It had angered me when he said it, but much of it turned out to be true.
“Your father is full of contradictions in his dotage,” my mom contributed, clutching his arm. “C’est vrai, Jérôme?”
“I always said this, ‘not to care.’ But I also said, ‘Be respectful.’ Yes?” He angled his head in toward my mom, and she stood on her toes to kiss his brow. All these years later, they were still in love.
“The best artists, they are like this. You don’t shock just to shock. You create beauty, you create art. You don’t do it for attention.”
I made note of that as we negotiated the narrow sidewalk. My father and his digestible morsels of art critique.
As we approached the intersection at the corner, a family of five made their way in our direction. The youngest, a girl of about nine, caught my eye immediately. There was no missing her August Moon shirt.
My heart was audible in my chest. I had made great efforts not to think about him constantly, and yet here he was coming toward me via some tween’s printed jersey. Hayes’s face plastered over where her left breast would one day be.
“Do you know that girl?” my mom asked when we’d passed them in the crosswalk.
“No.”
“Tu en fais, une tête!” she said. Rough translation: That’s an odd face you’re making.
“Sorry,” I said. “It happens.”
“Sometimes, you give away everything on your face.” She frowned. “It is when you are least French.”
This, from my mother, was not a compliment.
I had made the decision that I would tell Isabelle about Hayes that weekend. Not everything in its entirety, but—as the experts suggested when teaching one’s child about sex—just as much as she needed to know.
It was after lunch, and we were winding our way down toward the lake, surrounded by mature maples and pines, the smell of summer in New England. My parents had wandered up to the stables to see the horses, and for the first time that day it was just the two of us. Isabelle had been so excited to show us all that she’d masteredin her short time there (zip-lining, waterskiing, tennis), that I’d had to wait for her to settle a bit before bringing it up.
“So,” I said, as casually as I could muster, “wanna hear something really cool?”
“Did you meet someone?” she asked. We were approaching the boathouse, and only a handful of other campers and their parents were in sight.
“Did Imeetsomeone?”
“Yeah, like a guy, a boyfriend. I was hoping that’s what you were going to say.”
I stopped. I could feel my face flushing. Oh, that she was so close. And that this was what she wanted for me. Although certainly not withhim. “No. No boyfriend. Something you’ll think is much cooler. Guess who my new client is?”
Her eyes grew wide. “Taylor Swift? Zac Efron?”
“Cooler than that.”
“Cooler than Zac Efron?” She looked at me, doubtful, and then: “Oh my God, oh my God…”
I waited for it to register.
“Barack Obama?!”
“Yes,” I laughed. “He called and said he needed something special for the Oval Office. No, not Barack Obama. In what world would that happen?”
“Ours,” she said, “because we shouldn’t put limits on ourselves. Remember?”
I smiled at her then. It was something I had said often. I was pleased to see it had stuck.
“Hmm.” She was twirling her new ring around her middle finger. The gift from Eva was a thin Jennifer Meyer creation. Gold with emeralds in a circle pavé setting. Delicate, simple… easily five hundred dollars.
“Is it? Is it…?” Isabelle’s voice grew very tiny, as if saying it any louder would kill the possibility. “August Moon?”
