Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“The irony, right?” I ask and then shake my head. I huff out a breath and spread my arms wide. “My only guess is that my dad will at some point try to draw me into the business side of things. Right now, he thinks I’m pursuing my ‘hobby’ of playing ice hockey.”
Livia’s brow furrows. “Like… he does know you make millions of dollars, right? Or that there’s only like seven hundred professional hockey players in North America? It’s a pretty specialized, elite career.”
I can’t help but smile at her, and yeah… there’s fondness in it for coming to my defense. “Careful, Livia. I might think you like me.”
“I do like you,” she says simply, but so matter-of-fact, I know she’s talking about surface-level stuff. She glances at her notes, taps her pen against her chin. “Okay… let’s get back into home life. What’s your mother like?”
I don’t have to think hard. She doesn’t have many layers, and I don’t say that with any bitterness. She’s just… not very dimensional. “She likes nice things.” I say it without inflection. “Charity galas, European travel, shopping. She’s very beautiful, very aware of it and uses it the way some people use a graduate degree.”
“How did she treat you growing up?”
I consider my childhood. “She wasn’t cruel. She was just… absent. She had her own life and I wasn’t the center of it.”
“Were you close to her at all?”
“No.”
“Did you want to be?”
The question surprisingly pokes at a place in me that I had sealed up long ago when I decided to give up on a traditional family. I take a breath and let it out slowly. “I was a kid, so of course I wanted my parents to notice me. I wanted to be at the center of their world. But that’s not a big revelation. That’s just biology.”
She holds my gaze. “It’s both.”
I say nothing.
“Tell me about holidays.” I can tell she knows this is a tender spot. Not from anything I’ve said, just from the way I mentioned them at Thanksgiving dinner.
“What about them?”
“What did they look like growing up? Did you have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner like we had at my parents’ house the other night?”
I look down at my hands. “Christmas was usually Aspen or St. Barts. Thanksgiving was wherever my mother decided she wanted to be that year. Sometimes the house in Nantucket, sometimes they went to Europe.” I pause, sifting through memories. “I was usually with a nanny.”
“Usually.”
“When they stayed in Boston, there were dinners. They were formal affairs with business associates, family friends, that kind of thing.” I can see the dining room in my head if I let myself—the long table, the candles, the quiet music in the background. “I was expected to be present and well-behaved and not require anything from anyone.”
Livia writes a longer note this time. I watch her pen move and wait.
“You said you were with the nanny. Did you have anyone you were close to?”
“If you’re trying to figure out where I got familial love, I can save you time. The nanny was just a hired helper. There were a few over the years, but I never bonded with them.”
“Do you know why?” she asks hesitantly.
I stare at her, then tell her a truth about me she probably won’t like. I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “Look, Livia… I know you’re hoping to fix me, maybe by bringing me to emotional awareness, but I need you to know… I’m pretty self-aware. I can tell you exactly the reason I didn’t bond with the nannies, and it’s because I didn’t want to be let down by them the way I was with my parents. I wouldn’t allow myself to get close to them. That way, when they inevitably left, like they all do for better money or work conditions, I wouldn’t feel sad. And I didn’t. Never felt sad about a single one who walked out the door.”
Her eyes are wide, and I can tell by looking at her this was a level of honesty she wasn’t anticipating. “I can’t even imagine,” she whispers. “And… at the risk of sounding very unprofessional… your parents ought to have their asses kicked. They totally don’t have any business being parents.”
I’m so stunned by her vehement advocacy for my childhood that I bark out a laugh, which winds down into quick chuckles. “You’re probably right.”
She gives me a sheepish smile but then tilts her head as a new question takes up residence. “Surely you had adult figures you could count on? You played hockey, obviously.”
“Yeah,” I say with a nod. “I had some good coaches in my formative years. A middle school science teacher I could talk to.”
“But did you remain close to them?” she asks.
“No, not really.
She holds my gaze, then looks back at her notepad. “When did hockey start?”