What I Thought Was True(98)

“Sadly, I am no longer able to attend it in the city—such a great crush of people. It has been my dearest wish to see my favorite play, Much Ado About Nothing, performed once again. Your dear 338

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father took me to that once, when we were in London.” She leans her cane against the weathered porch shingles, clasps her hands under her chin, tips her face to the side, magnanimous.

“I still remember my favorite line. ‘Lady, I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap and be buried in thy eyes . . .’ ”

Cass’s lips twitch. He ducks his head to hide it.

“I don’t remember that they were all over each other like white on rice in that play,” Henry says, sounding like a sulky child.

Mrs. E. waves a hand at him airily. “Shakespeare, dear boy.

Very bawdy. Dear Guinevere and Cassidy were most reluctant but I urged them to be faithful to the text, and to rehearse assiduously.”

Ridiculous from the start, this is now officially over-the-top.

Henry glowers. Mrs. E. gives him her benevolent smile.

There’s a long pause, and then Henry grudgingly allows that he must have misinterpreted what he saw. His mother gra-ciously accepts his apology. Within minutes Cass and I have our jobs back.

Cass excuses himself to go back to work, but as I head to the kitchen to make tea, he pops his head in through the window.

“Helpless old woman, my ass.”

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Chapter Thirty-two


Mrs. Ellington just saved my job—and Cass’s. And for the next two hours, I betray her.

Gavin Gage’s eyes don’t glitter with avarice, or bulge with green dollar signs like in cartoons, but as I go through the whole tea-serving ritual with all the silver pieces, at which I am now a semi-pro, I notice his cool appraising glance every time I pick up a new item.

Mrs. Ellington chats away, asking Gavin about his family, recalling little details of his friendship with Henry, how they met at Exeter, were on the sailing team together, this French teacher, that lacrosse coach etc., etc., and Gavin Gage answers politely and kindly, even reminisces about some trip they took as boys with the captain to Captiva.

The only comfort is that Henry Ellington is even more uncomfortable than me. He would so lose to Grandpa in a poker game. He keeps grimacing, shifting around in his seat, pulling at his collar. When Mrs. E. tries to engage him in polite social conversation, he’s totally distracted, making her repeat her question. At one point he says abruptly, “I need some air.”

And goes out to the porch.

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Mrs. E. stares after him, then smoothes things over, saying that of course, Gavin, dear Henry did not mean to be rude. The poor boy works so hard. Gavin assures her he understands. It’s all so far from what’s going on under the surface that I want to scream.

Perched on our battered front steps that afternoon, Grandpa Ben performs his own ritual as methodically as Mrs. E. enacts her tea one. Emptying out his pipe. Tapping the fresh tobacco out of the pouch. Packing it in.

I told Grandpa everything. Or almost everything. Not about Henry walking in on Cass and me. But everything else, my voice hushed but sounding loud as a scream in my own ears.

I expect Emory, crashed early on Myrtle, lulled to sleep by the soporific Dora, to bolt up, eyes wide. But he slumbers on, free-ing Grandpa to smoke, which he hates to do around Em with his asthma. Grandpa says nothing for a long time, not until the pipe is lit and his already rheumy brown eyes are watering slightly in the smoke.

Then finally, “We do not know.”

That’s it?

“Well, exactly, Grandpa. But . . . but . . . it’s clear Henry doesn’t want his mother to know either. That can’t be good.”

“There are things you don’t want Lucia to understand. Not all of them are the bad things.”

I feel heat sting my face. “No—but those things aren’t like . . . Those things are personal.”

“Pers-o-nal.” Grandpa draws the word out slowly, as if he can’t remember what it means in English. That happens every 341

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now and then. More this year than last, more last year than the year before.

“Personal. Belonging to me,” I translate.

Grandpa Ben tilts his head, as though he’s still not clear, but then he reaches into his pocket, pulls out his worn dark leather wallet, nudges it open, hands me a picture.

Vovó.

Oh. Not that. My stomach hurts.

I think I know what Grandpa’s doing.

I remember my Vovó, emaciated and pale near the end, but in this picture she’s warm and strong, all curvy brown arms holding up a silver-flecked fish half as big as she is and laugh-ing. The grandmother I remember, wholehearted and real, always smiling, not the solemn one formally posing on the wall, frozen in time.

I look at the photo for only an instant before I hand it back to him. I know what he’s saying, without saying, and I don’t want to hear it. Don’t want to think about it. But I say it out loud anyway.

“Other people’s stories.”

He nods at me, a small smile. “You remember. Sim. Histórias de outras pessoas . . . ” He trails off.

This is as close as we have ever come to talking about it.

Another memory of that long-ago summer, nine years ago, the year Cass’s family was on the island.