part four

chapter 69

millie

I can’t believe how tall Peter is. It’s a renewed shock every time I see him these days, as if unconsciously I carry around an image of him at ten years old in my head. I remember my own irritation at my grandparents’ and my parents’ friends’ refrain every time they saw me – Haven’t you grown! – and bite back the words.

He was a beautiful boy, and now at nineteen he’s grown into an exceptionally handsome young man. His honey-coloured hair still flops beguilingly across those clear, untroubled tawny eyes. His mouth is soft and full, his smile when he sees me wide and joyous. But there’s a squareness to his jaw now, a firmness, an integrity: he has an old-fashioned, rugged masculinity that puts me in mind of bygone movie stars like Burt Lancaster or, more recently, Daniel Craig. There’s nothing metrosexual or ambiguous about Peter.

‘I wasn’t sure you’d make it,’ he says, putting down his book. ‘We were about to give up on you.’

‘I was in theatre,’ I say. ‘There were a few complications.’

‘How did it go?’

‘It went well,’ I say, dropping my coat over the back of a chair, and sitting on the sofa opposite him. The window near me is open, and I can smell the scent of roses and mown grass. ‘I have a new resident. Apollo. He’s very gifted. He has an instinct you can’t teach.’

Peter’s mouth quirks. ‘Apollo?’

‘I should introduce him to your sister,’ I say.

‘Medusa and Apollo. Now there’s a match the gods would like. How is she, by the way?’

‘She’s fine,’ I say. ‘Better than fine, actually. Harvard Medical School just accepted her for their graduate programme. She only found out yesterday. She’s planning to fly up to Boston next month and start looking for a place to live.’

‘Chip off the old block,’ Peter says.

I never thought I’d be the kind of parent to live vicariously through my child, but watching Meddie follow in my footsteps has brought me intense pride and pleasure.

She was valedictorian of her undergraduate class at Johns Hopkins, and getting into Harvard now will put her on the radar of all the big teaching hospitals in America. I wish she wasn’t so far away, but I can understand her need to put four thousand miles behind her and the past. Tom’s death four years ago hit her hard.

It hit us all hard.

‘D’you think she’ll end up going into cardio, like you?’ Peter asks.

‘Neurology,’ I say. ‘She says it’s more cutting edge. There’s still so much left that we don’t know about the brain.’

‘You must miss it,’ Peter says. ‘Being at the forefront, I mean.’