I HELPED MEG INTO THE BOAT. It wobbled, but I quick-stepped to the middle, got it righted in time.
As she found a seat in the stern, I took up the oars. They didn’t work.
We’re stuck.
The thick mud of the shallows had us in its grip.
Uncle Charles came down to the water’s edge, gave us a little shove. We waved to him, and to my two aunts. Bye. See you in a bit.
Gliding across the pond, I gazed around at Althorp’s rolling fields and ancient trees, the thousands of green acres where my mother grew up, and where, though things weren’t perfect, she’d known some peace.
Minutes later we reached the island and gingerly stepped onto the shore. I led Meg up the path, around a hedge, through the labyrinth. There it was, looming: the grayish white oval stone.
No visit to this place was ever easy, but this one… Twenty-fifth anniversary.
And Meg’s first time.
At long last I was bringing the girl of my dreams home to meet mum.
We hesitated, hugging, and then I went first. I placed flowers on the grave. Meg gave me a moment, and I spoke to my mother in my head, told her I missed her, asked her for guidance and clarity.
Feeling that Meg might also want a moment, I went around the hedge, scanned the pond. When I came back, Meg was kneeling, eyes shut, palms against the stone.
I asked, as we walked back to the boat, what she’d prayed for. Clarity, she said. And guidance.
—
The next few days were given over to a whirlwind work trip. Manchester, Dusseldorf, then back to London for the WellChild Awards. But that day— September 8, 2022—a call came in around lunchtime.
Unknown number. Hello?
It was Pa. Granny’s health had taken a turn.
She was up at Balmoral, of course. Those beautiful, melancholy late-summer days. He hung up—he had many other calls to make—and I immediately texted Willy to ask whether he and Kate were flying up. If so, when? And how?
No response. Meg and I looked at flight options.
The press started phoning; we couldn’t delay a decision any longer. We told our team to confirm: We’d be missing the WellChild Awards and hurrying up to Scotland.
Then came another call from Pa.
He said I was welcome at Balmoral, but he didn’t want…her. He started to lay out his reason, which was nonsensical, and disrespectful, and I wasn’t having it. Don’t ever speak about my wife that way.
He stammered, apologetic, saying he simply didn’t want a lot of people around. No other wives were coming, Kate wasn’t coming, he said, therefore Meg shouldn’t.
Then that’s all you needed to say.
By now it was midafternoon; no more commercial flights that day to Aberdeen. And I still had no response from Willy. My only option, therefore, was a charter out of Luton.
I was on board two hours later.
I spent much of the flight staring at the clouds, replaying the last time I’d spoken with Granny. Four days earlier, long chat on the phone. We’d touched on many topics. Her health, of course. The turmoil at Number 10. The Braemar Games—she was sorry about not being well enough to attend. We talked also about the biblical drought. The lawn at Frogmore, where
Meg and I were staying, was in terrible shape. Looks like the top of my head, Granny! Balding and brown in patches.
She laughed.
I told her to take care, I looked forward to seeing her soon.
As the plane began its descent, my phone lit up. A text from Meg. Call me the moment you get this.
I checked the BBC website. Granny was gone.
Pa was King.
I put on my black tie, walked off the plane into a thick mist, sped in a borrowed car to Balmoral. As I pulled through the front gates it was wetter, and pitch-dark, which made the white flashes from the dozens of cameras that much more blinding.
Hunched against the cold, I hurried into the foyer. Aunt Anne was there to greet me.
I hugged her. Where’s Pa and Willy? And Camilla?
Gone to Birkhall, she said.
She asked if I wanted to see Granny.
Yes…I do.
She led me upstairs, to Granny’s bedroom. I braced myself, went in. The room was dimly lit, unfamiliar—I’d been inside it only once in my life. I moved ahead uncertainly, and there she was. I stood, frozen, staring. I stared and stared. It was difficult, but I kept on, thinking how I’d regretted not seeing my mother at the end. Years of lamenting that lack of proof, postponing my grief for want of proof. Now I thought: Proof. Careful what you wish for.
I whispered to her that I hoped she was happy, that I hoped she was with Grandpa. I said that I was in awe of her carrying out her duties to the last. The Jubilee, the welcoming of a new prime minister. On her ninetieth birthday my father had given a touching tribute, quoting Shakespeare on Elizabeth I:
…no day without a deed to crown it.
Ever true.
I left the room, went back along the corridor, across the tartan carpet, past the statue of Queen Victoria. Your Majesty. I rang Meg, told her I’d made it, that I was OK, then walked into the sitting room and ate dinner with most of my family, though still no Pa, Willy, or Camilla.
Towards the end of the meal, I braced myself for the bagpipes. But out of respect for Granny there was nothing. An eerie silence.
The hour getting late, everyone drifted off to their rooms, except me. I went on a wander, up and down the stairs, the halls, ending up at the nursery. The old-fashioned basins, the tub, everything the same as it had been twenty-five years ago. I passed most of the night time-traveling in my thoughts while trying to make actual travel arrangements on my phone.
The quickest way back would’ve been a lift with Pa or Willy…Barring that, it was British Airways, departing Balmoral at daybreak. I bought a seat and was among the first to board.
Soon after settling into a front row, I sensed a presence on my right. Deepest sympathies, said a fellow passenger before heading down the aisle.
Thank you.
Moments later, another presence. Condolences, Harry.
Thanks…very much.
Most passengers stopped to offer a kind word, and I felt a deep kinship with them all.
Our country, I thought. Our Queen.
—
Meg greeted me at the front door of Frogmore with a long embrace, which I desperately needed. We sat down with a glass of water and a calendar. Our quick trip would now be an odyssey. Another ten days, at least. Difficult days at that. More, we’d have to be away from the children for longer than we’d planned, longer than we’d ever been.
When the funeral finally took place, Willy and I, barely exchanging a word, took our familiar places, set off on our familiar journey, behind yet another coffin draped in the Royal Standard, sitting atop another horse-pulled gun carriage. Same route, same sights—though this time, unlike at previous funerals, we were shoulder to shoulder. Also, music was playing.
When we got to St. George’s Chapel, amid the roar of dozens of bagpipes, I thought of all the big occasions I’d experienced under that roof. Grandpa’s farewell, my wedding. Even the ordinary times, simple Easter Sundays, felt especially poignant, the whole family alive and together. Suddenly I was wiping my eyes.
Why now? I wondered. Why?
The following afternoon Meg and I left for America.
—
For days and days we couldn’t stop hugging the children, couldn’t let them out of our sight—though I also couldn’t stop picturing them with Granny. The final visit. Archie making deep, chivalrous bows, his baby sister Lilibet cuddling the monarch’s shins. Sweetest children, Granny said, sounding bemused. She’d expected them to be a bit more…American, I think? Meaning, in her mind, more rambunctious.
Now, while overjoyed to be home again, doing drop-offs again, reading Giraffes Can’t Dance again, I couldn’t stop…remembering. Day and night, images flitted through my mind.
Standing before her during my passing-out parade, shoulders thrown back, catching her half smile. Stationed beside her on the balcony, saying something that caught her off guard and made her, despite the solemnity of the occasion, laugh out loud. Leaning into her ear, so many times, smelling her perfume as I whispered a joke. Kissing both cheeks at one public event, just recently, placing a hand lightly on her shoulder, feeling how frail she was becoming. Making a silly video for the first Invictus Games, discovering that she was a natural comedienne. People around the world howled, and said they’d never suspected she possessed such a wicked sense
of humor—but she did, she always did! That was one of our little secrets. In fact, in every photo of us, whenever we’re exchanging a glance, making solid eye contact, it’s clear: We had secrets.
Special relationship, that’s what they said about us, and now I couldn’t stop thinking about the specialness that would no longer be. The visits that wouldn’t take place.
Ah well, I told myself, that’s just the deal, isn’t it? That’s life.
Still, as with so many partings, I just wished there’d been…one more goodbye.
Soon after our return, a hummingbird got into the house. I had a devil of a time guiding it out, and the thought occurred that maybe we should start shutting the doors, despite those heavenly ocean breezes.
Then a mate said: Could be a sign, you know?
Some cultures see hummingbirds as spirits, he said. Visitors, as it were. Aztecs thought them reincarnated warriors. Spanish explorers called them “resurrection birds.”
You don’t say?
I did some reading and learned that not only are hummingbirds visitors, they’re voyagers. The lightest birds on the planet, and the fastest, they travel vast distances—from Mexican winter homes to Alaskan nesting grounds. Whenever you see a hummingbird, what you’re actually seeing is a tiny, glittering Odysseus.
So, naturally, when this hummingbird arrived, and swooped around our kitchen, and flitted through the sacred airspace we call Lili Land, where we’ve set the baby’s playpen with all her toys and stuffed animals, I thought hopefully, greedily, foolishly:
Is our house a detour—or a destination?
For half a second I was tempted to let the hummingbird be. Let it stay. But no.
Gently I used Archie’s fishing net to scoop it from the ceiling, carry it outside.
Its legs felt like eyelashes, its wings like flower petals.
With cupped palms I set the hummingbird gently on a wall in the sun.
Goodbye, my friend. But it just lay there. Motionless.
No, I thought. No, not that. Come on, come on.
You’re free.
Fly away.
And then, against all odds, and all expectations, that wonderful, magical little creature bestirred itself, and did just that.
