After Alice Fell(49)

“I’ve got the giraffe slide,” he says. “I know they’re your favorite. Unless you want—Cathy said there was another set.”

“She can’t treat him like that.”

He drops the cigarette. Grinds it under his heel. “He needs to mind his manners.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“I do.”

“He’s lost too much.”

“So have I.”

“But you’re not eight.”

“Cathy’s trying her best.” He shrugs and picks up a loose branch. Carves it into the dirt, then tosses it. The branch skitters across the earth. “You shouldn’t have come home, Marion.”

“I shouldn’t have left in the first place.”

“Maybe not.” His heel bites into the gravel as he turns back to the house. “Never mind. Come watch the show.”

“We’re starting with the great gorilla.” Toby crawls up onto the settee and then onto my lap. He waves to a sheet tacked to the parlor wall. Just to the left of it, I watch us in the convex mirror. The mahogany frame loops around the distorted reflection that takes in nearly the whole of the room. Toby is enamored with it, as if it is a way to watch others in secret, and his gaze flicks in the mirror between his father, Cathy, and me.

“You’ll like these, Marion.” Lionel holds a slide to the light, then slots it in the lantern. “They’re the ones we had as kids. Alice repainted them.” He claps his hands. “Tonight, we shall travel to the dark continent and come face to face with the wildest of earth’s animals.”

His laugh is forced, and his eyes travel to Cathy, who sits in an armchair with a Godey’s magazine in her lap. Her chin rests on her fist, elbow to the arm of the chair.

“I brought a chair for you,” she says to Toby, and pats the child’s rocker by her feet. “You’re too big for Auntie’s lap.”

He shakes his head, digging it into my chest.

“Never mind, then.” Cathy flips a magazine page. “Show us the wild gorilla.”

Lionel holds a small card aloft and clears his throat. “The gorilla—”

“You’ve got to show the picture first.” Toby sighs and drops his shoulders. “Picture first, then Alice’s cards.”

“Right, yes, of course.”

“Alice’s?” I ask.

“She wrote new ones,” Toby says. “You’ll see. They’re much funner.”

Lionel moves the lantern farther back. The image cast on the wall is blurry, then sharp. A gorilla bares his teeth, staring straight at us. His paws, so like a man’s hands, seem to reach from the picture. His eyes gleam bright yellow. His throat is an abyss of red and black stripes. Alice has painted him a monster.

“The gorilla,” Lionel reads, his voice low and stentorian, “is never to be provoked. He is the mightiest of the jungle, can easily take the life of a lion or a wayward duck . . .”

“A duck.” Toby laughs with a snort.

“That’s what it says. He grasps the prey by its throat and squeezes until each bone snaps . . .”

“This is awful, Lionel.” Cathy closes her magazine.

“It’s what it says.”

“Why can he beat a lion?” Toby asks. “Lions have fangs and the sharpest of claws.”

Lionel squints at the card, his mouth pulled into an overacted frown. “Lions don’t have thumbs. Thumbs are everything in the jungle.”

Toby shakes his head.

I hold in a laugh and force myself to look quite serious. “It’s true. It’s all about thumbs. Your father is all thumbs.”

Lionel lets out a roar behind us.

“That’s a lion,” Toby mutters.

“No, that’s the gorilla. He’s going to strangle the lion with his—”

“That’s hideous. It’s just a big monkey, Toby. It eats . . . fruit,” Cathy says. “Heaven help what she did to the ones you have, Marion.”

Lionel removes the slide, replacing it with the next. It is a group of giraffes, long necked, reaching for leaves in a tree. Their coats are intricately designed, each a different pattern. The sky is a pale blue, and in the distance is a wide, gold savannah. Along the bottom of the image she has written For my sister. 1862.

Lionel shuffles the cards. “The most graceful of the animal kingdom is our gentle giraffe. It is friends with all the animals of Africa, with the exception of the flea. It is impossible for the giraffe to scratch its neck—a requirement for turning out fleas, and thus, the flea causes consternation to the giraffe, who wishes, some days, for all fleas to take a boat to South America and bother the jaguar on his nightly prowls.”

Toby turns to look at me. He pulls the cuff of his shirt over his thumb and wipes my cheek. “Don’t cry.”

I close my eyes and squeeze the bridge of my nose. “I’m very tired. I think I’ll . . .”

Toby slides from my lap to the cushion. “Alice likes giraffes too.”

“I know.” My chest burns; I wrap my arms around my waist and pull in a quick breath. I force myself to smile. “I know.”





Chapter Twenty


“It is quite a view.” Thomas Hargreaves puts a hand up to cover his eyes from the sun and bends over the porch railing. He flips the flap of his jacket with his other hand.