Eight
N ot two days after the house party, I found myself at Flora’s, lying on the settee in her tearoom, the curtains open and billowing. I watched as they fluttered in the currents of air; the window shutter pushed open, letting in the bustle of the street below. A car honked its horn. I could vaguely hear a harsh city accent as a man walked by the house, speaking to whomever he walked with. A child selling newspapers, even this late in the afternoon.
I could not go home.
It began to feel stuffy, the rooms becoming too small. My mother was oblivious to my unease. Either that, or she ignored it.
She definitely ignored it. Better to think her daughter was complacent than miserable .
I had made my way to Flora’s house sometime after lunch. I hadn’t told anyone but the maid, whose eyes had sparkled like we were co-conspirators.
Flora’s home wasn’t too far of a walk away, anyway.
“Lucas is coming home,” I said, watching the curtains brush against my fingers, feeling the gossamer fabric flutter.
Flora paused, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw her hand still. She capped the lip gloss she was using. “What?”
I didn’t repeat myself, because I knew she heard what I said.
It felt surreal, perhaps. Once the words were out of my mouth, they did not feel like the truth. It felt like a lie, souring my tongue.
How could he be coming? He was busy. He had a wife—a very pregnant wife, who was due anytime now—and I knew from Mother that he was occupied with the business, the family business he had taken over after Father’s death, with stocks and labor and profits and whatnot.
It seemed odd for him to interrupt his life now .
It felt wrong .
There was an inkling in the back of my mind, a part of me warning me of what was to come, but I tried my best to ignore it. Wrote it off as superstition.
“When?” Flora asked.
I shrugged, and suddenly my mouth felt like it was made of sandpaper. “A few days, I think.”
Flora stood, aghast. “For how long?”
I shrugged again.
I wanted some gin .
The curtains fell, gravity pulling them back toward the windows, the breeze ceasing eerily. The air turned still, as if it too were surprised at the circumstances.
I did not know how long he would stay. In the past, he was home for maybe a week or two. Perhaps knowing his child was on the way, he’d be eager to return to his wife? But I knew better. His concern for Lucy and their child was not his motivator. It was something else.
“Why didn’t you say anything the other night?”
Because I hadn’t wanted to think about it.
“Mother says it is time for me to marry.”
Flora scoffed. “Yes, she always says that.”
I turned my head to look at her, the cushion of the settee soft against my cheek. “I think she’s serious.”
“Helena, how many times has she brought this up before?” But her eyes said something else. A doubt, a worry, shining through.
“ Lucas is coming home.”
She shook her head. “Don’t worry.” Rising, she made her way to me and clasped my hand, sitting next to me on the cushion. “My parents are always saying the same thing, and here we are.” She smiled, but it did not reach her eyes.
“Here we are,” I said.
I felt her hand on my cheek.
And I realized it was pity in her eyes. I knew she would never be forced into marriage. Never be forced to take a man. Not unless she wanted to.
Her blonde hair was curled so perfectly, framing her small ears, her headband holding the waves away from her eyes. Her skin glowed. She glowed. She always did. It was how she had gotten Dixon’s attention. How she kept it.
I envied her.
“Would it be so bad?”
“Would what be so bad?”
“Marrying.”
“Let me emphasize that my brother is returning home.” I willed my voice not to shake. “To pick out my husband.”
She thought for a moment, a crease forming between her perfectly manicured brows.
I wished we could switch places.
No, I didn’t want to subject her to Lucas and whomever my husband would be. I just wished perhaps we were sisters. Real sisters.
Often, we felt like sisters, cut from the same cloth. But as I sat before her, I felt a wall, even one as thin as those curtains, build between us. I didn’t know if she felt it, too.
But how could she possibly understand?
“Maybe I can have Dixon do something.”
I shook my head. “He can’t do anything.”
“He is a viscount ,” she said. “That has to mean something to your mother.”
God, I wished that were true. But if Lucas was on his way, her mind was made up. “Dixon can do nothing. He could bring a duke, a prince , to my mother, and she still wouldn’t agree unless Lucas said so.”
“Then let’s make him say so.”
I let my arm fall limp above my head, the curtain once more swaying over our heads. I sighed, the sound being covered up by the wind coming in the window. It whistled against the frame, sending a chill into the room. I shivered, wishing I had worn a sweater, too early in the year to be forgetting them yet.
“Perhaps you can refuse,” Flora broke the silence.
I propped myself up on my elbows. “Yeah, right.”
She lifted one shoulder. “Why not?”
Because I will be flayed. Because Lucas would not let me refuse . “I could be cut off,” I said instead.
“You could stay here.” She smiled.
“I’m sure that’ll go well with your parents.” I reached up once more to feel the gossamer against my fingertips. I had known her parents as long as I had known her; we were friends since childhood, and some of my earliest memories were of us playing in the small garden behind her house, running up and down the stairs, sneaking into the pantry with their cook, who gave us extra tarts and candies. Her parents always giving me closed-mouth smiles, tolerating the girl who seemed never to want to go home.
I shook my head again. “Flora, you cannot solve this for me.” I struggled to feign a smile.
“But—” She sighed, seemed frustrated. “It is just not fair .”
Of course it was not fair. Nothing ever felt fair. Nothing had since I realized what it meant to be born a woman.
“I know you want to help,” I said, grabbing her hand. She linked her fingers with mine.
“Of course I want to help,” she said, her frustration lacing her voice. “Lucas has been getting his paws all caught up in your business for years .”
“Is it not what brothers do?” But the words brought a sour taste to my tongue .
“No, Helena. No. ” Her fingers squeezed mine. “I know you want to move past it, that you have moved past it.”
I felt a lump in my throat.
“And I know how difficult this will be—having him around again, after… after what he did. But that does not mean you must forgive him, just because it is in the past.”
She wrapped her arms around me, and even though I had tried so hard to forget, images rushed back to me, memories of years ago, the face of a boy I had loved, Lucas and his sneering anger, his threats. I tried to swallow down the pain that leaked from my heart through my arteries. Flora held me to her, my arms wrapped around her middle, hiding my face on her shoulder.
I will not cry . I had already cried so many tears.
I had not wept about it since I had received the letter from his parents. Hadn’t let myself feel that rage, that grief again. Had locked it away inside me somewhere, and threw away the key, because it was the only way to go on.
“Don’t ever forgive him,” Flora said, her words low. “Don’t you ever.”
I wouldn’t, I couldn’t . I knew that if I ever forgave Lucas, then I had given up on that younger version of myself, that girl in love, who still felt hope for the world. Who still thought she had choice , who still thought the world was hers for the taking.
There was a shout outside the window. The breeze picked up again, a caress on my warm skin, fingers of a lost lover of years gone.
This time, as I soared over the city, the sparkling lights of the buildings scraping the sky, feeling like feather-soft touches to my belly, the wind holding me up, carrying me away, there was a hand in mine.
A strong hand, a familiar hand.
He laced his fingers with mine.
The person I was in this dream had no fear, no grief. Didn’t need to look to make sure he was there.
Coney Island sparkled in the distance. Bright, colorful, twinkling lights against a backdrop of dark cerulean, scintillating lapis lazuli, the stars winking in and out. Black specks of ships, like shadows on the water. As though I were there, I could hear the laughter, the screams of elation on the roller coasters. Rides that reminded you that you were alive, that there was a heart beating in your chest, blood in your veins. That would suck the joy right through your throat.
A laugh bubbled up through my own lips.
He laughed with me.
I felt the wind on my skin. I was nude, and it was freeing. In my purest form. We were high above all, flying, free as we could be. We swooped down, touched the antennas on the buildings, danced along rooftops. He twirled me around amidst the skyline, our feet barely even landing down on the gravel tops, the iron and steel.
My hand never left his. He made sure to always be holding me.
Cranes, evidence of man’s need to grow ever higher. To build closer to God. To reach the heavens. But I knew God moved away with each inch we built up. God was not on earth, though he watched us. He saw me flying, and I knew, if I believed in him, He would smile.
But I couldn’t.
Believe in Him, that is.
Maybe we thought if we could reach Him, we would be good again? Would we reach happiness? That’s all this was for, anyway, right?
My fingers tightened on his.
What was his name?
I realized I couldn’t remember. His name like a ghost on my tongue, dissolving, gone. But it didn’t matter. I knew, deep down, a feeling in my chest, that his name and mine were the same.
I was him. He was me. We were one.
I turned to look at him, to gaze upon my lover, my other-half. But as I did, he disappeared, like smoke, drifting away in the breeze. Eurydice, back to the Underworld.
And then I fell.