CHAPTER 21
She had come to the nursery for no particular reason she could have defended. The baby had been gone for four days, and the room had no practical claim on her anymore, but she had been passing the door, and her hand had simply found the handle, almost like a habit.
She pushed it open.
William was standing by the shelf at the far wall with his back to her. He was so still that for a moment, she thought she had imagined him.
The room was dim, the curtains half drawn, the crib stripped back to its bare frame in the way of things restored to their neutral state. The fire had not been lit. It smelled faintly of lavender and clean linen.
He had something in his hand.
She looked at it as he turned. A small wooden horse, paint worn smooth at the neck and the ears, the kind of wear that came from years of small hands.
He looked at her.
She looked at the horse.
He did not set it down, which she thought was because he had been about to and had caught himself doing it and decided, for whatever reason, not to.
“Do not leave on my account.” She extended her hand as if to stop him from moving.
He stood with the wooden horse in his hand and said nothing.
She stepped further into the room and said nothing.
For a moment, they simply occupied the space together, the silence comfortable.
“Letitia’s?” she asked.
“She carried it everywhere from the time she was two until she was five.” He looked down at it. “She called it Anthony. I have no idea why.”
“Children don’t need reasons for names,” Cecily said. “I named a fern Bartholomew when I was seven. He lived for three years, and I grieved him appropriately.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “She left it here after the baby came. I think she forgot she had it.”
“Or she didn’t need it anymore,” Cecily suggested.
He looked at her. Then at the horse. Then he moved to the window and stood there, looking out at the grey afternoon.
She thought he might leave it there—the conversation, the room, all of it. He sometimes did that, collected himself and walked back out of the moment.
He didn’t.
“Were they very difficult?” She said it gently. “When they were small.”
“No, not difficult.” A pause, long enough that she thought that might be all. “Only afraid.”
She waited.
“The house was loud,” he continued. “When our parents were in it together, it was loud. Not always, but enough that you could feel when it was coming, the quiet before it. Isadora would finda book and get very small over it. Letitia didn’t understand what was happening, but she could feel the atmosphere. She would cry and come to find me.” He turned the horse over in his hands. “She was two when it started getting bad. She barely remembers a time when it wasn’t.”
Cecily said nothing. She moved to stand near the window. Not beside him, just near. Close enough.
“What was it like?” she asked. “After.”
He was quiet for a moment. Outside, the sky had gone the flat white of a day that had decided not to commit to weather.
“The morning I found out, q man came to the door. He had the expression people have when they are about to say something they would rather not say and have been rehearsing it anyway. I hated that expression.”
