Blocked text from AugustDansworth:
Hello, Elizabeth. Please pick up. I’m dying here.??
After cleaning and then locking up the Airbnb, I visit the Brontë Parsonage gift shop to buy some souvenirs. I buy a T-shirt for Heathcliff, “IamHeathcliff” (How meta, right?); a Victorian cookbook for Ms. Fernsby; and a pretty copy ofJane Eyrefor Dad. (He needs to branch out in his reading.) And then I hurry off to catch the bus.
29
It’s early evening as I walk up to the row house.
Light shines invitingly through the windows.
I unlock the door, and the warm, caramelized scent of blueberry pie wafts through the parlor. As I remove my mud-crusted boots, Ms. Fernsby’s soft laughter rings out from the kitchen. Lucy steps gingerly around Heathcliff’s LEGOs and several Nerf gun bullets. A new wooden block Windsor Castle sits half-assembled on the floor surrounded by a pile of wooden soldiers. I smile, thinking about how Heathcliff’s been spoiled in my absence.
I might be flying home in three days, but I feel like I’m home now.
Ms. Fernsby rushes through the kitchen doorway, wiping flour on her apron.
“Oh... you’re back, Lizzie. You look wonderful!” She kisses my cheek lightly.
She leads me into the kitchen, where Dad sits at the islandsipping a brandy snifter while Heathcliff plays on his tablet. Dad looks good. He lookshappy. His expression changes when he sees me, and I almost cry, because he suddenly looks proud.
“Dad...”
“Hello, Lizzie.” He tilts his nose up a bit, as if to see me better through his lenses. “You seem better.” A touch of professorlike scrutiny, his voice soft: “Are you?”
“I am.”
Ms. Fernsby dabs the corner of her eye before pulling the pie out of the oven. With her cheeks flushed, her energy seems even more vibrant than when I left. It’s obvious she and Dad have been enjoying each other’s company.
“You’re back,” Heathcliff says drolly without looking up from his screen, his Batman mask pushed up on his head so his thick blond hair sticks out behind. A brand-new high-powered Batman Nerf gun lies on the table in front of him.
I kiss his head, inhaling his sweaty little boy scent.
“Hey, Lizzie.”
“Henry?”
He stands on the bottom step of the staircase just off the kitchen, smiling. I blink a few times to be sure he’s really here. He seems out of place in this cozy, frilly London row house. And I don’t know what to say. I was hoping to come up with something beautiful and articulate when I got home. I was banking on the plane ride to sort it all out.
He grins. “Seemed like you didn’t have enough folks crashing the place, so I needed to fly in.”
“You know there’s always room for you, Henry,” Ms. Fernsby says firmly as she inspects her pie, blueberry syrup and steam oozing out through the slits.
“It’s been a good time. I’ve learned loads about American transcendentalists and Batman.”
“I’ve enjoyed getting to know Philip’s friend, Lizzie,” Dadsays with formality. “I’ve learned about South Carolina legal history and the art of fly-fishing.”
Heathcliff interrupts, chattering about something on his tablet and shoving the screen forcefully in Dad’s face. I hear something about a cat and Mickey Mouse, but I can’t focus. I can’t take my eyes off Henry, and he looks like he wants to say something.
“Hey, ummm... can we chat for a minute, Lizzie?”
“Sure.”
As soon as we’re in the parlor, Ms. Fernsby soundlessly kicks the kitchen doorstop away to give us some privacy.
I sit on the sofa.
With the curtains shut, we’re bathed in semidarkness. The cobblestone street is quiet outside; the little cuckoo clock ticks away rhythmically. With the exception of Henry’s modern clothes, my scandalous bare ankles, and a dangerous amount of LEGO, Nerf bullets, and wooden toy soldiers strewn about, we could be in a Rossetti poem. I half expect to hear the clacking of carriage wheels on the stones outside.
