“That you were unhappy,” he said (to my relief, quite quietly). “I didn’t know. You didn’t tell me.”
I frowned.Happy—that wasn’t a word I had considered in this situation. “It’s not that I’m unhappy. I just want us to settle in, Caleb.”
“And so you called my mother.” This, the deadened quiet tone Caleb was using, was new. I felt like I was watching a pet perform a naughty trick I hadn’t taught them. A parakeet unraveling a toilet roll.Where did you learn that?
“You should have to tell me,” he said. “If you’re unhappy, you should be required to tell me that.”
“I’m not unhappy,” I said again. We were both staring at the long ribbon of highway ahead, barren salt flats all around us. In the corner of my eye, I clocked Caleb’s tight, double-handed grip on the wheel with an almost-academic interest.Sothisis what an angry husband looks like.
“You know,” Caleb said, “it’s really not that unusual to not know what you want to do with your life right out of college.”
“Of course it isn’t. But—”
“It’s not that unusual. Really, it isn’t.”
I didn’t reply. The clarification I had wanted to add—but ideally a man should have some purpose before he decides to bring another life into theworld—now felt too combative.
“I just thought,” Caleb said. “I thought you would be—”
The silence stretched too long. “What? You thought I’d bewhat?”
“Never mind.”
We didn’t speak again for the rest of the drive.
Caleb’s parents lived outside Napa Valley, on an old Spanish estate with twenty-four-hour surveillance and an active working vineyard. The property had been in their family for four generations. It was nearly as old as the family’s most precious heirloom: their history of political ambition. As we pulled onto the Mills estate driveway, a long and winding road buffeted by live oak trees—and beyond the oak trees: migrant workers, hundreds of them, sweating beneath the late afternoon sun—I breathed a sigh of relief.Thank you, Lord, for the Inheritance.
Doug and Amelia were waiting for us when we rolled up to thegreat circular entranceway, Doug in a button-down shirt rolled up at the elbows, Amelia in a collared shirtdress. Not a wrinkle between the two of them. Like a pair of vintage figurines, Mr. and Mrs. America positionedjust soin front of the massive double-entrance oak doors. The car rolled to a stop, and they approached us with matching grins. Doug opened the passenger door for me, and I turned to him with the biggest, fakest smile I could muster.
“Look who made it!” Doug roared.
“Where’s my gorgeous little grandbaby?” Amelia exclaimed.
Clementine was half-awake when I opened the back-seat door. I unbuckled and pulled her out of the car seat with all the care and precision of a bomb-disarming expert. To my amazement, she performed perfectly for the moment, gazing up at her grandparents with a little twinkle in her usually miserable dark eyes. I stared down at my daughter with a new measure of respect.
“You sure can make a mean baby, Natalie,” Doug said.
Before I could reply, Amelia lifted Clementine out of my arms. “That’s a darling little girl,yes,ma’am.” Then she looked up at me, her face a veneer of hostess perfection. Pink-painted lips, eyebrows plucked into a perfect bridge. “You must be exhausted, Natalie. Let’s get you a cold glass of water, then I’ll have Maria make you a cappuccino. You’ll love Maria. She’s an absolute godsend.”
(As it would turn out, I would never actually get to know Maria at all. The employees at the Mills estate were trained to bediscreet,which meant that they optimized their work schedules such that they were practically invisible to me throughout the day.)
Caleb slammed the car door shut. The three of us looked over at him.
“Hello, Mother,” he said formally. “Hello, Father.”
Caleb walked around the car and stood there, arms limp by his sides as Doug gave him a bear hug. He stared blankly at me over his father’s shoulder, as if to say,Are you happy now?
But Caleb’s parents seemed unbothered by his gloom. As we walked inside, I fell a few steps behind the three of them and watched as Doug and Amelia talked at him simultaneously, his mother relaying the latest gossip with the neighbors while his father brayed about how lazy the new garden workers were.
“—couldn’t honestly understand why she would send little Richard to a boarding school at such a young age—”
“—caught ’emnappingat lunch time, snoring, can you believe it—?”
I could practically see Caleb wilting with each step he took farther into the house. He looked like a houseplant getting tortured with a hair dryer.
“You’ve hadsucha long drive,” Amelia said to us. She was holding Clementine in the practiced crook of one arm. “Why don’t we get Luiz to take your bags upstairs?”
She rested a tentative hand on Caleb’s shoulder. He shrugged it off and said, “I can carry my own bags.”
