Chapter Three
“GUP!” the kids screamed as they emerged from the passenger bridge and spotted their uncle at the gate. Celebrities had access to a whole host of perks while flying, but apparently so did adults meeting children flying alone. Maisie and Grant ran straight into his arms as a gate agent followed closely to check the paperwork they wore around their necks. They both had backpacks, Maisie’s bulging with books.
“Mr. O’Hara?” the gate agent asked, making sure all was in order. Patrick presented his passport as ID and she cross-checked everything one final time with her records. “Thank you for flying British Airways, children. I was going to offer you a pin, but I suppose you’re rather big for one.”
“I’ll take a pin,” Grant said excitedly.
“A brooch to go with your clownish necklaces.” Patrick held aloft the lanyards clipped to their documents.
“You know what the best insult is?” Grant asked.
Patrick braced himself. “Is it about to be directed at me?”
Grant ignored his uncle. “It’s ‘Who is this clown?’ Because you’re calling someone a clown, but not even like one of the better-known clowns.” He grinned from ear to ear, exposing most of his adult teeth.
“Ignore him,” Patrick instructed the agent. “He’s what happens when the ventriloquist dies and the dummy keeps talking.” He pinched Grant playfully in the ticklish spot on the back of his arm and the boy squealed with laughter.
The gate agent was charmed as she fished in her pocket for pins. “I’ll give you two. In case your sister decides she’d like one later.” She winked at Grant and mussed his hair. “And so you don’t think I’m a clown. Welcome to London.”
Patrick sized up his niblings as she retreated to bring the completed paperwork to the airline’s attendant. She was right about one thing: the kids were rather big. Bigger even than when he last saw them in March.
“Maisie, I can’t believe you’re starting high school.”
“If I survive the summer.”
“And Grant?”
“Middle school. I already met my teachers. Mr. Arroyo said I can get extra credit if I write a report about my trip. Is this England?” The kid produced a little notebook and pen from his pocket.
“It is,” Patrick said as he relieved Grant of the British Airways pins and fastened one to the kid’s backpack. He offered the second to Maisie and she refused. “London is in England.”
“I thought it was in Great Britain,” Maisie said.
“It’s in that, too.”
Grant frowned. “What’s the United Kingdom, then?”
“It’s all of these things.”
Grant flipped his notebook closed. “This report is going to be harder than I thought, GUP.”
Patrick gripped his temples. “You’ve grown in every imaginable way, but you’re still going to fuck with me by calling me GUP?” GUP was short for Gay Uncle Patrick, a nickname the kids’ mother had fed them before she died. They tortured him with it the summer they’d spent in Palm Springs and it clung to their relationship like a sock fresh out of the dryer. He lowered Grant’s arm, which the boy had raised to point out his cursing. “It’s okay if you swear around kids here. Europeans believe in treating children like adults, just like I do. You could probably get a pint, if you were so inclined.”
“Of beer?!”
Patrick nodded.
Grant’s eyes grew wide. “Fuckin’ A!”
Patrick buried his face in his hands. “I said to swear around kids.” He took them each by the hand. “Kids can only swear in Australia because it was once a penal colony.”
“Penal,” Grant giggled, but Patrick could only bite his lip in response.
Maisie, however, was ready to dive into business. “This is a real mess, GUP.”
“Heathrow? Get outta here. It’s a world-class airport.”
“Dad and Livia.” Maisie looked more like Sara every day; Patrick was alarmed to see she had the hint of a figure and in her shorts seemed sixty percent leg. Everything was changing too fast. He squeezed her hand twice, a little code they’d worked out that meant “I love you” without having to say it in public, and started them moving.
“Whenever I get gloomy about the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport.” He gestured around them as they took their first steps toward baggage claim.
“Huh?” Grant asked, stumped. “Why?”
“It’s from Love Actually. Have you seen it?” Both kids gave him blank stares. He thought about showing them the movie on this trip—they’d always loved a little Christmas in July—but none of them were in a romantic comedy mood given the glum states of their little worlds. “It sounded better when Hugh Grant said it. Most things do. You know what? Never mind. Everything about that movie is psychotic. Except for Emma Thompson, who can do no wrong. Guncle Rule one hundred twenty-nine.”
Maisie rumbled a small protest. “We’re well into the three hundreds.”
Patrick had long ago stopped counting his rules and he waved at them to keep stride.
Over eleven billion dollars had been spent upgrading London Heathrow and great care had been put into the designs, vaulting the ceilings where passengers were likely to congregate and spend valuable waiting time, and lowering them at places like security and customs so that people did not feel overwhelmed. Even acoustic performance was a design consideration, allowing people to easily communicate in a crowd. Even if the three of them had yet to fall back into their old patter and ways.
“Ooh, a Sunglass Hut!” Grant pointed excitedly when they had been quiet too long. Somehow this echoed through the entire terminal.
“Stop it,” Patrick hissed as they stepped onto a people mover. Travelers were afforded the highest-end shopping and finest restaurants; on his way to the gate to meet the kids, Patrick had passed Harrods and Burberry and Cartier. They would not so much as slow their pace for a Sunglass Hut, he would not allow it. Especially since they had a long way to go before daylight. A transit train to passport control. Then baggage claim. Then customs. Then, and only if they were lucky, the last light of day.
They ascended the platform just as the transit arrived. Patrick relieved Grant of his backpack to lighten his load. “Did you just come from the gym?” he asked, noticing the boy’s T-shirt and basketball shorts.
“That’s the style,” Maisie said, bored. “All boys wear that. It’s like a uniform.”
“Not to school.” Patrick recoiled. He remembered wearing corduroy pants and oxford shirts when he was Grant’s age. Young Patrick had been equally outfitted to sell insurance or go to the sixth grade.
“Especially to school,” Grant said.
“What do you wear to gym class? A tuxedo?”
“Noooo!” Grant exclaimed, punctuated with a dumbass that, for his sake, was fortunately silent. “Sometimes we change into different gym clothes, but then we change back.”
The transport doors opened and they stepped on board. There was no point in arguing, but Patrick made a note that perhaps a lecture on the decline of personal presentation was warranted later. “Grab on to the rail,” he instructed as the transport doors closed. Maisie was more acceptably dressed in shorts and a cropped sweater over some sort of light top. It was a far cry from the boyish looks she preferred as a young girl.
“Can we go to Hogwarts?” Grant asked once they were underway.
“On this train? No.”
“On this trip.”
“No. We’re not going to Hogwarts.”
“Why not?” Grant was a dog with a bone.
“It doesn’t exist, for one. Also, Jo Rowling’s a TERF.”
“What’s a TERF?”
“It’s an acronym.” A man near them looked up from his phone. Patrick stared at him until he blinked and returned to his scrolling.
“For what?” Maisie asked.
“I don’t know, but it’s not good.”
“Not good, how?”
Patrick was at a loss to explain. “It’s a person without any magic or kindness.”
“Oh, like a muggle,” Grant said.
“Yes, but worse.”
“I’m confused.”
“So is she.” Patrick had forgotten what it was like to be barraged with such questions. When he spent time with the kids these days, visiting them at home, they were more often than not distracted by friends or screens. So if they were already peppering him to this degree, undivided in their attention, it was bound to be a long several weeks. The train went dark as it entered a tunnel, and thankfully Grant’s questions did, too.
When they stepped off the transport they were shepherded to immigration and passport control. The ceiling had hundreds of circular lights, much like the restaurant he’d been to with Cassie, but they were fluorescent and not brass and therefore did nothing for his complexion.
“You look worn out,” Grant said, as if to confirm this, and Maisie continued her moody silence.
“Thank you, one never tires of hearing that.” Patrick stopped them to read the signage. “I’ve been shooting nights on this film, but we’re almost wrapped.”
Maisie’s dam finally burst. Exasperated, she blurted, “We’re wasting our time! What are we going to do about Dad?”
Patrick held his hand out for each kid’s passport. “We’re not wasting our time, we’re going through customs. But tell me, how do you mean?”
“The wedding. It’s a sham.”
“You know what’s a sham? Cirque du Soleil. Charging that much money to watch people bend in that way.”
“GUP!” To get his attention, Maisie snatched their passports back.
“Gah! Papercuts.” Patrick waved his hand like it stung, then relented. “Why is the wedding a sham? They don’t love each other?”
Maisie awkwardly crossed her arms under her crop top. “Ew, gross.”
“They’re just in it for the gifts?”
“Livia’s rich,” Grant boasted.
“Is Livia a decorative pillowcase?” Patrick asked.
Maisie threw up her arms at her uncle’s nonsense.
“Then how is it a sham?!”
Foot traffic was flowing around them like salmon moving upstream, and so he pulled them over against a nearby wall. A digital poster boasted that London Heathrow serviced two hundred fourteen destinations across eighty-four countries via eighty-nine different airlines. “Is it something specific about Livia? Is she already married to someone else?” Patrick’s eyes grew wide.
“Why do you look so excited?” Grant asked.
“Because gay people live for drama. What is it? You have to tell me. Does she snore? Does she mispronounce words, like ‘shed-ule’ for ‘schedule’? Does she pick her nose?” Speaking of picking, Grant was picking at a mole on his neck and Patrick had to swat his hand away.
“No,” Maisie reluctantly admitted.
“Is she mean to you?”
“No.”
“To the dog?”
“No!” Grant cried.
“Does she wear vulgar Italian fashion to pick you up from school? Burn salad? Drive on the wrong side of the road?”
“None of those things.”
“Smell funny?”
“Not more funny than other rich women,” Maisie observed.
“Then I’m losing interest.”
Maisie stomped her feet in despair. “You just don’t get it!” Patrick imagined he’d be hearing that phrase a lot over the next few years.
“No, I get it. I really do.” Patrick watched as the digital poster changed to a fresh image boasting about the new solar panels powering the Queen’s Terminal. “But I think we all want your dad to be happy, don’t we? Even if it requires some sacrifice on our parts.” Patrick and his brother had grown close in the years since Greg’s successful completion of rehab after he was widowed. The summer five years ago when Patrick had taken in the kids was a gift in so many ways, and Greg’s gratitude had far-reaching tentacles that had massaged the previous tension in their relationship. And likewise, Patrick actually enjoyed spending time with Greg as someone who appreciated and missed Sara as much (if not more) than he did. Grieving together allowed them to entertain memories, to laugh—to find genuine happiness—faster than they otherwise might have on their own. Perhaps it was even Patrick’s fault, Greg’s openness to getting caught up in this new relationship, for the seemingly whirlwind nature of the whole affair. Should he tell Maisie as much? Or perhaps it was better to do what he did best. To divert. To distract. To offer a fresh perspective. To be a confidant. To listen. And to show them a better way. “Not to be all Pollyanna about it, but sometimes people can pleasantly surprise you.”
“Who’s Pollyanna?” Grant asked.
Patrick bent down on one knee to look them in the eye, steadying himself as Grant’s backpack clumsily slipped off his shoulder. “She’s no one. What I’m trying to say is that you were skeptical of me at first, but we get on pretty good now. You were skeptical of Emory, but then you ended up liking him once we got together. So you never really know until you give people a chance.”
Grant picked at the pilot wings freshly pinned to his bag. “We did not like it when you two broke up.”
Patrick felt his stomach knot. “Is that what you’re worried about? Getting attached to Livia, and then having it not work out?”
“Please,” Maisie groaned.
Patrick ignored her protest. “Because, I don’t know. Your father seems pretty committed.”
Maisie tilted her head down and looked up as if over an invisible pair of glasses, giving her best teenage You’re kidding, right? expression. “Our father should be committed.”
“That’s funny,” Patrick said admiringly, but he didn’t laugh. Out of the corner of his eye he saw two security guards in menacing uniforms eyeing them. He needed to wrap this up before they were urged to move along. “You two have had to deal with so much. More than any kids your age should have to. And now your dad’s getting remarried. And it’s not what you want. I get that. And sometimes that’s the raw deal of being a kid. Adults make decisions that affect you and you really don’t have a say.”
Maisie’s arms reappeared from the sleeves of her sweater. She stood up to her full height and lifted her chin, looking valiant. “You’re not making this better.”
Patrick held up his finger. He wasn’t done yet. “But there are great things about being a kid, too.”
“Like what?” Grant interrupted, his interest piqued. He reached for the mole on his neck a second time, so Patrick took the boy’s hand in his own.
“There are still so many beautiful things to see and experience for the first time. And rich uncles with exquisite taste in art and antiquities to show them to you. That’s what this trip is all about. I thought we could see a whole bunch of new things together. And then we’ll decide what to do about the Baroness. Deal?”
“The Baroness?” Maisie exchanged looks with Grant.
Patrick hummed a few bars of “The Lonely Goatherd” and both kids laughed. Thank god they loved The Sound of Music as much as he did.
Maisie’s expression soured again as she studied her uncle’s face. “Why do you have sideburns?”
“For work. Any more questions?” He stood up and slung Grant’s backpack over his shoulder again. The kids, for once, were silent. “Good. Because before we can do anything, we have to get through customs.”