“I have to go to sleep,” says Bean. “Seriously. Don’t make me laugh any more.”
“Knock knock,” I say at once.
“Stop!”
“There was a young girl from Nantucket—”
“Effie!”
Still smiling, I look up into the darkness again. And as I listen to Bean’s breathing grow calmer, I try to guess what “complicated” might mean. Maybe he has an ex-wife. Maybe he lives abroad. Maybe he’s in jail for a crime he didn’t commit—
“Effie?” Bean’s hesitant voice breaks my train of thought. “There’s something else I need to say, before I fall asleep. I…I don’t think I’ve done you any favors. And I’m sorry.”
“What?” I say, taken aback. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ve always tried to shield you from stuff,” Bean carries on. “We all have. When you were little, we told you white lies. Father Christmas. The tooth fairy. The time Gus shoplifted.”
“Gus shoplifted?” I echo, aghast.
“It was for a bet,” says Bean, a little impatiently. “He was suspended, big serious talk, he never did it again, blah blah. But we didn’t tell you, because you wouldn’t have understood. Anyway.” She pauses. “The point is, I guess I never got out of the habit of wanting to protect you.”
“You don’t have to protect me anymore,” I say at once. “I’m an adult.”
“Exactly. But it’s a hard habit to kick. And then, you and Mimi have this amazing bond. I’ve never wanted to spoil that.”
“What are you driving at, Bean?” I say uncertainly.
“There are…things I haven’t told you,” she says, and the air in the room seems to grow thick.
“What things?”
“About Mimi. And Dad.”
“What about Mimi and Dad?” I say in a tiny voice.
“I love them both,” Bean says, exhaling. “But when I was living here, it wasn’t great. Mimi was quite intolerant. Quite judgy. Almost…mean.”
“Mean?” I echo, dumbfounded. “Mean? But Mimi’s lovely to everybody! The whole world says that,” I remind Bean. “They say, Mimi’s so lovely.”
“I know they do. But she wasn’t where Dad was concerned.” Bean sighs. “I couldn’t believe it, either, at first. She seemed to have the opposite of a blind spot. It was a glaring, kind of magnified spotlight on Dad, following him around the house, and nothing she saw pleased her. She picked on him about everything. The way he ate, the way he sat down, the way he drank his tea…Everything was wrong.”
“They always teased each other,” I say uncertainly.
“Maybe it started off teasing, but it ended up…” Bean sighs. “Snippy. It was like Mimi didn’t want Dad to occupy a Dad-shaped space in the world anymore. She wanted him to be different. Or not there. And then Dad reacted by going all silent and sullen. He would ignore Mimi, which would drive her mad. It drove me mad too. I would be thinking, Just answer her, for God’s sake!”
“Silent?” I’m freshly dumbfounded. “Sullen? Dad?”
“I know. You can’t even imagine. And I used to hear them having a go at each other, at the bottom of the garden, where they thought I couldn’t hear. The pair of them were…Let’s just say they weren’t their best selves. Either of them.” Bean exhales. “I didn’t tell you, because it was so grim. But now I think I should have done. Then you wouldn’t have been so shocked when they split.”
I’m quiet for a while, digesting Bean’s story. Try as I might, I can’t imagine it. Mimi is about warmth and comfort and nurture, not snippiness. And Dad is about charm and charisma. How could he be sullen?
“Dad’s not perfect,” says Bean, as though reading my mind, “and nor is Mimi, and they weren’t in a constant state of bliss. I’m sure they only behaved like that because they were…unhappy.”
The word unhappy lodges, heavy, in my heart.
“So, what, they were unhappy all the way along?” I retort. “They never loved each other?” I’m feeling a miserable clenching inside, because isn’t this what I’ve been saying? That our entire childhood was a fake?
“No!” says Bean at once. “I don’t believe that. I think it was only recently that things got difficult. But they didn’t want to admit it.” She sighs. “Maybe they should have been more open with us. Then you wouldn’t keep putting them on such a pedestal.”