Oliver sipped his second Glenlivet and looked back from the darkening harbor. "I wish I had known my grandfather," he said to his mother. "I remember when he died. I was eight, I think."
"Yes, you were in third grade," she said. "It was sad. He was living in Paris. When he wrote, I called him at the hospital—but he didn't want me to come. He said that he wanted me to remember him as he was."
"When was the last time you saw him?" Oliver asked.
"Oh . . . I . . ." She looked at Paul. He raised his eyebrows sympathetically. "I guess I never told you that story," she said to Oliver. "It was a long time ago. My sixteenth birthday, in fact." She sighed.
"It was at Nice, on the Riviera. He arranged a party on the beach—wine, great food, fireworks . . . After the fireworks, he gave me a bamboo cage with a white dove inside.
"'This is your present, Dior,' he said. 'You must let it go, give it freedom.' I opened the cage, and the dove flew up into the dark. 'Very good,' my father said. He hugged me. Then he said, 'Now, we will say goodbye. You are grown, and I will not be seeing you and your mother any more. Be good to your mother.' He hugged me again and just walked down the beach—into the night."
Oliver watched tears slide down his mother's cheeks.
She lifted a napkin and wiped away her tears. "He was very handsome."
"No need of that shit," Paul said.
They were silent.