“Because,” her mom said, “even though there were things that I loved about your dad and England, it wasn’t me. It was important for me to grow, and I got you out of it, but it wasn’t me. I knew that the moment your dad proposed. So tell me, when Morag offered you the inn, what didyouknow?”
Edie gripped her knee. That moment was crystalline. She remembered it in high definition. “That I could make the inn so special.”
“And then what?”
“I told myself I was on vacation and this wasn’t real, it wasn’t mine, I’m not even English, I would mess it up, it was too big, too much, too hard, that Harlaxton was a lot farther away from Los Angeles than Green Bay, and it was already impossible.”
Her mom exhaled. Edie could picture her, blowing smoke. “But did you think, ‘I can’t leave home, I’m gonna miss it so much,’ or ‘I was really looking forward to my job at the factory,’ or ‘I can’t wait to be my brother’s last-minute-no-pay babysitter again’? Did a montage of the Fox River and the Walnut Street Bridge and the coal piles flash through your mind with a pang of longing?”
“No.”
“No! That’s not you. That’s whatIthought, twenty-nine years ago, right down to the coal piles, butyourfirst thought was that you were the right person for this. All the other thoughts that came after were either bullshit or giving up on a girl before you’ve even begun with her.”
I haven’t given up on her.
“I’ll tell you whatIthink you should do.” Her mom lit another cigarette.
“What do you think I should do, Mom?”
“Let Morag be your fairy godmother. Go rescue the princess.”
Edie laughed, and maybe there were a few tears. “If I do, will you come visit?”
And then, only then, after she’d given in to fate and asked for help, could Edie see it—her mom here in the lounge, talking about when she was in England following Phish, her niece and nephew eating biscuits and milky tea at the dining room table, and her knucklehead brothers being scolded by—
Cosima.
“Of course I’ll visit,” her mom said. “No one’s going to throw away a free lodging overseas vacation. There’s airfare specials all the time. I’ll get one of those miles credit cards and use it for my groceries at Woodman’s. And once I’m vested in my pension, watch out. I’ll be speaking the Queen’s English, I’ll be there so much.”
Edie ignored her mother’s atrocious English accent. She had to, because her heart felt like it was going to burst. She thought of the letter Phoebe Frank had left for Cosima in the wallpaper, the letters Agatha had mailed to Barcelona from her cottage in Wales every year like a sacrament, the library full of romance novels Morag had read and kept. She thought of the castle-shaped play equipment at Pamperin Park that her mom had always taken her to play on, even though it wasn’t the closest to their house, because Edie liked it best, and of a birthday cake she’d begged for with roses made of frosting, fit for a princess.
Edie had spent most of her life believing that castles and frosting roses and magic were for other people. But she didn’t believe that anymore.
“Mom?”
“Yeah, Frog?”
“I love you. I’ve gotta go.”
“You bet. I better get a fire under myself. Call me later.” Her mom made two kissing noises. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
It took her a few minutes in the empty lounge to pull herself together. The sun was coming in a beam from the reception area, cutting a golden line across the polished floor, making motes of dust dance in the light. She slid her phone back into her pocket and wrapped up her paintbrush and looked over the whole room, bit by bit, before she was ready to get to her feet.
Then, she found Morag—to her horror, kissing Agatha in the corner by the pantry—and asked her for help.
“I hate heels.” Cosima shoved off her stilettos and sank into her favorite Eames chair in her mother’s study. Duncan had already taken his customary wingback by the fireplace. “I hate Reggie Rierson and his dirty, smug, white-man schemes. I hate ten-hour meetings. I’m becoming fond of the SEC and the FBI, if I’m being honest, but I hate their patience for asking the same question thirty times.”
“Forty.” Duncan sighed. “At least.”
“Do you think he’ll take the bait?”
Cosima had come home to a castle under siege. When she’d walked into the executive conference room in Burbank, there were people around the table in two layers, and more people standing in the corners holding laptops with one hand and typing with the other. They went silent at the sight of her.
As she’d listened to the executives and board members oneby one, Cosima had waited for her stomach to twist with the familiar knives.
It never did.
