Five(39)

And when they can’t tell her she decides that their other words are therefore meaningless. Her husband is dead. Her son is a miracle. She decides that anyone who doesn’t get that can fuck right off.

And Babe, then he doesn’t belong there. So I’m going with this one. Small class sizes, lots of structure, lots of outdoor space, lots of sport. I’m not thrilled about the demographics, but maybe it’ll be better for him?

I trust you, Babe, he says to her, in her heart.

Luna sells their house in London and downsizes to a spacious garden flat in an affluent suburb near a private school and a commuter train station. She decides to use money from the sale of the house and Graham’s life insurance to pay for Sonny’s private school education.

She knows he is bright and also that he is not like other children and also that she would never want him to be. Her son is the exuberance, the humor, the volume, the kaleidoscope thinking that was Graham. And she will not let anyone put out his flame.

The prestigious private primary school is a feeder school for a prestigious private secondary school for the sons and daughters of wealthy politicians who publicly support higher budgets for failing state schools, the future heirs of minor members of the Royal Family, and the progeny of Russian oligarchs, Nigerian oil barons, and Malaysian industry magnates who are much more academic, worldly, and accomplished than the minor royal children, to the discreet but clear annoyance of the minor royal parents.

Luna tries her best with the other parents. She is conspicuously single among their traditional couples, conspicuously not really British, she knows, in their eyes, with her Spanish name and Caribbean heritage, although she has lived in the UK from the age of five, and conspicuously not a product of private education herself, which carries greater weight in their world than her PhD in postcolonial Latin American literature from Oxford and her career as a professor.

But for her boy, she tries to soften the edges that have hardened to protect her since Graham’s death. And she has to admit it’s not so bad. Everyone is kind and polite to her even though she can’t contribute to conversations about second homes, or sailing, or skiing in Switzerland. She quickly realizes her mistake in thinking it would not matter that she and Sonny live in a garden flat when she attends the first mums’ evening in the palatial home of the second wife of one of the owners of a famous company, built by twin brothers, a rags-to-riches kind of story she remembers vaguely from her mother’s women’s magazines from years ago.

Luna excuses herself from a conversation about the best stables in the area and sips her drink, surveying the room.

Babe, Luna says while taking a sip of champagne, which is not prosecco but the real stuff. I wish you were here, I’m so bad at small talk.

You’re not so good at big talk either, Babe, he says, to be honest.

And this makes her laugh, because he always made her laugh, and she takes a deep breath.

They’re just people, he says, they just want to be liked, just like you.

I don’t need to be liked, she says, defensively.

I know, you’re a real hard arse, he says, with air quotes she can almost see from the corner of her eye, but just pretend, would you? It’s for the lad, he says.

So she puts on a smile, and finds the hostess and compliments the marble floors, listens to her story about her housekeeper, and remembers that this is for Sonny. Always Sonny.



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Sonny tells people he is a recent graduate because he recently pretended to graduate. And he reasons that it’s not like people ask to see your degree, it’s not something you carry around in your wallet, like your driver’s license, right?

A driver’s license is also something he has failed to obtain, because he didn’t finish the block of lessons Aunt Gabriela bought for him for his birthday, or sit the theory test, but he will. He’ll definitely get back to that too. Someday.

He decides that, since no one ever thought he’d make it to university anyway, finishing a majority of his degree is a huge achievement, actually. He almost finished the whole graphic design program, and that’s so much more than anyone ever thought he would do.

When he was a child, none of his teachers ever believed, like his mother did, that he would make it this far. Of course, her attitude toward them didn’t endear either of them to the staff. Her strongly worded emails, her constant defense of him, even when he was in the wrong and she knew he was, did not have the impact she thought it did.

Instead, her outrage caused the opposite response. She fought for him every time he was in trouble, and every time the teachers and the headmaster thought she was just a little crazier than the last time.

“Was she frothing at the mouth today?” he overheard the deputy head say to the school secretary, and they both laughed when the secretary delivered Luna’s latest message. They didn’t notice that he happened to be passing by the office on his way to a class. It wasn’t hard for him to guess they were talking about his mother.

He felt awful that he had turned her into this. He just never knew he was doing it until he was old enough to recognize at least some of it when it was happening, but even then he wasn’t so good at controlling it. Even with the meds, even with the therapy, even with a mother like her.