Girl A(102)

‘We didn’t try to escape, Lex. I can see why you’d like to think it. That we couldn’t stand it – the same way you couldn’t. But that isn’t what happened at all. Gabe and I – we were so bored. I’d come up with these missions, just to entertain us. You know Gabriel. He would always do exactly what you told him to. Just stupid stuff. Get out of the bindings. Who can touch the lowest stair? That kind of thing.

‘And that day – I decided that it was my birthday. Uncelebrated, obviously. Undiarized, too. I’d been trying to count from Christmas, so I might have been close. And it was one of those days with the cake smells in the house. You know those days. I’m not a glutton, and I wasn’t then – but those could be long days. So I proposed this idea, that perhaps Gabe should get me a present. Not seriously, of course. I was expecting him to turn around and tell me where to go.’

‘He wouldn’t ever have said that to you,’ I said.

‘There I am, talking about presents, and candles, and how this is the worst birthday ever. And that day – the bindings are loose. He’s off the bed, and he’s through the door, with that smile – you know it – like he’s champion of the world.

‘I guess I thought he’d be OK. Father was asleep. Mother was with the babies, in their room. So I lie on the floor, and watch him go down the stairs. Lower than we’ve ever gone. He looked back at me at the bottom, and he’s still smiling, and – I mean this, Lex – I remember thinking: he’s got this.

‘So then he’s in the kitchen, and I’m lying there on the floor, on stake-out, waiting for him. When he comes back out, he’s carrying two of the biggest pieces of lemon cake I’ve ever seen. I mean – slabs. And I’m already thinking: Gabe, you’re not covering this one up. But it wasn’t like there was any going back. I’m just willing him to make it up the stairs, and then – once he’s in the room – we can figure it out. We can make a plan. And on the second-to-last step – because he can’t see a fucking thing, of course – he tripped. Lemon cake, everywhere. Gabe all over the floor. And whose bedroom door opens?’

She looked back at Ethan, who was surveying Ana with studied devotion, as the photographer had instructed.

‘I thought he’d help us,’ she said. ‘In those first few seconds – I really thought he would.’

‘But he didn’t?’

‘Oh, Lex. You know the answer to that one. It was one of the reasons I agreed to come today. I thought that I might be ready to forgive him.’

Here she stopped, mustering the rest of it. This was the part of the story that she couldn’t make funny.

‘Gabe never mentioned my birthday,’ she said. ‘It went on all evening, and he never mentioned it. Father told me to turn around – to protect me, I guess – and I did. But you could still hear it. He was different after that. The fits started. He was the best little boy, and that was the end of him.’

I thought of the noises that I had heard, all the way along the hallway, and how they might have sounded in the small, dark room, with your face to the wall. In the sunshine, Ethan was gathering Ana’s family for a photograph. The flower girls vied for his arms; he plucked one of them from the ground, and swept her, squealing, over his head.

‘And was he there then?’ I asked. ‘Into the night?’

‘Come on, Lex,’ Delilah said, and for a long moment I didn’t look at her, knowing that the answer would already be there, on her face. ‘Who do you think held him down?’

Ana insisted that we have a family photograph of our own. She summoned us across the reception with eager, unignorable gestures, and Delilah and I exchanged a glance.

‘I don’t think they’re optional,’ I said.

We carried our glasses up to the swimming pool, where an archway of flowers divided the terrace from the grass. I slid my sunglasses back over my eyes. We waited for Ana’s family to finish up: they had been split into two ranks, with half of them kneeling down at the front. The flower girls sat happily in the dust. ‘Now a silly one,’ the photographer said, and Ethan flung Ana over his knee and kissed her, while her family cheered.

Then it was our turn. Delilah stood beside Ana, and I stood on the other side, next to Ethan. The weight of his arm on my shoulder felt crushing, like a little world. ‘Is this everyone?’ the photographer asked, and Ethan nodded: Yes, this is all of us.

At dinner, I was placed between Delilah and one of the bridesmaid’s husbands. He wore black tails, and as soon as he found his name card, he took a napkin from the glass at another setting and mopped the sweat from his face.

‘So,’ he said. ‘Who do you girls know?’

‘Ana,’ Delilah said.

She reached for my knee, and squeezed it.

‘We’re old friends,’ she said. ‘I met her at a gallery.’

‘Artistes, then,’ he said, and poured three large glasses of wine. I wondered how often Ethan dined with people like this. Did he suffer them with subtle mockery, or had he actually started to enjoy their company? He and Ana were walking between the tables, hand in hand, each fixated on the other, and our companion leant forward, conspiratorial.

‘How much do you know about him?’ he said, after the applause. ‘Other than the obvious thing.’