She shrugs, nibbling at the un-iced edges of her Pop-Tart. I wait for her to say more, but she just blinks at the ocean.
“I want to tell you something,” she rasps. “Ask you something. But I’m nervous to,” she whispers.
“Ask away.” I sit up a little, propping my elbow on my knee as I lean closer to her.
“You may not say that if you knew the question.”
I turn more fully toward her, sitting cross-legged. “You can ask me anything. I’ll try to give an honest answer.”
I watch as she swallows. She looks down at her legs, stretched out in front of her. Then she crosses them. She looks into my eyes again. “When I was a small girl, my mother used to tell me stories.”
I nod slowly.
“They were of a princess—me. And her dear friend…a prince. Prince Declan. Do you know why?” she whispers.
I shake my head, feeling my pulse pick up.
Her brown eyes hold mine. “It’s because she loved your father.”
I feel suspended mid-air, that sort of paused sensation that comes with a shock. At the same time, everything I’ve ever heard my old man say in recent times about the island floods my mind.
“You can’t go wrong there. Especially where you are, son—with your temptations. If there is temptation there,” he laughed, “it won’t be a pill.”
I’m thrown back into my room at Pontresina. Answering the door that night, and Laurent leading me to the couch. What he said, and how he handed me that Xanax after.
“Declan?”
Her hand on my arm makes me blink. I realize she’s leaned in close. “Sorry.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah.”
I can see concern on her face—the rumpled brow and taut mouth.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure if I should tell you,” she says.
“Tell me what?” It comes out hoarse.
She looks down, biting her lip. She looks up at me. “That they were lovers,” she says. “Here. Before they married others. They were lovers and…you know—” She clenches her jaw, looking like she thinks it’s time to shut up.
“What?” I ask quietly.
She licks her lips. Inhales and blows the breath out. “Do you remember visiting here?”
“Some. A little bit.”
I tell her first that my parents split when I was five. So she won’t feel bad for asking about my trip here with my dad the next year. If he was coming here to see her mom or something, that’s not going to upset me. Mom left him.
“I remember he pitched it as an adventure to me. We flew to Cape Town, and I had this little green travel pillow that looked like a dinosaur.” I shake my head, smiling at the randomness of that memory. “I remember seeing the boat we came on. It was pretty big, and it was headed to Antarctica for something.”
I look at my lap, because I’m not sure how to say the rest of what sticks out to me.
She whispers, “What else?”
My throat kind of knots up. I’m surprised by that. I suck my cheeks in, swallow. “Ahh, I think I met your grandmother.”
She asks about that, and I tell her about kneading bread, and Finley smiles. “That was likely Gammy. She did love to bake and make bread. She could eat bread at every meal.”