“I couldn’t be there. I was on set.”
“You could have left the set.”
“Fine,” he says. “I’m sorry I asked Hugh Jackman to sing to Mom on her birthday. Is that what you want?”
“Timmy. That’s not what I’m asking you to apologize for, and you know it.”
She watches him take a beat. “Okay.Okay. I’m sorry if you had to take on more than your share. But I wasworking, Amy. When I work, an entire film production works with me. Not just actors,but craft services, and set dressers, and wardrobe people and production assistants and a lot of other people too. I’m part of a giant machine. I’m a cog in a wheel, and I have responsibilities to the rest of the wheel. I can’t just leave.”
The rum is hitting her hard, but his words are hitting her too. “You’re doing what you always do. You can’t give an honest apology without this context that your shit is more important than everyone else’s.”
Timothy blinks and raises his eyebrows. “I don’t think that’s what I do.”
“Of course you don’t think it. You don’t see it. It’s your blind spot.”
The server comes back, and Timothy says, “Another round, please.” When they’re alone again he swirls his straw around in what remains of his drink. “MomlovedHugh Jackman. You know she did. It was a big deal for me to ask that, a favor like that, and a big deal for him to do it. I didn’t take that lightly.”
(Hugh Jackman had sung a part of “I Still Call Australia Home”fromThe Boy from Oz—a cappella—and Rose, who had never set foot in Australia, but who had seen the show on Broadway, had cried like a newborn.)
The server drops off the fresh drinks and asks about food.
“Maybe later,” they say together.
“I didn’t know how much the Hugh Jackman thing bothered you.”
“You probably also don’t know that after this I have to vacuum up mouse turds. I went to the hardware store and bought a dozen traps.”
“Well, no. How would I know that if you didn’t tell me? Call an exterminator. Or askmeto call an exterminator. Nobody asked you to buy mousetraps. Your martyr complex is really out of control.”
She snaps back immediately, “No more out of control than your savior complex.”
Timothy sits back and sips his drink. Amy turns away from her brother, points her face toward the water. He says, “There’s no way Hugh Jackman is the biggest thing on your mind.”
She folds her arms. “Okay.” There’s a long pause. “You’re right. There’s more. You took Sam away from me.”
“Itook her away?” Timothy’s eyebrows shoot up toward the underside of the blue umbrella. “She practically showed up on my doorstep, looking for a place to stay! She asked to live on the island for the summer!” He’s almost sputtering. “Amy! You know that’s how it went down, right? She came home from New York, and she wanted a change. That’s why college was invented, so young people and their parents could have a sanctioned break from each other. You didn’t want to live at home when you were nineteen either.”
She feels her lip tremble. “I’m not talking about only now. I’m talking about way back when. The L.A. year, when she was onMy Three Daughters.AfterMockingbird.You took her from me. Greg and I did all the hard stuff, all the early stuff, every diaper change and skinned knee and strep throat test and tear over a mean girl in middle school, but you bring the glamor. So you’re the one Sam wants to spend the summer with. I guess it does feel a lot like what happened with Mom.”
“Oh, come on now.” But maybe he sees something in Amy’s face that sends him a signal, because his face softens, and he takes a beat before he goes on. “Ame. Come on. She came back to you when the show ended, just like you asked. I did what you wanted me to. She was only gone a year!”
“She did.” Amy tips her head an inch. “But I’ll never have that exact year back. That crucial year, when she was becoming a teenager. She’s my only daughter, and that was the only year she was exactly that age, and I missed all of it, and I’ll never ever get that time back. And, yeah, Timmy, sometimes I blame you for that. I do.” Amy shrugs.
“Butshewanted to come to L.A. She asked to audition for the show. Remember? She begged. You could have said no if you didn’t want her to go, you and Greg. Parents’ prerogative. You signed all the papers. You booked the flight.”
“You lured her there,” says Amy. She will not give in on this, because she knows she’s right. “With your agent, and your industry insider knowledge, and your... your Gertie. Your fancy house. We could have said no, sure. But she would have resented us forever.”
“Ididn’t lure her. Maybe Hollywood lured her, but I just gave her a place to stay while she tried to figure out if it was what she wanted. I gave her back to you when you asked. I stuck to the script, just like you wanted me to. Going on location, blah blah, etc. I said everything you wanted me to say!”
“I know you did. But when she came back, she wasn’t my little girl any longer.” Her voice breaks at the end and she tries to hold it steady.
“Oh, Amy.” Now there is real pity in Timothy’s eyes, and Amy can’t tell if that makes things worse or better. Worse, she decides. “I’m not a parent,” he goes on. “But I would guess that every girl changes a lot at that age. She would have changed whether she was with you or not.”
Amy shakes her head. “But the change would have been incremental.” Sam had gotten her period for the first time that year when she was in Los Angeles, and Amy wasn’t there with her. It was Gertie who bought her supplies, Gertie who gave her a heating pad to put on her stomach to vanquish those early cramps. Nobody even told Amy until two days later! “And then I got her back, but I lost her to that bizarre TikTok house, and now I’ve lost her again, to you and Gertie,again, and your nicer house, and the beaches, and—” She gestures to the private beach in front of Ballard’s, the chair rentals, the cabanas. “And to all of this. Of course she’d rather be here, with your big life, instead of my small one.”
“Your life isn’t small.”
“Well,Iknow that.” (Does she?) “But I don’t always think you know that. I don’t think Sam knows that.”
