The Bookish Life of Nina Hill(18)

“So you were born while his dad was still married to his mom. In fact, based on your birthday, William slept with your mom while his wife, Rosie, was pregnant with Archie.”

“Oh.” Her mother had been right. So much for not remembering all that much about it.

Peter nodded. “ ‘Oh’ is right. And Rosie, sadly, is dead. Of cancer. A decade ago. And William and she seemed very happy together, and that’s been the story all along, that Rosie was the love of his life, that they would have stayed married and had more kids and it was all a big tragedy. And now it turns out he cheated on her and we have living physical proof. Which is you.”

“Awesome.”

“Yeah,” said Peter. “Not entirely sure how Archie’s going to feel about it, but there’s not much we can do to change it.”

Nina was silent.

“Shall we carry on?” asked Peter. “There are two more generations to go.”

She nodded. “Let me get more coffee and maybe a bun of some kind.”

“Excellent idea. Grab me something fattening while you’re up there, will you?”

Nina went and stood at the counter. She was feeling something new, something she was finding it hard to quantify. She turned and looked at Peter, who was texting on his phone and smiling at something. She liked him so much already, not in an ‘I wonder if we’ll be friends’ kind of way, but in a . . . she wasn’t sure what it was. She got two more lattes and two chocolate éclairs.

“Ooh, good choice. I can see genetics are still working in our favor. There is nothing—nothing—that isn’t improved by laying a thick piece of chocolate frosting on top of it.”

Nina nodded and realized what it was. They were related. She’d never experienced a relative before, apart from her mom, and Candice had never really warmed to the role. Presumably, if she and Peter had hated each other on sight it would have sucked, but she knew already that they were going to be connected forever. There was no confusion, no potential attraction, no time limit. It was a relationship she could understand and rely on. She felt . . . relaxed. Which of course made her feel slightly worried. It shouldn’t be as easy as this to like someone, right?

“Shall we continue?” She drew a third horizontal line, some way below all the names, and put a big two on the side.

“What an excellent student you are,” Peter said, around a mouthful of éclair. “OK, so Becky had Jennifer and then me, Peter.” He waved at himself, even though they were two feet apart. “Katherine had Lydia, which is somewhat amazing, because my aunt Katherine is a piece of work. She may have eaten her husband; he disappeared completely. According to my mother, one day he was there and the next day he was gone, leaving all his worldly possessions and his car keys behind.”

“That’s weird.”

“Yeah.” He paused. “He took the dog, though.”

Nina nodded. “Not a total loss then.”

Peter continued, “My grandmother, Alice, is a nightmare. She looks like Miss Havisham, you know, from Dickens, but talks like something out of a Coppola movie. My mom is great, proving genetics aren’t everything, but Aunt Katherine continues to be a strangely dressed homicidal maniac.”

“Wow, don’t hold back. Say what you really think.”

“You’ll see. My sister Jennifer is awesome—you’ll love her—but my cousin Lydia is a fiend in human form, despite being a genius. Or maybe because she’s a genius. She’s not as bad as her mom, but let’s call her challenging. OK, let’s get on with the chart. We have years for backstory.” He licked the last of the chocolate off his fingers. “But remember, don’t go near my grandmother without a shiny shield to look into. One direct glance and it’s masonry all the way.”

“Damn.”

“True story. Anyway, let’s press on. Draw another line and put a three.”

Nina did so.

Peter turned his head to see her piece of paper. “You could totally take my class. OK, we’re nearly done. Now you’ve reached my group; me, my sister, and Archie’s little boy, Henry, who is two. No one else has any kids, so that’s it for nieces and nephews.”

“Great.” Nina pushed the piece of paper away, but Peter pushed it back.

“Oh no, you’re not done. You need another horizontal line. I don’t have kids, but my older sister Jennifer has three, Little Alice, JoJo, and Louie. They’re nearly teenagers, and they are—drumroll, please—your great-nieces and great-nephew.”

Nina looked at him. “Wait, I’m someone’s Great-Aunt Nina?”

Peter laughed. “Yes. You are their Great-Aunt Nina. Which would be amusing to them if they didn’t already have a Great-Uncle Archie, and a Great-Aunt Millie, who’s younger than they are.” He pointed his finger at her. “And THAT is unusual, even to me.” Then he pushed his cup and plate away and started to roll up the chart. “I’m exhausted. Shall we go to the gift store? I hear they have paper clips shaped like rabbits and those old-fashioned pencils with all the colors inside one on top of the other.”

So that’s what they did.





After the shopping was over, Nina and Peter exchanged hugs, and Nina headed home. She felt anxious about a potentially angry brother she hadn’t even met yet and worried that, through no fault of her own, she had ruined someone else’s life. It was a whole new level of awkward, and she was someone who was pretty familiar with awkward. It had taken her previous record—the time she’d attended a Bar Mitzvah by accident when she’d walked into the wrong synagogue (Beth EL is not the same as Beth AM, in case you were wondering) looking for a friend’s wedding—and smashed it completely. She felt discombobulated, to use a word Liz liked, as if millions of voices had suddenly cried out in—no, wait, that’s Star Wars. She felt like she’d had a heart transplant. The original organ that usually felt stable in her chest, beating its way along and only occasionally skipping a beat (hello, Michael Fassbender), had been replaced by something that didn’t feel as though it had been installed correctly.