Friday, her last day of freedom. Her mother hadn’t argued when, after breakfast, Lily refused to go to Something Fishy, when she said that she wanted to stay home and get her clothes ready for school, maybe go to the library to return some books.
“Well, all right,” said her mother, wringing her hands. “You know where I’ll be.” Lily could see how hard she was trying and it made her angry, then guilty, then tired.
“Yes,” said Lily. “I know where you are. “
Arden hesitated at the front door. “I talked to Uncle Wes last night. He’s coming in from Philadelphia tomorrow. We’re all going to have dinner together again.” Her mother’s nose wrinkled as if she smelled something unpleasant. She bit her lip. “We can’t do anything about your hair. But maybe you can wash and press a dress to wear?”
“I guess I can find something,” Lily said.
“And could you do me one last favor?” Her mother pulled on her gloves, not looking at her. “Would you put that portrait of Uncle Max back up on the wall? Uncle Wes didn’t seem to notice the last time, but I don’t want to chance it again.” She turned her cheek to Lily as if she expected another verbal onslaught about ghosts and all the games they play, but Lily simply nodded.
And she did as she promised — got her school clothes ready and put a couple of still-serviceable dresses in the wash. Then she went to the hall closet that had been Uncle Max’s home for more than a month, and took out the portrait, careful not to scratch the frame on the floor. It took only a few minutes to restore it to its place over the mantle.
Lily stepped back and took in Uncle Max’s silvery blond hair, pasty face, and ghastly green eyes. His smile seemed to be wider and redder than before, but she just shrugged. He could glare all he wanted, he could throw around that stupid Kewpie doll, pant like an overheated sheepdog, explode the lightbulbs like little bombs, turn her hair blue and it wouldn’t change a thing. He was dead. Dead, dead, dead.
She put on her coat, grabbed the history books that she and Vaz had taken out of the library and never opened, and walked the ten minutes to the corner of Ocean and Hughes. Ms. Reedy was in the same spot she’d been in when Lily was there with Vaz, the raisin-hearted. Today, her neckerchief was tangerine with green spots.
“Hello, Lily, “ she said. “I was wondering when you’d be back. Vasilios hasn’t been in and I curious about your research. How did it go at the Historical Association? “
“Uh, it didn’t go, “ said Lily. “The guy said he was packing up to move the archive somewhere else. So, no luck.”
“Oh, how disappointing for you, “ Ms. Reedy said.
“Not really,” said Lily, who had been disappointed so many times that she couldn’t remember what it felt like not to be disappointed. “And anyway, the guy was really rude. “
Ms. Reedy twisted her mouth. “Rude. Yes. He’s always been rude. “
“You know him? “ Lily said.
The librarian tugged at the knot on her neckerchief, sliding it from one side of her neck to the other. “You could say that,” she said. “He’s my brother.”
“Mr. Burton?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Something clicked in her brain and Lily looked at the nameplate on top of the counter. A. REEDY. A. “Your last name used to be Burton,” she said.
“Yes, before my marriage. “
A. B.
M. W. + A. B.
“You knew my Uncle Max,” said Lily.
Ms. Reedy straightened a pile of date cards. “Excuse me? “
“I found initials carved in the attic. M. W. plus A. B. That’s you, isn’t it?”
“A lot of people have those initials.”
“That’s not an answer,” said Lily. “How come you didn’t tell me you were going out with my uncle Max when I was here? “
Ms. Reedy shook her head. “Why would I? That was more than forty years ago.”
“You were going out with him, then.”
“If you say so.”
“Did you love him?” said Lily.
“I’m amazed that you seem to think this is your business, young lady.”
“Did he love you?”
The librarian smiled without teeth, her gold eyes as inscrutable as a cat’s. “Not enough, apparently, because he left me. Then again, men are terribly fickle, as I’m sure you’ve already discovered.”
The librarian’s comment hit Lily right in the gut, and she slammed the books down on the counter. “I want to return these.”
Ms. Reedy flipped open the books one at a time. “Four days overdue,” she said, after she pulled the cards and checked the dates. “Ten cents a day per book. Three books. That adds up to a dollar twenty.”
“A dollar twenty!” said Lily.
Ms. Reedy turned the computer monitor so that Lily could see. She pointed to the date. “Exact change is appreciated.”
Lily thrust her hand inside her too-tight jeans pocket, hoping that she still had a few dollars. She pulled her hand out and a couple of quarters and crumpled bills fell to the ground. She reached down to pick up the money and she felt the silver pendant slip out from under her shirt and hit her in the chin. She stood, placing a dollar and one of the quarters on the counter. “There,” she said.
But Ms. Reedy wasn’t paying attention to the money. She was staring at Lily’s pendant.
“What?” said Lily.
“Oh, nothing. I was just admiring your necklace,” said Ms. Reedy. She took the money from the counter, and pressed a nickel into Lily’s hand, her expression softening. “I’m sorry if I was a little…abrupt. There are some things I would like to forget. You’ll understand when you’re older.”
Lily touched the pendant. “That’s okay,” she said.
“It’s such an interesting coin.”
“What is?” said Lily, looking into her palm at the nickel Ms. Reedy had just given her.
“No, not that. The coin you’re wearing.” Mrs. Reedy pointed at the necklace.
“Coin?” Lily said. Coin! She resisted the urge to smack herself in the head. The book her mother had found in the fridge. Wasn’t the book in the fridge a coin book?
“I’m no expert in numismatics, but I’d say that’s an Indian coin. Quite old, I think. Let me show you.”
Ms. Reedy walked out from behind the big front desk and led Lily to the bookshelves. She pulled out several books and leafed through them until she found a picture of what she wanted. Then she handed the book to Lily and pointed to a photo of a silver coin with markings similar to Lily’s pendant.
“See?” she said. “This is a rupee from the Mogul Empire. Early to mid-seventeenth century. And here’s one from the late 1600s that looks very much like the coin you’re wearing. The Sanskrit legends on the coin identify the ruler and the dynasty.”
“Does that mean that this coin is worth a lot of money?”
“Probably not that much, but you’d have to consult a coin dealer and have it appraised,” said Ms. Reedy. “May I ask where you got that piece? Is someone in the family a collector?”
“My mom found it.”
“Found it, you say?” said the librarian. “How unusual.” The tails of the tangerine scarf twisted in her lean hands. “One normally doesn’t find rupees from the 1600s lying about.”
“No,” said Lily, “one doesn’t.” Lily knew that it was no accident that her mother had found the coin. But what did it mean? And even if it did mean something, should she care?
Lily closed the book and handed it back to Ms. Reedy. “Thanks for showing me these.”
“You’re quite welcome,” said Ms. Reedy as they walked back to the library counter. “I can understand your curiosity about your uncle, Lily. So many things terrible things have happened to your family I would imagine it could make a person…tense.”
“Terrible things? You mean the fire?”
“The fire, yes. So tragic. And to think Max set it himself. And the other tragedy,” Ms. Reedy said. Then she hid her mouth with her hand. “I apologize. This is your family I’m talking about.”
“Tragedy? What other tragedy?”
The librarian shook her head. “This is terrible of me.”
“Ms. Reedy, I didn’t know any of them. Did someone else die in the house?”
The librarian heaved a great sigh, seemed — pretended? — to be struggling with herself. “Katherine Wood,” she said at last. “After the fire, she simply stopped eating.”
“She…what?”
“Refused any kind of help. She wasted away to nothing. In the end, her heart simply gave out.”
Lily’s skin flowered into the goose bumps that were becoming permanent, and she asked the question she already knew the answer to. “Where did she die?”
Ms. Reedy looked left, then right. “In the dining room. They found her still gazing at her favorite chandelier.”
She could leave the chandelier, she could, but she doesn’t. The chandelier is sweet. The chandelier is a brace of wind that rocks her in its cradle, the lights overhead an umbrella of napping stars. When she hangs from the chandelier’s arms like this, swaying gently like a Trapeze artist, she is clean, washed of memory, the world turned on its terrible head, not so terrible anymore. It is a kind of sleep, the swaying. She can almost feel her eyes shuddering behind her lids. Almost.
She opens her eyes and swings idly, hanging upside-down from one shadowy, hooked leg. Nothing she could do in life, of course. So many things she could not do in life. Better to let go.
Not better, she corrects herself. Easier.
She will not think of it. That’s the reason why she swings, so that she does not have to think of it. She imagines the blood rushing to her head, if she had any blood. She grasps the chandelier with her hands, hooks her other leg. She is so light this way. The fixture barely moves as she shifts position, she’s so light. The crystals wink at her, amused by her. She observes the cat that watches her from the top of the dining room table. It’s a pretty cat, small and neat. She did not like cats before, but this one she likes. Its little brown boots. The way it watches. It pays attention, this cat, and Katherine, better than anyone, understands how important it is to pay attention. If she had paid more attention, perhaps things would have been different.
No, no, not that. Anything but that. She closes her eyes, tries to focus on swaying, dangling like a leaf from a tree’s loving fingertip. There is peace only if she can stay clean, empty. Why can’t she stay clean?
The pain wells up inside her. She squeezes her eyelids shut but she can’t stop the rush, can’t erase the agony, and her mouth, once so full and red and lovely, stretches into a ring of smoke as the grief consumes her, making her buck and jerk. The crystals crash. The pretty cat moans low in its pretty throat, but she cannot console it, she cannot console herself.
Oh my boy, my beautiful boy. What have you done?