Nor am I.
• • •
This is the effect of my mother’s presence, which is really an absence.
• • •
Harry, she says from her seat by the fire, stop talking about those stinky fish of yours, and tell me about London. Have you seen my Papa’s friend, Mr. Petrook? It is a very long time since I have seen Mr. Petrook. He never writes—he never sends. Has he forgotten about me, do you think?
The stranger’s whiskers stiffen into a fleeting expression of distaste, quickly and scrupulously hidden.
I haven’t seen Arthur in some time. He’s been traveling, I believe. You know how it is with Petrook. Always off after something or other.
Yes, says my mother. It’s true. He was always off after something or other, wasn’t he? Just like my Papa.
She falls silent, stares unhappily into the hearth. It’s like she’s been reminded, suddenly, of something she wanted to forget.
She reminded herself.
Harry Owen says, Ommastrephes sagittatus.
My mother grows translucent by the fire. Her fine, small hands, slender arms, white neck, diminutive bare feet, all these, already pale, grow paler, as if, in the moment of remembering what she could not forget, some further percentage of her has disappeared.
Is disappearing, while I watch.
They don’t notice. Neither one notices. My father draws. Harry Owen produces papers from inside his leather satchel. Bound and then unbound, lengthwise and crosswise.
• • •
She is lit from within. Staccato of firelight falling not on but through her. Glass in the crucible at 2,500 degrees. Her substance is elsewhere. On the deck of the Emerald Isle she turns away from Whitby. Finally she faces the sea.
Does he hear from my Papa, do you think? Does my Papa write to Mr. Petrook, and not to me?
This makes them look. They don’t want to, but now she’s left them no choice.
My father says, gently, No, Tildy, he doesn’t write.
He is a kind man. He doesn’t say, Felix Girard will never write to anybody, ever again. Even though that is what he thinks.
Deep unease of Harry Owen. Nervous tamping of tobacco. Shuffling of papers.
I think I will write to Mr. Petrook myself, says my mother, and find out.
My father says, in a mild tone, As you wish.
All the time his pencil is moving.
• • •
How can he not know that my mother is disappearing?
Bit by bit. Another piece missing. She is at sea already.
It is my fault, perhaps. I don’t tell him, even though I should. I press slightly against my father’s back.
• • •
She says, Mr. Petrook will tell me where my Papa is.
It is possible she may be smiling. In the glare of the firelight it is hard to tell.
She says, Mr. Petrook will not hold back the truth.
My father, still mild, continuing to draw. Nobody is holding back the truth, And then to Harry Owen: We can go out to the Scaur when it clears. There are some interesting shale formations I’d like to show you . . .
Harry Owen, stiffly formal, with great rigidity of whiskers: I’d be very interested to see those. I’ve read Young on the Whitby shales, of course, but I’ve never had the chance to examine them myself.