Chapter 15 #4
“You said earlier, when we were out with the tiny mermaid,” he says, his voice gentle, “that not everyone is blessed with good parents.” He traces the rim of his glass, his eyes fixed on the movement.
“Did yours ever—” He stops, searches for a word that isn’t too heavy, and fails. “Did they hurt you?”
My eyes snap wide. The wine-haze clears for a second, replaced by a jolt of alarm. “Oh god, no. Nothing like that. They weren’t abusive. They just…weren’t there.”
Leo seems to slump with relief, his shoulders dropping.
I go to take another sip of wine, but my glass is a desert. I stare at the bottom of it, genuinely baffled. “Where did the wine go? Did I drink that?”
He laughs—a real one—and slides the bottle toward me.
I pour a splash that is definitely larger than what Emily Post would recommend and take a long, grateful swallow.
I love this buzzy headspace—the way the sharp edges of the world start to melt, the way my internal filter is currently floating somewhere out in the Atlantic, the way Leo’s kitchen feels less like his kitchen and more like just a kitchen, a space we both happen to be occupying—no employer-employee dynamics, no rules.
Just two people and a very persuasive Bordeaux.
“If I tell you something,” I say, leaning forward until I can smell the sandalwood on his skin, “you have to promise you won’t lose it.”
“I’m aware that if I say I can’t promise that, the vault stays closed,” he sighs, taking his own sip. “So, tell me. I’m braced for impact.”
I swirl the wine, watching the deep ruby liquid catch the light until it turns the color of a bruise. I close my eyes, take a breath of the cool kitchen air, and jump. “Graham Collier is my father.”
He chokes on his wine, a stray drop hitting the table, and sets his glass down. “No way!” he wheezes.
I nod, watching the shock ripple across his face.
“Graham Collier? The Graham Collier?”
“That one.”
He stares at the wall for a second, his brain clearly scrolling through a cinematic history of the last thirty years. “Jesus. My dad and I used to love his movies growing up. Night Watch, The Courier, that one about the pilot—”
“Above the Clouds.”
“Right. God.” He shakes his head, a small, stunned laugh escaping him. “So that means your grandfather is…”
“Clive Collier.”
“Wow.” He takes another shaky sip of wine. “My mom used to have this huge crush on Clive Collier. It was the mustache. My dad tried to grow his out like that once but it wasn’t the same. It was like a caterpillar died on his face.”
I laugh, a genuine, bubbling thing that surprises me.
“I can’t even imagine,” he says, his gaze settling back on me, suddenly much more focused. “Growing up in that kind of…orbit.”
I stay quiet, tracing the Scrabble board.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks. “I mean, you’ve been living in my house, taking care of my daughter. You don’t think that’s a relevant footnote?”
“Because the second people find out, the person I am disappears,” I say, the liquid courage finally breaking through.
“I stop being Annie, the girl who’s okay at journalism and great at making grilled cheese, and I become a resource.
I’m a connection. I’m a shortcut to a meeting or a way to get a pitch onto a desk. I become a person who knows a person.”
Leo’s quiet, listening.
“People I thought were my friends turned out to only want to be around me because of who my parents were. My ‘friend’ at Stanford sold a story about me to a tabloid sophomore year—nothing scandalous, just…my life. What I ate for breakfast. Who I was dating. What parties I went to. She made five thousand dollars and I didn’t even know until I saw it in print. ”
“Annie—”
“And then there’s the expectation that I should be like them. That I should want to act or direct or produce. That I should want to be in the industry at all. When I told my dad I wanted to major in journalism, he looked at me like I’d said I wanted to live on the moon or join a cult.”
I’m gesturing with my wine glass now, the liquid sloshing dangerously.
“I just wanted to be normal. I wanted to live in a shitty apartment and have a normal job and earn my own way. Maybe I’d find something in newscasting eventually.
Or journalism. Something that was mine. Not because of who my parents are or who my grandfather was.
But something that was just…mine alone.”
Leo is watching me with an expression that’s moved away from shock. It’s something softer now. It’s a look that feels like a warm hand on a cold day.
“I was suffocating in my own life,” I say, and the words come out in a whisper that feels like it’s been lodged in my throat since I was twelve. “It was beautiful and curated and entirely gold-plated, and I was absolutely suffocating. I needed air. I needed to be just Annie.”
Leo still doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t reach for a “there, there” or try to pivot back to the safety of Scrabble.
He just stays there, anchored in the moment, watching me with an attention that makes me feel like a rare specimen under a microscope—but, like, a really benevolent microscope.
It’s not pity, which usually feels like being patted on the head by someone who’s glad they aren’t you.
It’s just presence. He’s holding the weight of what I’ve said without trying to set it down or tell me it’s lighter than it feels.
“Maybe deep down,” I say quietly, pathetically, “I just wanted to see if they’d come after me. If they’d worry. If they actually cared about me or loved me enough to…I don’t know. Notice I was gone or something.”
The words hang in the air, raw and ugly. I wish I could reach out and pluck them back, stuff them back into the dark cupboard of my brain where they belong.
After a heartbeat, Leo says quietly, “I’m sure they love you, Annie. In whatever way they’re capable of, I’m sure they miss you.”
I shake my head. “Not all parents are like you. Or your parents. They’re not involved. They’re not present. They’re not…warm. To my parents, I was a legacy always meant to be left behind. But I was never really theirs. Not in the way Emma is yours.”
He’s quiet for a long time, his gaze dropping to the table, and for a second I think I’ve finally pushed him into the “Too Much Information” zone. Then he leans back, the wood of his chair creaking.
“Can I tell you something that might suck to hear?” he asks.
I nod, mostly because I’ll take anything that stops me from almost crying into a $100 bottle of Bordeaux.
After a long minute, Leo speaks. His voice is quiet, measured.
“Love is a skill, Annie. It’s a muscle. And the more you work it, the stronger it gets.
But some people are born into worlds—or they create worlds—where they never have to use it.
They have assistants and publicists and nannies and a whole machinery of people dedicated to making sure they’re never inconvenienced by a human need.
Where everything else takes precedence—their career, their image, their legacy. And the muscle atrophies.”
I look up at him.
“Being a parent—” He stops, choosing his words carefully.
“It changed me in ways I didn’t see coming.
You’re suddenly responsible for this entire human being and you have no idea if you’re doing it right.
You’re constantly second-guessing yourself.
Emma made me realize how much of myself I’d kept locked away.
How much I’d been operating on autopilot, just going through the motions of my life.
Having her forced me to show up. To be present.
To love in a way that was active, not passive. ”
“But before Emma?” He shakes his head. “I don’t know if I knew how to do that.
I was good at my job. Good at being a partner logistically, in the ways I thought mattered most—paying bills, being faithful, showing up for dinner.
But the deeper stuff? The emotional labor?
I was learning as I went. And I failed at it more than I succeeded. ”
His honesty catches me off guard.
“My parents are amazing people,” he continues.
“They’re warm and loving and they show up.
But they also fell short in their own ways.
My dad worked sixty-hour weeks when Maria and I were kids.
My mom was so focused on keeping the family together that she never really pursued anything for herself for a long time.
They did the best they could, but they weren’t perfect. ”
He takes a sip of wine, his eyes distant.
“The people we love the most,” he says slowly, “also have the power to hurt us the most. Because we care what they think. We need them in ways we don’t need anyone else.
And when they can’t be there for us in the ways we need them to…
it’s devastating. But a big part of growing up is accepting that our parents are not perfect people and never will be, and we can’t spend forever looking around for versions of them that don’t exist. Sometimes, the people who gave us life are not the same people who are capable of nourishing it. ”
The words land heavy.
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t feel what you feel,” he says. “You have every right to be angry. To be hurt. To need distance. I’m just saying that it’s possible for both things to be true. That they love you and that they failed you. That they did their best and that their best wasn’t good enough.”
I feel tears prickling at the corners of my eyes and I blink them back hard.
I swallow hard. “I don’t know if I’m ready to forgive them. Is that terrible?”
“You don’t have to be,” he says immediately. “I’m not saying you should call them. I’m just saying…it’s complicated. People are complicated. Families are complicated. And you’re allowed to take all the time you need to figure out what you want.”
I look at Leo—really look at him—and I see someone who has wrestled with his own ghosts and come out the other side with a very specific, weary sort of wisdom.
“For what it’s worth,” Leo says, “I think you’re brave as hell for leaving. For trying to build something that’s yours. That takes guts.”
“Or stupidity.”
“Or both.” He offers a small, tired smile, one that reaches his eyes and stays there. “Usually the best things require a little of both.”