I've thought about what I said next more than almost anything else I've ever said to her. I didn't mean it to be cruel. I didn't mean it to be anything. I just said what was true, in the moment, before I'd thought about it.
"You never really asked about my work, sweetheart."
She flinched. I saw it. Her shoulders came up and her head went down, like I'd thrown something at her.
"That's not fair," she said.
"I know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"
"No. You did. And it's not fair, but it's also—" She stopped. She pressed her lips together hard. "I need a minute, Dad. Can you just give me a minute?"
I went back to the table. Peter looked up at me, and he must have seen something in my face, because he stood and said, "Excuse me," and went down the corridor after her.
Philippa and Graham and I sat together in silence, drinking a very old and very good dessert wine that tasted like apricots and honey and something burnt. After a while, Philippa set down her glass and folded her hands.
"Wesley," she said. "I think I owe you—"
"You don't owe me anything, Mrs. Lindqvist."
"Philippa. Please." She looked at her hands. "I'd like to—at some point, I'd like to—" She didn't finish. I don't think she knew how. I don't think she was a woman who often started sentences she couldn't finish.
"It's all right," I said. "It's a lot for one dinner."
When Margot and Peter came back, her eyes were dry and her makeup was perfect, and she was smiling the client smile again. We stood. We said our goodbyes on the terrace under the heaters. Graham shook my hand for a long time and said, "Remarkable. Truly. Remarkable," and I got the sense he meant it and had no idea what else to say. Peter shook my hand and then, after a second, hugged me, and said quietly, "I'd like to hear the whole story sometime, Wes. If you'd tell it."
Margot hugged me last. She held on a little longer than usual, but she didn't say anything, and then she got into the back of the Lindqvists' car with Peter, and I watched the taillights go up the hill.
I walked the three blocks to my truck. It was cold enough by then that I could see my breath. I sat in the cab with the engine running and the heater blowing and looked at my phone, and there was nothing from her, and I put it face down on the seat beside me, the way she had at dinner, and drove home.