More Than Words

Nina saw the tears filling TJ’s eyes and felt them in her own.

“Thank you,” she said again, but this time it wasn’t automatic. This time it came from her heart. She knew how much TJ had done for her father in the end, and how hard taking care of everything was for him. But that was how close TJ and her father’s friendship had been—like Leslie and Nina, they’d been inseparable since their first year at Yale. Until now.

Nina and TJ hugged, and then TJ said he had to go take care of a few more things. Nina nodded. She would help soon, just like she’d promised her father. She just had to get her mind straightened out first. It had to be in working order before she started a new job, proved herself to a staff who thought of her as their old boss’s daughter. Nina walked TJ to the door, then sat back at the dining table, looking at the keys. There was an address written on them in Caro’s handwriting, taped to one side of the heart.

Nina pulled out her phone and typed the address into Google Maps, turning it to satellite mode. The house was small, white, two stories, with a wraparound porch and latticework that made it look like it was built out of gingerbread. Nina zoomed in on the door, which was painted a bright red. There were crocuses and hydrangeas in the front yard. She remembered that house. Her mother’s house. Now her house.

Nina took a breath and called Tim.

“Hey,” he said, after one ring. “You okay?” It was what he asked her every time they spoke now. Every time they saw each other. Nina felt like she was letting him down every time she said Not really.

“I just inherited my mom’s house,” she said, ignoring the question. “That I didn’t even know my dad still owned. Can you take a drive with me tomorrow?”

“Of course,” Tim said. “It’ll be nice to get away. Go on a little adventure.”

She appreciated his positivity, but this wasn’t a weekend getaway. And she didn’t think it was an adventure, either. Nina had no idea what she’d find in that house.

37

“I just don’t understand,” Nina kept saying as she drove her father’s Mercedes up the Hudson. Tim had wanted to call a car service, the way they usually did when they left Manhattan, but Nina hadn’t wanted to let a driver in on this trip. It felt too personal. So Tim had relented. “My father didn’t mention this house for more than two decades. Seriously. Who keeps a house hidden for more than two decades?”

Tim kept looking over at the speedometer. “Are you going too fast?” he asked.

Nina looked down. “I’m going exactly sixty-four miles per hour.”

“That’s above the speed limit,” he said. “Be careful. You’re not used to driving.”

Tim had never bothered to get a driver’s license—he’d lived in New York City all his life, except for four years at Stanford—and was never quite comfortable in the front seat of a car. Nina’s father had insisted that she learn to drive, both automatic and stick, so she’d learned while she was at the house in the Hamptons one summer, in a series of lessons with her father, who winced every time she popped the clutch on his classic TVR sports car.

But other than when she was out of the city, which hadn’t been all that often that past summer, she rarely drove.

“I promise, we’ll be fine,” Nina said.

“We used to all come up here,” Tim said after a moment. “Do you remember? I haven’t thought about it in forever.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Nina answered, keeping her eyes on the road in front of her, “but we did. We went hiking, I think. You, me, my mom, your mom.”

“I remember that, too. And one time we had a picnic somewhere there were sculptures.”

“It must’ve been Storm King,” Nina said. She wished she could remember more.

“It really is weird that no one talked about this house again after your mom died,” Tim said. Nina could feel his eyes on her, watching her expression, checking to see if he’d said the wrong thing again.

Somehow the appearance of this house, her mother’s house, made things worse. She felt like she was a water balloon—emotions filling her tight—and all it would take was one prick for them to gush out, soaking her and everyone around her.

The last time Nina ever saw her mother was Christmas morning. She and her parents were still in their pajamas, even though Maeve, the au pair, was fully dressed. Nina’s mom was wearing red silk pajama pants with a matching top. That was the last thing she saw her mother dressed in—red silk pajamas. For years, Nina avoided the color red, even on pencils or notebooks. She still didn’t have any red in her wardrobe.

That Christmas, she’d just opened her presents: matching clothing for her and her American Girl doll, Molly—the one with glasses like Nina’s. A set of Anne of Green Gables books, since she’d finished the Emily of New Moon trilogy and had loved it. An electric keyboard with a pair of headphones because she’d just started piano lessons. A ski sweater from her aunt Daphne, her mom’s sister, sent all the way from Colorado. And a gold necklace with her name written on it in script, a heart over the letter i. Priscilla had gotten one that year, too—everyone had said how lucky she was to have two is in her name, so she got to have two hearts.

Nina’s father gave her mother a diamond tennis bracelet that she told him was too much, but which Nina could tell she really loved. And Nina gave her a Spanish novel. Her father had helped her pick it out and had said he was sure her mother hadn’t read that one yet. Nina’s mom had gotten a gift in the mail from her sister, too, a ski sweater that was almost the same as Nina’s. They’d skied in Massachusetts and Vermont and for a week in Zermatt the year before. TJ, Caro, and Tim hadn’t come on that trip, and Nina’s parents had spent an entire day skiing the blue slopes with her instead of insisting she go to ski school. It was one of the best days of Nina’s life.

“Are we going skiing this year?” Nina asked her mother when she opened the box with the sweater inside.

“Of course,” her father answered. “Maybe Aspen next month.”

Nina’s mom looked at him. “We can’t go to Colorado and ski Aspen.” She was crumpling up wrapping paper, wadding it into a compact ball.

Nina stroked her new sweater. “What’s wrong with Aspen?” she’d asked, following the path of the silver-threaded snowflake across its blue woolen background.

“Nothing,” her father said, and then went to open his gifts. Nina had made him a mosaic picture frame in art class and had put a picture of them inside, which he told her he’d put on his desk at work. And then he picked up another gift with his name on it and opened the card. When he read it, his eyes widened.

“What is it?” Nina’s mother said. “Who’s that one from?”

“Just someone at work,” he responded. “Did one of the doormen bring this up? When did it get here?”

Nina nodded. “Harold gave it to me yesterday,” she said, all of a sudden worried she’d done something wrong. “He told me someone dropped it off and said to give it to you. Since it was a Christmas present, I put it under the tree.”

“Who’s it from?” Nina’s mother asked again, an edge in her voice now. “Joseph, can I see the card?”

Nina’s head ping-ponged back and forth between them, trying to figure out what was happening.

“Nina,” Maeve said, standing up from her seat on the couch. “Why don’t you and I bring those Christmas cookies we made down to Harold? Let’s see if we can find the super and the porters, too, and wish them all a Happy Christmas.”

“But you didn’t open your gifts yet,” Nina said. “And Daddy didn’t finish.” All of a sudden Christmas felt wrong. Something was going on that she didn’t understand.

“It’s okay,” Maeve answered. “I’ll open them later. You can help, if you’d like. I bet Harold will be so glad to get your cookies.”

“Okay,” Nina said slowly, looking at her parents, still confused. But she knew when a sentence was an order even when it wasn’t said that way.

* * *

• • •

When Nina and Maeve came back from delivering cookies, Nina’s mother had gone. “She went to the country,” her father said.

“But why?” Nina asked. “We haven’t had Christmas dinner yet. I’m still wearing pajamas. Why didn’t we go with her?”

Sometimes her mom went to the country by herself for a day or two, when city life started to feel too chaotic, or when something unkind was said about her in the press.

“I’m a professor, not a fashion plate,” she’d said once, in frustration, as the family drove up to the house together, after someone had written an in-depth article about her choice to wear ballet flats instead of heels to a cocktail party.

“You’re both,” her father had answered. “It comes with the territory.”

* * *

• • •

“Mom needed some space,” he told Nina that Christmas morning.

“But it’s Christmas!” Nina said. “Did someone write something mean about her again? Is that what was in the card?”