“Girl on Fire” - Alicia Keys
Not everyone is as lucky as I am in the mother-in-law department. Henry’s mum is warm, nurturing, and always smiling. I used to envy him when we were kids, because there is something about Olivia that draws you to her like apple pie on a windowsill.
She’s a modern-day Jackie O, and while she may have lost her title and crown to me, she holds herself more like a queen than I could ever hope to.
Her outfits are impeccably styled regardless of the occasion.
She won’t touch a drop of wine, let alone anything stronger, and is convinced she gets tipsy after a bowl of French onion soup, no matter how many times Henry and I have assured her the alcohol is cooked out of it.
She greets me with three cheek kisses—the only person I know who does three—and motions to the settee in the living room.
If the rest of the palace can be described as intimidating, overbearing, and lavish, Olivia’s apartment is the exact opposite.
Pale linen curtains frame the windows, the furniture is all sea blues and greens, and it always smells of lavender.
Coming here every Wednesday afternoon is like visiting the spa, only much more relaxing, because spas typically aren’t relaxing for people who abhor sweating and being touched.
Olivia handles about a dozen royal engagements a week.
While she’s technically not a royal anymore, Wesbourne adores her and demands her presence at enough events that it only made sense to include her in our household at the palace.
With her husband locked away for another twenty-three years, I think she welcomes the diversion.
I’ve heard that William will be petitioning for release on good behavior, but I can’t imagine him staying out of trouble long enough for that to happen.
“How’s your sister, dear?” Olivia asks as she pours two cups of tea. “She told me at the ball the other night that she wasn’t feeling the best.”
Bea did look a little peaked, but it didn’t occur to me to check on her afterward.
Unlike Olivia, who has already spent years of her life in service of the people of Wesbourne, Beatrice is still earning her keep as a member of the royal family.
She handles roughly 10 percent of our engagements.
Compared to my 55 percent and Henry’s 30, it’s not much, but given the way she complains about it, you’d think she was being asked to scrub the toilets instead of attend charity functions and cut ribbons.
“I’m sure she’s fine.” I take the cup and saucer Olivia holds out.
“Henry tells me you’re visiting Budapest in a few months,” she says, taking the chair across from the sofa. She’s wearing a soft-pink skirt suit with white trim, her blonde hair perfectly coiffed into a loose chignon. She’s Barbie at fifty-five.
“That’s right. The prime minister invited us for a state visit.”
“Be sure to visit Margaret Island if you get the chance. It’s simply stunning in the summertime.”
I take a sip of tea. “I’ll see if they can add it to our itinerary. You went when Henry was young, didn’t you?”
She nods and sets her cup down. “I have pictures around here somewhere.”
I hide my smile. She knows exactly where that album is. Olivia keeps mementos of everything. I’m confident there must be a room in the palace just for hanging all the bouquets she’s received over the years.
Sure enough, she walks over to the bookcase and pulls a clothbound book from a shelf without even looking. “Here it is,” she says with a smile, already flipping it open. She sits beside me on the sofa and lays it across both our laps.
She turns a few pages until she finds the one she’s looking for. “There.” She points to a photo of young Henry lying on his stomach, stirring a pool of water with a stick. “He wanted to jump in so badly—it was terribly hot that day—but we convinced him to make do with the stick.”
She laughs at the memory, and my heart feels refreshed. Olivia laughing is like rain on a stifling day.
“May I?” I ask, motioning to the book.
“Of course,” she says.
We flip back to the beginning, where Henry’s baby pictures take up several spreads.
He was adorable, and I don’t say that in the way that everyone oohs and aahs over babies in general, nor am I biased because he’s my husband.
He was beautiful. He could easily have won the modeling auditions for baby Zara and Baby Gap if he hadn’t already been busy being a prince.
In that round face and exuberant smile, I spy hints of the man I know, and of course I remember what he looked like when he was a few years older than in these pictures. His eyes haven’t changed. They’re still that deep, dark ocean of unspoken words.
“I didn’t realize you took so many photos,” I tell Olivia.
“I wanted to be a photographer,” she says, “but my parents decided that wasn’t a viable option, so off to Oxford I went.”
I flip to the next spread. There are pictures of Henry’s first birthday and a lock of hair taped to the page. Olivia strokes it gently. “From his first haircut,” she says. “I could hardly bring myself to let them do it.”
He had a smash cake decorated like a race car. “He liked cars even back then?”
She chuckles. “There wasn’t much he didn’t like. He’s never met a challenge he couldn’t conquer.”
I smile at the memory that pops into my head.
Henry and I were in a little rowboat on the small pond near the Sunken Garden.
We were wrestling in that awkward way preteens do when they haven’t yet figured out that they are probably too old for that kind of thing.
In the process, my necklace broke and fell into the water.
Henry felt so bad he jumped in immediately, despite my protests. It took ten minutes of alternating between searching the murky pond and bobbing back up for air before he finally came up one last time, holding the pendant over his head like a trophy.
It was a cheap thing, but I wore it every day for the rest of the year.
I turn the page to a set of photos from Henry’s toddler years. There are little captions under each one in careful, handwritten script.
First steps.
Learning to open doors.
Favorite meal.
That last one accompanies a picture of a child that resembles Henry, but it’s hard to say for sure because his face is completely plastered with spaghetti sauce.
First public event.
Fishing with Daddy.
I rub my thumb over the photo of Henry and William, both facing the pond, fishing poles in hand. Henry’s pose so perfectly mirrors his father’s that it would be humorous if it didn’t make my stomach churn.
“He wasn’t always like that, you know,” Olivia says, looking at the picture. “William, I mean. He wasn’t always so . . . cold.”
This is so different from everything I know him to be that I immediately chalk it up to her being a delusional wife, wanting to see the best in the man she’s been married to for thirty years.
“The man I fell in love with was charming and thoughtful. He was aloof, yes, and he didn’t often let me in, but the times he did, it was like seeing a whole other person.
Like seeing the sun during an eclipse.” Olivia gets a wistful look in her eyes as she stares out the window.
“He used to fly all the way to Paris to get these macarons I loved, just because I once said they were the best I’d ever tasted. ”
“What happened?” I ask, not sure I actually want to know. The two of us don’t usually have conversations this deep, and venturing into these waters has me slightly terrified she’ll reveal something I would be better off not knowing.
She hesitates, then glances at me like she’s not sure she wants to say it either. “The job changed him,” she says. “When his father died . . . William thought he had a few more years of being somewhat ordinary. But when he became king so quickly, it was like it flipped a switch inside of him.”
The lump in my stomach grows larger. Hearing that William once had a heart, that his job changed him—the job I now hold—does nothing to make me feel better.
“Did Henry ever tell you about . . .” I can’t bring myself to finish the sentence. Because no matter how good William may have been at times, there is nothing—nothing—that can excuse what he did to his son.
Olivia’s brow crumples as she turns back to the album in her lap.
“A few years ago. After the arrest.” A tear falls onto the page protector, and she brushes it away with the back of her hand.
Her gaze finds mine again. “I want you to know I had no idea when it was happening. If I had—” Her voice breaks, and she reaches for the handkerchief she keeps tucked up her sleeve.
I rub her back in what I hope is a soothing gesture. I’m not good with tears, my own or anyone else’s. I turn the thick page, hoping a distraction might help.
The next one is full of more candid shots of Henry.
A few of them feature Olivia or William, but most are of him playing in the dirt of the herb garden, taking a bath in a huge porcelain tub with soap suds everywhere, including on his head, and making cookies in an apron roughly five sizes too big for him, flour covering both cheeks.
A laugh spills from my lips. “Was he ever clean?”
“Not if he could help it.” There’s a smile in Olivia’s voice, and I consider myself successful.
There’s something about these photos. Not only did his mother do a wonderful job capturing Henry’s exact essence in each one, but it triggers a memory of something.
Something I can’t quite put my finger on.
By the time I was three and Henry was five, we were the best of friends, but I have no recollection of him at this age, so it’s odd that something feels familiar about them.
Maybe I’ve flipped through this album before and forgotten.
I brush my fingers over his smooth baby face as Henry smiles at the camera in that lopsided “bloody hell, you caught me” look.
I miss those grins. I miss the teasing way his eyes light up when he’s up to no good but knows he’ll get away with it anyway because I’m absolutely powerless when it comes to him.
“Your turn will come,” Olivia says. “I know it will.” She places her hand over mine on the album.
I knit my brows together as I try to figure out what she’s referring to. Then I drop my gaze back to the page. “I—”
“I struggled too, after Henry was born. Did he tell you that?”
I shake my head and keep my eyes focused on the pictures in front of me.
“We tried for years. I had several miscarriages, even a late-term one. But nothing ever stuck.” There is so much sadness in her voice, and I kick myself for making her sad twice in half an hour.
“We did a few treatments, but there weren’t all of the options there are today.” She pats my hand again. “That’s why I know it will work for the two of you.”
I clear my throat of the emotion welling up there, not for the reason she thinks but legitimate all the same. “Thank you.”
I turn the page again, revealing shots from Henry’s third birthday. There are a few of him at public events, wearing those adorable little shorts and knee socks.
“This was after William’s coronation,” Olivia says.
I can’t shake the feeling of déjà vu. “Do you have any of these framed somewhere?”
She considers this, her dainty brow puckered in thought. “I don’t think so. Just of his christening with the whole family, of course.”
I’ve seen that one a thousand times. The portrait hangs in the west gallery among the other paintings of the royal family over the years. But there is nothing recognizable about a baby swaddled in white cloths.
I shake my head. “Something seems familiar about them. It’s weird seeing Henry so small.”
We continue browsing, and my gaze snags on one photo in particular. It was taken at a parade, Henry sitting regally in the open carriage between his parents. Olivia didn’t take that one, which might be why it stands out.
I’m about to move to the next page when something clicks into place. Maybe it’s the crowd behind them. Maybe it’s the dark hair falling into his face. Maybe it’s those eyes that have no bottom. Regardless, I know why these pictures feel so familiar.
The little boy in the crowd last week, the one who gave me the tiny bouquet of daisies and melted my heart right out of my chest—he’s the spitting image of three-year-old Henry.