“You have beautiful margins.” Nina smiled. “But I’m still not sure why it’s laminated.” She paused. “I’m not completely certain what it is.”
Peter looked surprised. “It’s us. I mean it’s our family. It’s laminated because I use it in class to explain how to construct a kinship diagram.”
“A kinship diagram?”
“A family tree is what we call it in the West, but in many cultures, degrees of kinship extend way beyond immediate or even secondary family.”
“Ah,” said Nina, having no response to that.
“However,” said Peter, pointing to parts of the chart, “our chart is actually relatively shallow but very wide, which makes it interesting.” He noted her bemused expression. “Perhaps only to me. Our family is extremely matrimonially extended, so it’s a good demonstration of how interpersonal relationships are affected by changes in legal status.” He shrugged. “Or not, as the case may be.”
He was clearly serious about this, but then he looked at her and grinned. “And now I get to redo the whole thing and add you, and as you are illegitimate—no offense—it’s even better. I get to use dotted lines!”
“No offense taken. Can you give me a broad overview? I still don’t understand the whole family bit.” Nina was starting to wish she’d brought notepaper. “I’m having a hard time believing it.”
Peter nodded, finished his coffee, and said, “I can imagine it’s a bit of a shock.” Then he pulled a dry-erase marker from his bag.
“I have that brand,” said Nina. “I find they streak so much less.”
“They really do, and I can’t believe we’re discussing it. Just think, we would be friends even if we weren’t related, drawn together by our love of quality office supplies.”
He leaned forward and poked his pen at the top of the chart. “OK, so here’s William at the top, and here, ranged from left to right, are his three wives. The main reason the family is so wide is that he married for the first time at twenty and the last time at sixty. He had kids each time, and those big gaps of time allow for three generations to be born, obviously.”
Nina had no idea what he was talking about, but nodded. “Obviously.”
Peter looked at her keenly, clearly used to students pretending to understand him. He sighed and reached into his bag again. “Here, let’s try this instead. It sometimes helps.”
He slid a piece of paper across to her and handed her a pen. It was a FriXion, she was pleased to see, and then she was mildly embarrassed that she even noticed.
“Put William at the top, and then draw a horizontal line all the way across.”
She did so.
“Now, from left to right, leaving space, write Alice, then Rosie, then your mom’s name—what is it, by the way?”
“Candice.”
“OK.” He made a note on his laminated chart, the tip of his tongue poking out happily, like a little kid. “And then finally Eliza. Done that?” He looked over and nodded. “OK, now draw another horizontal line under their names, and put a big ONE on the far left.”
Nina did so, feeling on familiar ground now that she was dealing with paper.
“I like your lettering,” said Peter. “Now, under Alice write Becky and Katherine. Under Rosie write Archie. Under Candice write Nina, and under Eliza write Millie. Then put another horizontal line.”
He sat back and puffed out his breath. “That is your generation. Those are your siblings, and they range from the oldest, my mother, Becky, who is fifty-nine, to the youngest, Millie, who is ten.”
Nina gazed at him. “No way.”
“Way.”
“But . . . how is that possible?”
He shrugged philosophically. “It’s possible because men can father children until they’re really old, and for some reason—and this is less easy to explain—your father was so charming he persuaded three women to marry him and at least one other that we know of to sleep with him. Mind you,” he added judiciously, “I only knew him as an old man; he was pretty handsome in his youth.”
Nina said dryly, “I imagine my mother wasn’t the only one.”
Peter shook his head. “I imagine you’re right, but so far you’re the only child out of wedlock we know about.” He looked serious for a moment. “But here’s the problem: Archie is thirty, and his birthday is in January.”
Nina looked at him, confused. “So?”
“So you were born while his dad was still married to his mom. In fact, based on your birthday, William slept with your mom while his wife, Rosie, was pregnant with Archie.”
“Oh.” Her mother had been right. So much for not remembering all that much about it.
Peter nodded. “ ‘Oh’ is right. And Rosie, sadly, is dead. Of cancer. A decade ago. And William and she seemed very happy together, and that’s been the story all along, that Rosie was the love of his life, that they would have stayed married and had more kids and it was all a big tragedy. And now it turns out he cheated on her and we have living physical proof. Which is you.”
“Awesome.”
“Yeah,” said Peter. “Not entirely sure how Archie’s going to feel about it, but there’s not much we can do to change it.”
Nina was silent.
“Shall we carry on?” asked Peter. “There are two more generations to go.”
She nodded. “Let me get more coffee and maybe a bun of some kind.”
“Excellent idea. Grab me something fattening while you’re up there, will you?”
Nina went and stood at the counter. She was feeling something new, something she was finding it hard to quantify. She turned and looked at Peter, who was texting on his phone and smiling at something. She liked him so much already, not in an ‘I wonder if we’ll be friends’ kind of way, but in a . . . she wasn’t sure what it was. She got two more lattes and two chocolate éclairs.
“Ooh, good choice. I can see genetics are still working in our favor. There is nothing—nothing—that isn’t improved by laying a thick piece of chocolate frosting on top of it.”
Nina nodded and realized what it was. They were related. She’d never experienced a relative before, apart from her mom, and Candice had never really warmed to the role. Presumably, if she and Peter had hated each other on sight it would have sucked, but she knew already that they were going to be connected forever. There was no confusion, no potential attraction, no time limit. It was a relationship she could understand and rely on. She felt . . . relaxed. Which of course made her feel slightly worried. It shouldn’t be as easy as this to like someone, right?
“Shall we continue?” She drew a third horizontal line, some way below all the names, and put a big two on the side.
“What an excellent student you are,” Peter said, around a mouthful of éclair. “OK, so Becky had Jennifer and then me, Peter.” He waved at himself, even though they were two feet apart. “Katherine had Lydia, which is somewhat amazing, because my aunt Katherine is a piece of work. She may have eaten her husband; he disappeared completely. According to my mother, one day he was there and the next day he was gone, leaving all his worldly possessions and his car keys behind.”