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I blinked, unsure if I’d heard him correctly. “Thank you,” I stammered. “Arigato, Ojiisan.”
“Now. When you come?” He snatched the last inari, took a bite, and waited.
Watching him eat my food relaxed me enough to respond. I never understood it, but there was something satisfying about watching someone enjoy dishes I’d cooked. I wasn’t worth much, but I could make things taste all right. It was the one thing I could actually add to this world that was any good.
“Well, term ends in June,” I told him. “But I’ve got a break mid-April. If I can save up enough, I could probably bring Mum then, if Emmanuel and Elsie can run the restaurant without me. So long as I’m back before the twenty-fifth of April, I think it will work.”
I waited for Ichiro to interpret, but before my grandfather could reply, another voice interrupted.
“It will need to be a bit after that, unfortunately.”
The three of us swung around toward the unfamiliar voice. Well, unfamiliar to them. Though I’d only heard it a few times in my sixteen years, I would have known it anywhere.
A boulder-sized pit grew in my stomach as I turned. “Dad?”
My voice emerged about an octave higher than its normal level, like I was again that scrappy thirteen-year-old skulking after his mother, trying to be a man before he could quite get there.
Rupert Parker stood in the doorway of the flat, gazing over the scene before him like he was surveying newly conquered territory. At the six feet, five inches that matched my own, he was one of the few people I’d ever met who could look me in the eye. That and his blue eyes were the only things I’d inherited from him.
His skin was fair, his hair an ashy, graying blond, his clothes designer and tailored—a far cry from my own lightly tanned skin, black hair, and the badly fitting suit Elsie had forced me into this morning. Nothing about him belonged in this flat. This scrappy little life that had belonged to Mum and me. He’d never wanted anything to do with us at all.
My father’s steely eyes hopscotched over each remaining person in the room—Emmanuel, Jagger, Elsie, my erstwhile relatives—before landing on me.
“Hello, Xavier,” he said in a voice that was low but still channeled around us. He turned to my grandfather and uncle and nodded politely the way certain men do to the help. “Gentlemen. You must be Masumi’s relatives. Rupert Parker, at your service.”
Behind him, someone cleared his throat, and my father stepped into the flat, revealing my other uncle, Henry Parker. My uncle was maybe an inch shorter but shared the same pale features and long nose as the rest of the Parker dynasty. His eyes, however, were slightly kinder than my father’s steely blues.
He nodded at me. “Hello, boy.”
I just nodded back.
“I’m afraid my son’s trip to the Far East will have to wait,” Rupert reiterated as he eyed the refreshment table skeptically. “He is due to start Eton next week.”
My mouth fell open.
“What?” I demanded, finding my voice at last.
“Oh,” Elsie gasped from the sofa. “My…goodness? EtonCollege?”
“No, Eton primary,” Rupert answered sarcastically. “What other Eton is there?”
“Don’t talk to Elsie like that.” I stood up a little straighter. “And I have a school. I don’t need to change now. I’ve only a year left after this.”
“Orchard Park is hardly an acceptable institution for a Parker,” my father stated while he studied the room.
“Well, I’m not the bloody Prince of Wales,” I argued back. “I’m not going to any Eton fucking College.”
My father’s blue eyes, as unfazed as the sky, glanced at his brother, who only shrugged, before turning back to me.
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” he said. “Now, I regret very much the unfortunate circumstances in which we find ourselves. As I regret we have not had time to become properly acquainted before now. But that is not your choice to make. You are my son, Xavier. And you are my responsibility now.”
ONE
Francesca
“Ces. Ces, baby, are you all right?”
I blinked ferociously, trying to get the flashes out of my eyes, along with the sudden sting of tears. My ears rang with strangers calling my name, capped with the roar of engines and constant clicks.
