Jack wishes there were a word for the person you think about when you’re drifting off to sleep. The person whom you believe might see you as you really are. In the end, all Jack can say is “Friends.”
Lydia softens. “I don’t blame you for what you did,” she says finally.
“But you wouldn’t have done it.”
She shakes her head no. “I know Anderson was being facetious when he called the company a family, but from my perspective, it’s true.”
“Lydia—”
“If you hurt the company, you hurt my father, my mother, and—ultimately—me.”
“But what about all those other families? In the audience? Aren’t they hurting, too?”
“It’s terrible what happened,” Lydia agrees. “And, if I could change it, I would. But I fail to see how sending my parents to prison, or worse, will make those families whole.”
Now that she’s stated her position so clearly, Jack feels stupid for ever believing she might have sided with him. “Your father is lucky to have you,” he says softly.
“And I him.”
Before Jack can say another word, she bends down and places a whisper of a kiss on his cheek. Then she is gone.
Jack rubs his cheek as he takes the stairs to the tavern’s guest rooms. Anderson’s room is empty, the door ajar, and when Jack spies the actor’s leather valise at the foot of his bed, he decides to take it. It’s the least the scab can do for him.
In the room he shared with Robertson and Burke, Jack packs his comb, his sleeping cap, and his extra shirt. Then he reaches under the bed, where he’s hidden a stack of maybe a dozen scripts. He runs his finger over the spines.The Castle Spectre,Adelgitha,The Curfew. All are favorites of his that he couldn’t bear to return to the trunk, backstage, where Placide stored the company’s extra scripts. Of course, now, no one will ever know that these copies weren’t destroyed with the rest of the trunk’s contents.
Jack can’t take them all with him, not when he doesn’t know where he’sgoing or how long it will take him to get there. But he pulls the stack out from under the bed and finds the one script he wants. It’s a copy ofThe Father, which will always remind Jack of what could have been. He slips it into the valise and leaves the rest of the scripts in the middle of the floor, where one of the other actors is sure to find them.
Downstairs, Jack runs into Placide, who doesn’t greet him so much as ask him to leave. “You’re still here?”
“I’m on my way out.”
“West was looking for you.”
“Oh?”
“He’s outside, I think. Watching the procession.”
Jack nods, tries to think of something he can say to Placide in parting.It was a pleasure? I’m sorry things didn’t turn out better?Anything he comes up with will sound utterly daft. Anderson acted like it was an honor to get to wipe Placide’s arse, and maybe under different circumstances, Jack would have felt the same way. But after everything that’s happened, Jack has come to believe that men like Placide shouldn’t be treated like they can do no wrong. In fact, that might be the worst thing for them.
GILBERT
Gilbert watches through the barsof the birdcage as the street below him begins to bustle with people, all of them on their way to the theater ruins. By midmorning, the streets are so crowded, people are having a hard time getting their carts and buggies down E Street.
It hurts Gilbert to think about missing the funeral, losing the chance to say goodbye to Louisa. But he reminds himself that colored folk will be at the back of the procession, so he’s probably just about as close to the funeral, here in the birdcage, as he was ever likely to get.
Out of nowhere, Sara appears on the street below. She is wearing her best dress and has pulled her hair into a tight knot at the back of her head. She looks beautiful, but he can tell she’s worried, just seeing the pinched look on her face.
Sara speaks with one of the guards and is allowed to climb the stairs to the catwalk that circles the cage. Gilbert watches her approach and is struck by how lucky he is to call her his wife. “You found me,” he says when she’s close enough to hear him without his having to shout.
“When that boy you sent said you had paid him in rock candy, I was sure he had the wrong man.”
Gilbert grins. “It’s the only thing I had on me.”
She reaches through the bars and touches the top of his head, feeling the spot where the skin is split open. It hurts, but he lets the pads of her fingers press on the swollen skin.
“Everything go all right with the delivery?” she asks.
“As far as I know,” he says.
