I had just told you, and that I had done you both a tremendous disservice in keeping you apart, and if he wanted to change that, as I very much hoped he would, this was the number to call.”
“Your number.”
“I thought it might be too much to give him your number from the get-go. What if he’d been angry and taken it out on you? I needed to check the lay of the land before anything else.”
“When did he call?”
“This morning. At eleven. Which is six a.m. his time. He said he’d been away in New York for a show and had only just got back to Nantucket to find the letter. He’d phoned immediately. I think he’s stunned, and happy.”
“What did he say? I mean, what exactly did he say?”
“I don’t know exactly. He said he had read and reread the letter. That you looked exactly like his two daughters there, who are just slightly younger than you. He said he wanted to talk to you, and wondered if you might consider going over to Nantucket to see them.”
“Oh my God!” My heart threatens to flip with joy. “Are you serious? Nantucket? And I have sisters?”
She nods. “Do you feel ready to talk to him?”
“Yes!” I leap up from the table and fling my arms around my mother in an impromptu hug. “I can’t believe this!” I say. “I can’t believe how easy this is!” My mother disentangles herself and pulls the phone over.
“You’re sure you’re ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” I grin, jiggling my knee in excitement as she pulls out a piece of paper and dials the number written down.
“Brooks? It’s Audrey again.… Good, thank you. Look, I’ve got Cat with me. She came over for lunch.… Yes. Right here.… Sure. Hang on.” And she hands the receiver over to me.
* * *
“Cat?” His voice is deep, exotically American. My mother’s accent is no longer exotic, as familiar as it is to me, but this is something that sends jolts of longing, a little girl finding her father, something entirely unexpected and discombobulating.
I can’t speak.
“Cat? Are you there?”
“I am. Sorry.”
“Oh wow. Listen to you!” I can hear the smile in his voice. “With your English accent!”
“I, um, am English,” I say, somewhat pathetically.
“I know, I just didn’t think. Your mom still sounds American, and I just didn’t think about it. And you look so like my own