Henry stares at me for a moment, then says flatly, “No.”
“No to . . . to which bit?”
“All of it.” He leans forward, palms flat on the desk, his elbows locked. “I don’t want a meal, or a drink, and I don’t want you to come back at a more convenient time. I don’t want to know you, and I don’t want you to know me. If I did, I would have come looking long ago. Has it occurred to you that just because you were ignorant of my existence, that doesn’t mean I was of yours? This may have been happenstance from your perspective, but I’ve spent two decades making certain this meeting didn’t happen. Your parents chose not to tell you you had a brother, and your brother chose not to make himself known to you, and the fact that you wandered in here looking for some sentimental token of your mother’s life doesn’t change that.”
“Monty, stop.” Mr. Newton reaches for Henry’s arm, but Henry turns away, staring determinedly at a spot on the wall. He rolls his neck like a boxer stretching out after a punch to the jaw.
Mr. Newton looks between us, forehead creased, then says gently to me, “Perhaps you might come back and see us another time? Then we can all have some time to . . . adjust.” His voice is so kind, but at this moment, it feels like being smothered with a compassionate pillow. Bless this gentleman, who is clearly trying so hard to make me feel like less of an imposition when all it’s doing is making me feel like more of one.
I stare at Henry. He won’t look at me. I want to scold him, or shout at him, anything from How dare you be so unkind to me? to At least I’m taller than you are! I can’t walk away from this. I’m afraid if I leave, these men and this shop and this family I didn’t know I had will have vanished completely, Eurydice cast back to hell the moment I turn to be certain she was ever there. I should stand my ground. I should stay. I have as much say in this relationship as he does, no matter how hard he is working to make me feel otherwise.
But he doesn’t want me. He never did.
So all I say is, “Another time.”
“Are you around next Sunday?” Mr. Newton encourages. “We’ve business in Southampton this week, but perhaps we might meet up after.” When no one says anything, he prompts with obvious emphasis, “Monty? What do you think?”
Henry—Monty—I sincerely have no idea what his name is—looks as though he’s been asked to select a date for his execution. “Must we?”
“Don’t,” Mr. Newton says quietly, and they stare at each other for a moment. I can sense some unspoken conversation passing through the air between them. When Henry says nothing more, Mr. Newton turns to me. His smile is truly starting to test the limits of his face. “Brilliant. We’ll see you back here then.” He reaches out a hand to me again and starts to say, “It was so lovely to meet—” But I leap to my feet, strangling the spyglass lenses, and dismiss myself before I am forced to shake hands with a man who is not my brother.
I grab my coat from the chair by the door and stumble outside, ignoring the clatter as the bell once again flies from its hook. The wind catches the door and slams it behind me, and I startle like I’ve been grabbed around the throat. As much as I would like to make a defiant stride down the street and out of sight, my legs are shaking too badly for me to go more than a few steps. I slump backward against the wall, the bricks snagging the wool of my jacket. The sun has set behind the storm clouds, and the sky over the rooftops is livid purple, the color of a fresh bruise.
I press my face into the crook of my elbow, trying not to let it all swallow me.
It has to be a lie. A trick. He knew so much about me, the sort of details only a con man would know in an attempt to overcompensate. He’s an actor. A liar. This is extortion—for what? This will be extortion. It’s a drawn-out con. That involved sending me away.
Or he’s telling the truth.
Which remakes my entire world in a way that seems impossible to have happened in anything less than centuries. Cards reshuffled. Curtains pulled back so new light falls on dark corners of a room that have never before seen the sun. Or perhaps the opposite—perhaps the drapes have now been drawn around me. I’m not sure if this is darkness or daylight. Do I run from it or to it? The shadow this day casts feels so enormous I can’t see where it ends.
Maybe my father never knew. Maybe it wasn’t a choice, but true ignorance on his part. And my mother . . .
Sand is funneling into my memories, cracks and crevices I didn’t know existed until they were filled, suddenly forming a complete picture of my childhood. How lucky for my parents they had a younger child who was too shy to ask questions and never spoke to anyone unless he had to—it must have made this secret so much easier to keep. They must have stripped portraits from the walls before I was old enough to remember they were missing, burned a wardrobe of clothes, papered over the places he had left fingerprints. Wiped clean their memories of his favorite spot in the garden, the riding trails he followed along the River Dee, the dish he requested be served on his birthday, the act of forgetting and pretending becoming so intertwined they didn’t know them apart. I wonder how many times my mother had to bite her tongue when I smiled, resisting the urge to say You look so much like your brother. I wonder if I was a replacement. If they threw him out. If he left or if they forced him out. What he had done that had prompted either of those. Maybe it was his absence that drove my mother inside herself; the only place she could keep company with both her children was inside her own heart.
And now, here I am, with a brother who didn’t want to be found and a truth I can’t unknow. No matter what happens, from this moment, nothing will ever be the same. I can’t drop the curtain on this drama of Shakespearean proportions and pretend I never witnessed it. I can’t do what my parents did.
Voices are raised suddenly in the office behind me. Or rather, a voice—it’s only Henry shouting. I can hear him moving across the room and toward the street. I realize I should go a moment too late, just as the office door flies open and Henry charges out, his coat swinging over his arm. Behind him, I hear Mr. Newton call, “Please, don’t—”
But Henry slams the office door, turns, and nearly collides with me.
He jumps in surprise. I saw him coming, but still flinch for no other reason than that my body is so overwrought that a stray dust mote would have caused me to piss myself. My hands fly up involuntarily, like I’m ready to defend myself from him.
It’s far more exaggerated than such a small start has the right to be, but Monty pulls back at once. He raises his own hands, like he’s approaching a wild animal, and oh God, I feel wild. Maybe this is why he stayed away. He didn’t want to meet his feeble-minded brother.
We stare at each other. I lower my hands slowly, forcing them into fists so I won’t start pulling at the front of my jacket. I open my mouth, ready to excuse myself again, but then he looks me up and down, the disdain in his face not disappearing, but at least diluting, like watered paint. “Do you have somewhere to be?”
I’m not sure if it’s meant to be a snide jape to send me scurrying off, or if he’s sincerely asking. I don’t have enough air in my lungs to speak, so I shake my head no. He glances back at the office door, as though he’s debating whether or not standing here with me is more or less painful than walking back to his argument with Mr. Newton. He drags a hand over his face and mutters something that sounds like “Son of a bitch.” Then he puffs out his cheeks, ruffles his hair, and tosses his coat over his shoulders. “All right, let’s go, then. There’s an alehouse two streets from here that serves quality pies.” From his pocket he retrieves a lumpy knitted hat that looks like a hedgehog and jams it on his head. Even donned, I’m not entirely sure it’s not a hedgehog. He starts down the street, and when I don’t follow, glances over his shoulder at me. “Come on, then.”