There had been grey in his hair, he’s sure of it. Philip has always been camera-shy, but he takes out his phone, opens up his wedding pictures—there he is with Ann-Elise, his smile fairly natural, and, there, zooming in, the grey at his temples is unmistakable. He turns his head this way and that in the bathroom mirror, trying to persuade himself the solid brown of his hair is just a trick of the light.
He sits on the toilet, stares at the intricate, indecipherable patterns in the marble of the shower stall, arabescato marble, from arabesque, what they make altarpieces from, in Italy, chosen after more pains than any bathroom is worth. His daughter Reeny calls it biscuit marble. Water drops on the side of the stall. He remembers the bottle of water down under London. Chemical aftertaste. The few days of fever, attributed to whatever spores flourished in the dark. Where is she now, and how has she shaped the world.
“You mad bitch,” he says.
The skin on his knuckles is smooth, scarcely corrugates when he flexes his hands. Standing, he notices his knees don’t creak.
“Daddy, are you in there?” Reeny calls.
“I’ll be out in a minute, sweetheart,” he says, thinking twenty more years and you won’t need me anymore, and then I’ll go. Wonders where Irina is, if he can find her.