Spare

Due to the unprecedented number of threats they were picking up.

49.

Our honeymoon was a closely guarded secret. We left London in a car disguised as a removals van, the windows covered with cardboard, and went to the Mediterranean for ten days. Glorious to be away, on the sea, in the sun. But we were also sick. The build-up to the wedding had worn us down.

We returned just in time for the official June celebration of Granny’s birthday. Trooping the Color: one of our first public appearances as newlyweds. Everyone present was in a good mood, upbeat. But then:

Kate asked Meg what she thought of her first Trooping the Color.

And Meg joked: Colorful.

And a yawning silence threatened to swallow us all whole.

Days later Meg went off on her first royal trip with Granny. She was nervous, but they got on famously. They also bonded over their love of dogs.

She returned from the trip glowing. We bonded, she told me. The Queen and I really bonded! We talked about how much I wanted to be a mom and she told me the best way to induce labor was a good bumpy car ride! I told her I’d remember that when the time came.

Things are going to turn around now, we both said.

The papers, however, pronounced the trip an unmitigated disaster. They portrayed Meg as pushy, uppity, ignorant of royal protocol, because she’d made the unthinkable mistake of getting into a car before Granny.

In truth she’d done exactly what Granny had told her to do. Granny said get in; she got in.

No matter. There were stories for days about Meg’s breach, about her overall lack of class—about her daring not to wear a hat in Granny’s presence. The Palace had specifically directed Meg not to wear a hat. Granny also wore green to honor the victims of Grenfell Tower, and no one told Meg to wear green—so they said she didn’t give a fig about the victims.

I said: The Palace will make a phone call. They’ll correct the record.

They didn’t.

50.

Willy and Kate invited us for tea. To clear the air.

June 2018.

We walked over one late afternoon. I saw Meg’s eyes widen as we entered their front door, walked past their front sitting room, down their hallway, into their study.

Wow, Meg said several times.

The wallpaper, the crown molding, the walnut bookshelves lined with color-coordinated volumes, the priceless art. Gorgeous. Like a museum. And we both told them so. We complimented them lavishly on their renovation, though we also thought sheepishly of our IKEA lamps, our discount sofa recently bought on sale, with Meg’s credit card, from sofa.com.

In the study, Meg and I sat on a love seat at one end of the room, Kate opposite us on a leather-clad fender before the fireplace. Willy was to her left, in an armchair. There was a tray of tea and biscuits. For ten minutes we did the classic small talk. How are the kids? How was your honeymoon?

Meg then acknowledged the tension among the four of us and ventured that it might go back to those early days when she’d first joined the family—a misunderstanding that had almost passed without notice. Kate thought Meg had wanted her fashion contacts. But Meg had her own. They’d got off on the wrong foot perhaps? And then, Meg added, everything got magnified by the wedding, and those infernal bridesmaids’ dresses.

But it turned out there were other things…about which we’d been unaware.

Willy and Kate were apparently upset that we hadn’t given them Easter presents.

Easter presents? Was that a thing? Willy and I had never exchanged Easter presents. Pa always made a big deal about Easter, sure, but that was Pa.

Still, if Willy and Kate were upset, we apologized.

For our part, we chipped in that we weren’t too pleased when Willy and Kate switched place cards and changed seats at our wedding. We’d followed the American tradition, placing couples next to each other, but Willy and Kate didn’t like that tradition, so their table was the only one where spouses were apart.

They insisted it wasn’t them, it was someone else.

And they said we’d done the same thing at Pippa’s wedding.

We hadn’t. Much as we’d wanted to. We’d been separated by a huge flower arrangement between us, and though we’d desperately wanted to sit together, we hadn’t done a thing about it.

None of this airing of grievances was doing us any good, I felt. We weren’t getting anywhere.

Kate looked out into the garden, gripping the edges of the leather so tightly that her fingers were white, and said she was owed an apology.

Meg asked: For what?

You hurt my feelings, Meghan.

When? Please tell me.

I told you I couldn’t remember something and you said it was my hormones.