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“And you feel as though yours is in limbo.”
“More so, yes. It isn’t a new thing for me.”
He lay back on the bed and held me in his arms. “Tell me, Kensington.”
How did I tell him I felt as though my life had no meaning? I had no goals, no purpose. Before Gran Bea passed away, I spent the majority of my time with her. I wasn’t her caregiver; she had a staff for that, but I was her companion. I learned more about life—about everything—from her than I ever would have at university.
There were times I wished I’d continued my education, but more because I felt it was expected of me rather than it being something I wanted to do.
Both of my parents graduated from college. My mother from Barnhard, my father from Oxford. Neither did anything with their degrees. My father had a law degree and was a professional photographer. My mother’s degree was in literature, and she was a professional socialite.
My grandfather spent his life working in the publishing industry for a house that had been in our family for over three hundred years. He’d worked his way up from a copy boy to chairman of the board, which he sat on until the day he died, at which time the seat was given to me.
After his retirement from daily work, he and my grandmother had labored tirelessly for a variety of social causes.
I realized Cortez was studying me, waiting for an answer to his question.
“I haven’t yet found my way.” It was something Gran Bea used to say when I would fret about what meaning I had in life. “You will find your way, my dear,” she’d say. “And when you do, you’ll know instantly that everything went exactly the way it was supposed to go.”
Cortez didn’t speak, so I continued. “I look at the people with us here on the island, and I find myself envying their level of commitment. Yours too.”
“When you find your way, as you said, you will have an equal commitment to it.”
“What if I never find it?”
“How hard have you looked?”
“I’m not good at anything, Cortez.”
“I beg to differ.”
I looked into his eyes to see if he was teasing. “What do you see that I’m good at?”
“You read voraciously, and it is evident in the way you do it that you are learning, soaking it all in. You are very adept in higher societal situations.”
“It’s a pity I wasn’t born in the seventeen hundreds when those talents might have served me.”
He brushed my cheek with his finger. “I wasn’t finished.”
“Thank God.”
He laughed and squeezed my shoulder. “You gave immense comfort to the families at the children’s hospital on Christmas night. Immense. It isn’t just in ‘polite company’ that you excel; you were marvelous with them.”
“And what would I do with such immense talent?”
“Follow your great-aunt’s lead as well as that of your grandparents. Find something that speaks to your heart and use your compassion to make a difference.”
“I continue Gran Bea’s and Huck’s charitable work.”
“Do you?”
I shook my head. “Not work, no.”
“You continue with their level of financial support.”
“Yes.”
“Why not spend time with each of the organizations and see which you feel compelled to do more for? If it isn’t any of those, there are innumerable charities that could use support, either in time, talent, or money.”
