“You really are spectacularly bad,” said Louis, his sixteen-year-old something-removed nephew.
Grayson turned to him. “Well, if my brother Noah were here…” He trailed off. That spike of grief was still there, sharp and ever present. But it felt like a cold wind on a sunrise, the sorrow tempered with warmth.
The kid just gave him a perplexed look. “Who’s Noah?”
Intolerable that a generation would grow up not knowing. “Let me tell you about Noah,” Grayson said. “You know that telegraph line we just completed? Well, Noah was the one who figured out how to make the line.”
“Didn’t people already know?”
“In a sense.” Grayson met his eyes. “But as Noah’s not here to do it, let me explain to you about insulators and where they come from.”
There was work to do as soon as they landed in San Francisco. The Victory needed to be laden with the cable to connect Hong Kong to Shanghai and Grayson had an entire packet of letters detailing what had happened in his absence. He would need to return to Hong Kong on board the Celerity; the Victory would follow. Zed was going to Maine for the winter, and Ben was heading south to Brazil.
Grayson had taken a few hours off at the beginning of the week to visit a specialty shop, and then, just before this final dinner, he’d gone back to pick up his completed order.
There was a bittersweet feeling when everyone gathered for one last time. Grayson’s aunt Meg told him that he needed to come home, really come home, as soon as he had the chance…perhaps now? His mother countered that he had a woman to bring with him.
At the end of the evening, Grayson found himself at a table drinking scotch. His brother Adrian was on his right; Lightfoot was to his left. Across the table from him sat Zed and Ben, while Captains Ellis and Bell were interspersed among them all.
Harry should be here, he thought, not for the first time. He could pick out the empty places in the conversation where John would have made a joke. He could try to imagine what it would have been like for Noah to drink.
Those places would always be empty. And yet the time that had passed had not been empty. He thought of Lightfoot teaching Amelia to play tiddlywinks. Of Zed challenging him to a wrestling match. Of Ben, whom he’d scarcely seen, doing gutta balata runs that had helped Grayson build his cable. He thought of the great-great-great uncles who had come up with a Daily Disoccupation in the first place—a ritual that had meant that even when he’d been at his lowest points, he’d been surrounded with human companionship.
Grayson could see the net that had been holding him up now. It had only been invisible to him because he was so intent on the holes that had been made in it.
“Ah.” Grayson set down his drink. “The scotch is making me sentimental.”
“Blaming the scotch, are you?”
“I’ve thought often that I should have been laying the transpacific line with my brothers. There were times when I felt isolated. Because of their absence.” He looked around the table. “It’s taken me a while to realize this, and so I hope you’ll forgive the tardiness of this statement. I could never have done this without any of you.”
“Ah, Grayson,” said Zed. “You utter sap.”
“I wanted to lay the transpacific line with my brothers.” He reached out and tapped Mr. Lightfoot’s shoulder. “And I suppose I did. Thank you all for being the family I needed. Even if you weren’t my brothers by blood.”
“Excuse me.” Adrian cleared his throat. “What am I?”
“Well,” Zed shot back, “that’s obvious. We’re his fake brothers. You’re not—that makes you a fake-fake brother.”
“Fake-fake, am I?”
“Look,” said Lightfoot. “I believe we are missing one very important and valuable member at this table. Captain Grayson Hunter, don’t you think you should be telling someone else this whole thing about being family?”
“You’ve met her, Zed,” Adrian said. “Tell me about this vice president of telegraphic encoding. Has our Grayson got a chance?”
Zed looked at Grayson. He looked around the table. “That’s going to depend.”
“Depend on what?” Ben demanded.
Grayson leaned forward. “I would also like to know.”
Zed shrugged. “On whether he can remove his head from his ass long enough to ask her,” he said with a cackle. And so the topic moved on.
On the journey back to China, Grayson found his strategy changing. Instead of counting birds or breezes to unlock Amelia’s envelopes, he found himself counting things in his memory.
He remembered lying under a tree with John in autumn, bright red maple leaves falling on their faces—one, two, three, four, five. One time he and Harry had stolen their great-uncle’s good brandy. How many sips had they managed each? One, before their coughing had given them away.
From there it was a matter of counting other things. There was an ache in Grayson’s heart that had never gone away. Instead of steeling himself to ignore those moments of pain, he stopped fleeing his grief and finally let it wash through him. How many breaths did he have to take until the pain lessened? Eighty-four was the answer.
One morning, Grayson came onto the deck of the ship, violin in hand. The sun was tilting over the horizon, all gold and pink and orange, dyeing the wake of the ship with splashes of color. The air was crisp and cool against his skin. He inhaled and started his scales. To the side of the ship, a large silver-backed fish breached the water in a sleek arc, then another, then another. He matched the pace of his scales up and down in time to their leaps. Four. Five.
Somewhere around seven, Grayson came to a realization.
This. This feeling out on the waters, with the sun rising around him. With the ache in his heart still present, but now an acknowledged acquaintance rather than an enemy to be fought at first sight—
This was happiness.
Happiness was not the antonym of sorrow. The two existed, side by side, holding hands, and he could not deny one without barring his way to the other. This feeling now, out on the waves, was bound to the moment under the trees with Harry, leaves falling in his face. It was tied to the burn of Uncle Henry’s brandy.
This instant was connected to every other instant, to the memories of his family. This was what he had tried to avoid—this web of connection.
Grayson inhaled. He imagined himself cradling the precious feeling to his chest. And then he breathed out, letting it pass on into the music he was playing.
Grayson had last been in Shanghai five months ago. His absence seemed much longer. It felt as if a gray fog had lifted. Back then, he’d scarcely known how to want, let alone what to want.
Now he stood in the doorway to Amelia’s office, watching her frown over a contraption on her desk.
Her hair must have once been in a bun that morning, he thought. It had fallen from that into something that now looked like a loose twist across her neck. Little tendrils of dark hair drifted across her face; she brushed those back and concentrated on the metal cylinder in front of her.
Grayson found himself smiling. It wasn’t just an expression on his face. He felt a wave of affection and warmth down to his toes. God. He hadn’t known how much he adored her.