Emma
-$66,225.87
When Guinness was a baby, he would cry. And every time he cried, Emma was shattered.Let him cry,said Rich. Her pediatrician said,Let him cry.
Emma knew to go to her son. In her arms, he was serene.
From the horror-movie stairwell in Mumberton Castle, Emma heard Guinness. She did not hear Jameson, did not hear Rich. Cleo continued to climb. Sylvie’s coughing sounded in her ears. And Guinness. Guinness was crying.
As she had known when he was a baby, Emma knew now:
If I can stop my baby’s sadness, nothing else will matter in this world.
7
Sylvie
The ceremony at St. Michael’s in Mumberton was somber and beautiful, held after a week of mourning, of walking through ruins, stepping over charred remains, searching for anything that could be saved.
Mac was buried next to Simon’s mother in a plot they had bought as young parents. The fate of Mumberton Castle was unknown, but Mac had died surrounded by family—his son, granddaughter, and Louisa at his side in the hospital.
Cleo told them, at the funeral reception held at the Ratty Arms pub in town, that what had turned out to be the most important thing she had learned in all her years of schooling had come back to her like a miracle as she stood outside the door of the Indigo Suite.
“I could hear Guinness crying,” said Emma, shuddering.
Cleo had taken off her peacock fascinator, leaving bobby pins in her hair. The door to the Indigo Suite was locked.
“The sound of my son,” repeated Emma.
Cleo pulled the pins and closed her eyes, trying to recall the skill her freshman year roommate had taught her to enter secretNew York gardens. She focused on the silent snap of the tumblers as they fell into place, turning her wrist precisely to free the lock.
Emma was making her way up the spiral staircase when her prayers were answered and her boys returned to her, all three of them, spilling from the room, terrified but alive.
Together, they escaped. Sylvie and Cleo and Emma and Guinness and Jameson and Rich and Louisa pushing Mac in his wheelchair across the Great Lawn, huddling together far from the inferno. By the time the fire was completely extinguished, eighty percent of the castle was in ruins.
There would be many investigations into who locked which doors and where the fire may have originated. But on the night of the fire, Angus invited them all for supper at the Ratty Arms, his brother Leon’s pub. Penelope was kept at the hospital for observation. Simon and Sylvie spent the night in folding chairs next to her bed. She was released in the morning, and they returned to the Gatekeeper’s Cottage.
Mac declined rapidly and died in his sleep, knowing his son was returned to Mumberton Castle, or what was left of it.
8
Cleo
Cleo was having a cigarette on the patio of the Ratty Arms pub when a group of shouting children heralded the arrival of a Mercedes G-Wagon. A local drug dealer? A visiting rapper? Cleo, exhausted, watched dully as the driver’s-side door opened, the retractable running board deployed, and out stepped…Isaac.
“You smoke now?” he said.
“You can drive?” said Cleo.
“Barely,” said Isaac.
Cleo stood, and when Isaac reached her, she leaned against him, and his arms went around her, holding tight. “What are you doing here?” she said.
“I love you,” said Isaac.
“I’ll quit smoking,” said Cleo.
“Again,” said Isaac.
