Page 49 of Look on the Bright Side

She took a bite of the incredibly delicious, perfect burger and closed her eyes. Had she had lunch today? No. Half a granola bar in between patients. “So your relationship with your family isn’t great. Why is that? I need to know if you want them to think we actually spend time together.”

He took a joyless bite of his chicken and chewed. “I wasn’t raised at home,” he said. “My parents, who like to think of themselves as devoted and adoring, shipped me off to school when I was seven. I stayed with my grandmother. Alone. She did the bulk of raising me.”

Okay, that was grounds for being on edge, even if Lark thought he should maybe be over it by now. “Why did they do that?”

“There was a school for gifted boys. Noni lived in Brookline, the same town where the school is, so my parents had me live there.”

“St. George’s?” she asked.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“I used to go running there. Beautiful campus.” It was an institution, St. George’s, all the boys wearing uniforms—blazers with insignias and shorts, knee socks, British-style. The school had produced at least two Nobel Prize winners, a dozen members of Congress, a surgeon general and probably a member of SCOTUS. “Did you like it there?”

“The school was fine.”

“And you’re obviously close to your grandmother. It doesn’t sound like a Dickens novel. More like Hogwarts.”

“Yes. But at the time, it felt a lot like…abandonment.”

Lark’s heart lurched. She pictured a little blond boy staring at the family car as it drove away. Sleeping in a room by himself, no chatter or company from his siblings, just the quiet. The pressure and strangeness of a new school. Coming home to one person and one person only after having had two parents, a brother and a sister or two.

She reached across the table and put her hand over his. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That must’ve been really hard. And confusing.”

He withdrew his hand. “It sent a message. The expectations were different for me. I was being groomed, almost, to be the success I am today.”

“Groomed?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe ‘given special opportunities’ is a better way to think of that.” She ate a french fry. “Do you feel like a success?”

“Would you like to see my W-2?” he returned.

“I’m not talking about money, Lorenzo. Your dad, for example, is also successful. He has a loving wife and four children and seems like a very happy man. You don’t have to see an income statement to know that.”

“Easy to be happy when your son buys you a house, pays for vacations, covers the tuition of your daughters, pays for your mother’s care and can, at any moment, give whatever else is needed. Of course he’s happy. Wouldn’t anyone be happy in those circumstances?”

Wow. A lot of bitterness there. “There’s a saying my mom brings out once in a while. ‘You’re only as happy as your least happy child.’ Maybe your father wishes things were different between the two of you.”

“Maybe he should’ve thought about that before he sent me off, then.”

She nodded. Patted his reluctant hand. “I get it,” she said. “They gave you advantages, but there was a price. It makes sense that you’re hurt.”

“I’m not hurt, Lark,” he said. “It’s just how things are.”

“You ever talk to him about this stuff?”

“No. Of course not. I’ve never talked to anyone about it.” He glanced sharply at her, a little startled.

“Until today,” she said with a small smile.

He started to speak, stopped, then said, “You won’t tell anyone about that, will you?”

For the first time, a little humanity sat like a baby bird between them, fragile and afraid. “Of course not.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She smiled again. “Well, I guess I just wanted to let you know that I really like your family, and your mom wants the Santinis to meet all the Smiths. She wants to throw a picnic.”

---