Love and Other Consolation Prizes(51)

Ernest furrowed his brow. The saddest moment was easy. He’d never mentioned his little sister to anyone, not even Fahn, and certainly not Mrs. Irvine. He tried to think of an alternative to telling Maisie the truth, but she sensed his hesitation.

“Whatever it is, just say it. I told you about my father and how he died.”

Ernest sighed. “It’s not a pretty story…”

“That’s the whole point,” Maisie said as the burner fired again, lighting up their world for a brief, warm moment, and the balloon lofted higher, tugging them along, the basket creaking and groaning against the rope anchors.

“It’s my last memory of where I was born,” Ernest said. “When I was five or six years old, I saw something.” He hesitated. “Something terrible.”

“I’ve seen my share of good and bad,” Maisie said.

Ernest shook his head.

“It’s okay, I can take it.” Maisie held his hand.

“My parents…they were never married. And my father had been killed. I barely remember him. So my mother and I were alone, begging, sleeping at the mission home where she used to work.” Ernest paused and then continued. “We were starving to death. And one night, I watched my mother smother my newborn sister.” He watched Maisie’s somber reaction. “That was my saddest moment.”

Maisie closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them.

Ernest struggled to process the ugly details while gazing down on such a beautiful place. His heart felt torn between the two worlds.

“You okay?” Maisie asked.

Ernest nodded and continued. “I remember that my mother always kept herself distant from me. It was like a long goodbye. She knew what was happening around us. Everyone was wasting away, and she was dying. She gave up completely, and that’s when she arranged for me to go on the ship, and then she buried my sister. I never knew when my mother finally died, though I always hoped there might be someone to give her a proper burial. Someone who would put rocks and stones and thorns on her grave to discourage the stray dogs; after all, they were starving too.”

Ernest stopped talking and regarded Maisie, who was listening in silence. But she nodded and chewed her lip and waited for him to continue.

“I don’t know if she sold me or gave me away. But I survived. I made it to America—bouncing from poorhouse to boarding school. No one knew what to do with me; I didn’t fit in anywhere. And eventually I was given away all over again.”

“Right down there,” Maisie said.

Ernest nodded and sighed as though a weight were lifting off his shoulders, floating away like the hot-air balloon. “I guess that ended up being my best moment, even though I didn’t know it at the time.”

Maisie wiped her eyes and blamed the wind. “See—you’ve proved my point.”

“I’ve never told that to anyone,” Ernest said. “I don’t think about those days very often. I try to forget, because sometimes I have bad dreams.”

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again the world had fallen into darkness. The lights had been put out to mark the official closing of the fair. The lit buildings, the streetlamps, every bulb, had vanished into pitch black, as if the world below them had fallen away, been swallowed whole. He heard the crowd for a moment, then an aching silence followed by a lone bugler, who played a sad melody.

“You know my secret,” Maisie said. “And now I know yours.”

Ernest sniffled and held his emotions in check as he thought about happier moments—Fahn’s oatmeal cookies, her warm, soft kisses, lying next to Maisie on that soft bed of clover, trading bites of a crisp, sugarcoated apple. He tried to take those new memories and the broken pieces of his heart, rearrange them, somehow mend them together, even as his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he strained to find definition in the murky world he was floating in. That’s when he felt Maisie slide closer, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders as well. He could feel her warmth through plush, supple layers of fabric. She smelled like perfume and flowers and happiness. Ernest’s heart raced as the gondola drifted and they heard wistful strains wafting up from the crowd below. Fifty thousand people began singing “Auld Lang Syne,” and surrounded by emptiness, gently rocking to the sound of melancholy, Ernest and Maisie sang along in whispers.

He turned as she leaned closer and her arms slipped into a quiet embrace. He felt her hair on his cheek, the softness of her breath as his hands found her waist. He was awed at her touch and what the human heart is capable of feeling—such sadness, such shame, but such acceptance, such joy, all at the same time.

The balloon swayed and he said, “Steady, I’ve got you.”

“I’ve got you too,” she whispered.

Then he looked down, noticing flickering lights, the city on the horizon. He marveled at the beautiful, challenging world beneath them, so far away, and he thought: I wonder if the best thing any of us can hope for in life is a soft place to land.

He felt Maisie nod as though she knew his thoughts. He held on tighter.

Then the night exploded.

Their ears filled with the booming echoes of cannon reports as fireworks burst all around them. Blooming peonies and chrysanthemums filled the darkness. Starlike shells rose to greet them, flashing like comets, painting the sky with swashes of sparkling, flickering, glowing embers that slowly rained back down in a beautifully arranged marriage of fire and gravity.