9781250816214

“Come on, kittens,” Mrs. Lyon chortles loudly, and shuffles her brood
toward Sophia, trailing the other ladies behind her like an ellipsis. “Where’s
your better half, my dear?” she asks, stretching languidly and plopping
herself down on the rough-hewn stone slab beside her friend.
And he appears again at her back, arms full, as though he only left to get
treats.
“Right here, Mrs. Lyon,” booms the voice of Sophia’s beloved, her
devotion, who could never hurt anyone, not really, not ever. She
understands that so completely now, seeing him in the firefly-light, among
the throng of their little village where they both belong, the color high and
happy in his cheeks, his hair combed until it shone, just for her, just for her
to love a little better than if it were tangled. He hands her a slab of
honeycomb wrapped in Mrs. Orpington’s greasepaper and keeps a bottle of
sweet, cold wine from the Guernseys’ vineyard for himself. “The life of the
party, reporting for duty!”
He loves her. He will love her until the end of always. The bone and the
hair are nothing in the face of all that he’s given her. A bit of sheep’s foot
that didn’t make it into the stockpot. A scrap of horsehair to make into rope.
Or perhaps it was a test, to see if she would doubt him. Yes, yes, that had to
be the answer. A test. And Sophia would never fail.
But in her mind she sees the spiderweb of broken glass irising out from
the hole the heron smashed into her house. Each thin thread of silver slowly
growing, reaching through the perfect, clear, smooth pane, until soon, there
would be nothing left unbroken.
No. No.
She would have tonight and nothing would spoil it.
The footlights dim, several throats clear, Mr. Rook taps his baton on a
tree stump. The pantomime begins. Sophia glances at her program.
Memories of Bliss to Come.
Could anything match her life more perfectly?
Mrs. Palfrey and Mr. Silverback enter the stage, gesturing broadly. Mrs.
Wolfe and Mrs. Moray and Mrs. Hart and Mrs. Rose and Mrs. Flye all
crowd on to meet them, embracing, dancing and singing with joy. Mr.
Silverback squeezes Mrs. Palfrey tight and introduces her to each of the
other actors one by one by one.
Sophia weeps again. Her whole body shakes and shivers. What’s gotten
into her, weeping so much in so few days? But she cannot stop. Memories