I sing the words with a scratch in my throat, raw and aching. My husband used to say that music should hurt.
I swallow. “Another good beginning.”
“Agreatbeginning,” Andrew counters. “Keep going.”
He makes it sound simple. I let the guitar slide between my legs—between our legs—and down to the floor.
Andrew hands me my notebook and recites the words back to me so I can write them down.
“This time will be different,” he promises. “This time, you’re going to finish it.”
“How do you know?” I ask, the words catching in my throat.
“This time you have me. Tonight you wrote one verse. Tomorrow night, we’ll do one more.”
“What’ll you give me if I finish a whole song?” I ask, licking my lips.
Andrew winks. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
“You’re going to have to do better than Swedish Fish and SweeTarts.”
“Don’t worry,” Andrew promises. “I know what you want.”
Of course he doesn’t, but I smile, letting him think he does.
31Lord Edward
At breakfast, Dr. Rush gives me my “use as directed” dose, pulling the pill bottle from the inside pocket of his tweedy jacket, held next to his heart for safekeeping.
I shiver through a cold plunge and sweat in the sauna. Before lunch I sneak back to my room—ostensibly to use the bathroom—and grab another pill from my stash, crunching it between my teeth while Dr. Rush waits for me in the next room for today’s chat therapy. I put another pill in my pocket in case I need it later. Then another. And another.
“Why do you dress like that?” I ask as I sit across from the man who locked me inside. I stretch my leg out in front of me.
“Like what?” Dr. Rush asks.
“Like my father.” Does he think it will make me feel more at home? I could tell him that dressing like my father is hardly going to set me at ease.
My father doesn’t believe in ease. If I so much as slouched at the dinner table, I’d be sent to my room. The walls in my childhood home—the home in London where my father, Anne, and her family now live—are thick and ancient, but somehow my father always heard if I cried.
The Duke of Exeter wears a suit every day. In London, pinstriped, single-breasted jackets and pants in various shades of gray over crisp button-downs and ties, his collars held up by starch, so tight around his neck that when I was little I thought he might be choking. For the countryside, there are houndstooth and tweed, pants tucked into tall boots, unflattering hats to match. In the evening, we’re meant to dress for dinner: tuxedos and cocktail dresses. I’ve never seen my father wear jeans, though I imagine if he ever did, his tailor would surely create a denim three-piece suit.
People like my family are anachronisms, but Anne acts as though we’re saviors, holding up traditions and rituals—a way of life, she calls it—that would be lost if not for us.
I ask for a glass of water. When Dr. Rush’s back is turned, I pull two pills from my pocket, slide them between my lips. Dr. Rush hands me the glass, and I swallow hard.
“So you’re saying that your father’s formal nature created distance between you?” he asks.
I shake my head. I didn’t say that. I was thinking about my father’s clothes, not pouring my heart out. Certainly not to Dr. Rush, jailer disguised as therapist.
Besides, I never said Dad was formal. Sure, he dresses the part, but I’ve seen him disheveled. The way the vein on his neck looks fit to burst when he shouts. The sweat shimmering on his neck when he grabs me, shakes me.
I feel as though I’m sinking into the couch beneath me, like the soft white cushions will swallow me whole.
“Did he do that often, grabbing you roughly?”
Did I say that aloud? No, I would never.
Was Dad rough? Certainly, he was never tender. He never hugged me or kissed the top of my head. He said I had no mother, so I had no reason to behave like a Mama’s boy. He was quick to remind me that she left me without looking back. It was years before I understood that my mother hadn’t been given much choice in the matter.
