“I am seeing him because I like him,” I say.
“Well, nevertheless, he is not a good match for you.”
“So, you don't like him?” I ask.
“Did I say that?”
“Not in so many words,” I say with a shrug.
“Aurora, I don't have time for your games right now."
“Well, I don't have time for yours either. I don't understand what it is exactly that you don't like about him except for his lack of money. But, newsflash, Mom, no one has as much money as you do.”
She shakes her head and stirs her coffee, making her diamond bracelet jingle.
"Maybe not everyone is as comfortable as your father and I, but there are plenty of wealthy eligible bachelors that would make for a great boyfriend for you.”
“So are you telling me that I can't date anyone who makes less than, what exactly? Is there some sort of cutoff point? You didn't seem to have a problem with Connor, and he makes $150,000 a year.”
“Exactly,” Mom points out. “Connor was not rich by any standard, but he had a future in front of him. Henry, on the other hand, told us flat out that he has no idea what he wants to do in the next few years.”
Your father was very disappointed with that fact.
“I don't see why,” I say to myself.
“He wants the best for you, Aurora. As do I. We are just very discouraged by the fact that you don’t seem to want that for yourself.”
“You know what, Mom? There is more to life than money,” I say. “I grew up with and around lots of it and I wouldn’t say that it made me a particularly happy person. And yet there are people with a lot less who are perfectly content. Maybe they're onto something.”
“You,” my mom says, pointing her finger in my face, “you have no idea what you're talking about.”
She narrows her eyes and stares deeply into mine, with a menace that I don’t remember ever seeing before.
“We have given you everything, and perhaps that was a mistake. You have no idea what it's like to be poor, or how terrible it is. I grew up living in motels that charged by the hour with my grandmother because my mother disappeared. She had one abusive boyfriend after another, not counting her husband, my grandfather.”
“Not everyone who is poor grows up like that," I say.
“Be that as it may,” she says, “that was my experience. And I never wanted you to go through anything like that. Why do you think your father and I worked so hard to get where we are?”
“Are you serious?” I challenge her. “Are you seriously saying that you did it all for me? I hardly believe that.”
“Well, we did.”
“No, you didn’t. You may have sent me to the best schools and gave me the best of everything but you did not do it for me. You two were going after conquering the world way before I came along. You bought your first radio station before you ever contemplated having me. And you and I both know that.”
“Listen, I don't wanna fight with you, Aurora. I don't wanna fight with you about what we did or didn't do. All I want to do is to ask you to stop seeing Henry.”
“I don't understand why you care so much. You never cared who I slept with before,” I point out. “Connor didn't treat me very well, neither did some of my other ex-boyfriends. And yet you said nothing."
“Connor had prospects,” my mom says, folding her hands in front of her and pursing her lips. “And as for those other ones, I knew that you would eventually figure your way out of those relationships.”
“But don't you care that Henry treats me really well?” I ask.
“Yes, of course I do, but it's not enough. I can see you getting serious with him even after just a few dates. And trust me, he will always be a weight around your shoulders.”
I shake my head.
“Right now, it feels like you can carry him because he feels light,” Mom continues. “But after a little while, he's going to start to feel like an anchor, and you’re going to feel like you’re drowning.”
14
Aurora
Despite my parents’ protestations, we spend the rest of our summer together. Henry continues to work at the yacht club and on boats, and practically moves into my parents’ home in the Hamptons with me.
It's a large five-bedroom villa situated on ten acres of prime oceanfront real estate.My parents’ travels take them to Montana, then Paris, London, and Rome while we stay here by the water and spend every possible minute naked.
This becomes the most blissful summer of my life. We sleep in late, whenever we can, and Henry makes me pancakes and waffles from scratch. Sometimes, we run straight from bed to the pool. Other times, we put on our bathing suits and walk along the beach and bury our feet in the sand.
We do not argue.
We do not fight.
We just lose ourselves in each other's company.
We want to spend every waking minute together because we cannot get enough of each other. Each minute that we spend together is still not enough.
I crave him more and more, the more time that passes. While he's at work, I spend my days waiting and occasionally writing. My PhD work fills the need I have in the pit of my stomach to put together words on paper, but during the long days of summer, my mind starts to wander and I think what if I wrote something else?
Henry is so open with me about his writing, and yet I feel like I'm still in the closet about mine, not only with him, but also with me. Every day that I have free, I promise that I'm going to write in the afternoon, but when I sit down and stare at the blank screen and that blinking cursor, I lose my concentration.
One day, during the height of the heatwave, when the days are still very long and hot, we sit together by the pool watching the evening sun set over the horizon.
“This is the most beautiful place I have ever been,” Henry says.
“Yes, it's pretty wonderful, isn't it?” I confirm, absentmindedly.
“But I'm not just talking about the house, or the Hamptons,” he says.
When he turns his body toward mine, his bronzed skin sparkles and glistens.
“I love you, Aurora,” he says, looking directly into my eyes.
“I love you, too,” I whisper and look back out at the horizon.
I remember the first time that he told he loved me, I was sitting on his lap, checking my email.
When there was nothing in my inbox, I sighed and said, “Oh, no, no one loves me,” to which he replied, “I do.”
I thought that he was probably joking, but when I looked at him, I saw that he wasn't. In that moment, I realized that I loved him, too. We had only been together for three days and it was way too soon, but none of that mattered. He loved me and I loved him.
“I love you, too,” I say, turning to face him. “You know that.”
“This summer has been amazing, the best of my life.”
“Same here,” I whisper, giving him a nod.
“Will you move in with me?” Henry asks.
My chest tightens and my heart skips a few beats. I would love that, but I hesitate to say it out loud.
“How would that work exactly?” I ask. “Your apartment is all the way up in the Bronx and mine is on 116th Street."