He wasn’t wrong. I hadn’t taken a breath at all, worrying he was actually going to pop the question. I was terrified if he did that I wouldn’t be able to say yes. And I wouldn’t be able to say no.
“Maybe I’ll ask you in Big Sur. We’re staying on top of these cliffs, surrounded by oak trees, prettiest trees you’ve ever seen in your life. And you get to sleep beneath them, you sleep in yurts, which look up at all those trees, which look out on the ocean. One of them has our name on it.”
“I’ve never slept in a yurt,” I said.
“Well, you won’t be able to say that next week.”
He took his drink back, took a long sip.
“And I know I’m getting ahead of myself, but you should probably know, I can’t wait to be your husband,” he said. “Just for the record.”
“Well, I’m not going on the record,” I said. “But I feel the same.”
This is when Bailey came back to the table. She sat down and dug into her pasta, a delicious southern Italian rendition of Cacio e Pepe. It was a decadent mix of cheese and spicy pepper and salty olive oil.
Owen leaned in and took a huge bite, right off her plate.
“Dad!” She laughed.
“Sharing is caring,” he said, his mouth full. “Wanna hear something cool?”
“Sure,” she said. And she smiled at him.
“Hannah got us all tickets to see the revival of Barefoot in the Park tomorrow night at the Geffen,” he said. “Neil Simon is one of her favorites too. Doesn’t that sound great?”
“We’re seeing Hannah again tomorrow?” she said. The words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself.
“Bailey…” Owen shook his head.
Then he gave me an apologetic look: I’m sorry she’s being like this.
I shrugged: It’s really okay, however she wants to be.
I meant it. It was okay with me. She was a teenager who hadn’t had a mother for most of her life. All she had was her father. I didn’t expect her to be good with the prospect of sharing him with someone else. I didn’t think anyone else should expect that of her either.
She looked down, embarrassed. “Sorry I just… have a lot of homework to do,” she said.
“No, please, it’s fine,” I said. “I have a ton of work to do too. Why don’t you two go to the play? Just you and your dad. And maybe we’ll meet up back at the hotel, if you end up getting your work done?”
She looked at me, waiting for the catch. There was none. I wanted her to understand that. Regardless of what I was going to do right in terms of her, and what I was going to do wrong (and based on how things were starting, I knew I was going to do a lot that she considered wrong), there was never going to be a catch. That was a promise I could make her. As far as I was concerned, she didn’t have to be nice. She didn’t have to pretend. She only had to be herself.
“Honestly, Bailey. No pressure either way…” I said.
Owen reached over and took my hand. “I’d really like us to all go together,” he said.
“Next time,” I said. “We’ll do it next time.”
Bailey looked up. And I saw it there before she could hide it. I saw it in her eyes, like a secret she didn’t mean to let me in on—her gratitude that I had understood her. I saw how much she needed someone to understand her, someone besides her father. How she thought it for just a second—that just maybe that someone might turn out to be me.
“Yeah,” she said. “Next time.”
And, for the first time, she smiled at me.
You Have to Do Some Things on Your Own
We walk down the long hallway lined with those art photographs, passing by one of the California Coast. The gorgeous coast near Big Sur. The photograph is at least seven feet long, a bird’s-eye view of that almost impossible stretch of road carved into the divide of steep mountain, rock, and ocean. I’m so focused on it, taking some comfort in the familiar landscape, that I almost miss it when we pass the dining room. I almost miss the dining room table inside. My dining room table—the one that was featured in Architectural Digest. The table that helped launch my career.
It’s my most reproduced piece. A big box store even started replicating the table after the AD feature came out.
It stops me. Nicholas said his wife carefully picked every piece of furniture in this house. What if she came across the feature in Architectural Digest? What if that was what led her to the table? It was possible. The feature was still on their website. Enough clicks in recent years could have led her to her lost granddaughter, if she had been searching closely enough, if she had only known what to be searching for.
Enough moves, after all, led me here, to this house I don’t want to be in—a piece of my past finding me here, as if I need another reminder that everything that matters in my life is at the mercy of what happens now.
Nicholas pulls open a thick, oak door and holds it for me.
I avoid looking back at Ned, who is a couple of feet behind us. I avoid looking at the drooling dogs, who stroll by his side.
I follow Nicholas into his home office and take it in—the dark leather chairs and reading lamps, the mahogany bookshelves. Encyclopedias and classic books line the shelves. Nicholas Bell’s diplomas and accolades hang on the walls. Summa cum laude. Phi Beta Kappa. Law Review. They are framed, proudly.
His office feels different from the rest of the house. It feels more personal. The room is filled with photographs of his family—on the walls, on the credenza, on the bookshelves.
