After Alice Fell(10)

Why would Alice hold the boy out the window? But there wasn’t a why with Alice. The beautiful girl with the jangled brain answered only to herself.

I promised her I’d always be there. I promised.

“My fault.”





Chapter Four


Cathy serves breakfast on the back porch. “To spare us all from the heat,” she says.

To spare us from the dining room and the mirror still festooned in black crepe, I think. To spare us all from grief.

The porch is approached through the narrow ell of the kitchen and down a short flight of steps. It hugs the back of the house, the floorboards and ceilings a patina of blue milk paint and graying wood.

She doles out chicory coffee in measured pours, three quarters of a cup each, and then the milk server is held up. Her left eyebrow raises in question, as if today I will tell her I am fully tired of milk.

“Just a drop,” I say.

“Surely more,” she answers. But there’s a look of relief when I refuse more.

Lionel flips through yesterday’s Statesman, rolling a corner between his thumb and forefinger. Cathy waits, tilting slightly forward, the server tip clinking the rim of his cup.

He glances at it, eyes bloodshot and tired, then back to the paper. She pours the milk—a dram and a dab—before slipping to her own chair and setting the milk to the side.

“No milkman today?” he asks.

“We’re just a little—” She gives a quick nod and reaches her hand to me, covering my own. Her palm is clammy and sticky with sweat. “I hope you slept well.”

How could she ask that? My limbs ache from sleeplessness, from lugging the coffin, from the constant repeating image of washing Alice’s cold hands. Only when the sun rose and tipped the trees did I rest at all, awakened by the sound of Saoirse clanking pans in the kitchen.

“I slept well as could be.”

Toby flips his toast over, pressing it to the plate and smearing jam in concentric circles.

“Toby.” Cathy grabs the plate and holds it up. “There are starving people.”

“Give him the plate.” Lionel doesn’t look up. He pushes his own plate of half-eaten toast rimmed with dried egg yolk to the side.

“There are starving people, Lionel.”

“Give him the plate.”

Toby kicks his heel against the chair leg. He’s lost interest in the plate. He’s absorbed now with the pond. He points at it, then twists round so his elbows catch the top of the chair’s back.

“Nothing moves,” I say. The pond is dark and viscous, disconcerting in its blankness.

The birch leaves are already yellowing, the maples beginning to curl. Reeds and rushes strangle the curve of the east bank while the west rim is a jut of granite and exposed roots, permanently pooled in shadow and black lichen. At the far reach, the pond narrows to a pinched channel, and beyond the channel the waterway makes a sharp bend shaped like a broken finger. The Narrows.

“Toby. Sit.” Cathy’s sigh is long. “I think we should plan the fall garden, get a head start. The fresh air will do you good, Marion.”

“The garden.” I nod, then finish the chicory in a gulp and slide the cup away. Just yesterday, Alice was laid to rest. Now there’s biscuits and blackberry jam. “We can discuss the merits of planting broccoli versus squash.”

Toby lays his cheek on his palm and stares at me. Cathy keeps her head down and picks at the crumbs on her plate. She’s flushed pink. Lionel fiddles with his spoon.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “That wasn’t kind.” My throat tightens. I push the chair back to stand. I know I’ve hurt Cathy; I know Lionel disapproves. He taps his spoon to the tablecloth, tilts his head like Father did when one or the other of us had broken some rule, and purses his lips the same.

“Don’t.” I rise and catch the chairback with my hand, my vision sparking at the edges, the drone of the cicadas beating my ears.

Still he fiddles with the spoon. Tap tap tap.

“Will you join us in town today? For service?” Cathy asks.

“I prefer to stay here.” My mouth fills with an acrid taste. “I’ve some correspondence and . . .”

Lionel leans back, his arms crossed and the spoon flicking in his fingers. A dab of milk beads and then darkens the crease at his elbow. “You should make an appearance. At the very least.”

“Can I stay with Auntie?” Toby slides back to his seat and stares at his father.

“No, you may not.”

“There is solace there.” But Cathy’s gaze darts away and back as she says it.

“Perhaps for you. Not for me.”

“You should come to town with me one day. Welcome the new headmaster of St. Albans. And his wife.”

“I don’t know her.”

“You know him. Thomas Hargreaves. That student who weaseled himself around your husband. He married last year. Or was it the previous?” Cathy looks at me as if I should know this. “She’s Jenny Wright’s cousin. From Goffstown. I’m sure you know her. Ada?”

“I don’t know her.”

“You’ve been too long away. It will all feel comfortable soon. Won’t it, Lionel?”

“Meet them if you must. I won’t.” I do not add that I hate them; that I hate St. Albans Academy and its perfunctory eviction of Benjamin’s books and my possessions from the dean’s cottage, the solicitous letter that spared little apology. And Thomas Hargreaves—always at the table, uninvited, and always too late in the evening pontificating with Benjamin on Latin subjunctives and the nature of one teacher or another’s morals. “I won’t meet them.”