The Book of Speculation: A Novel

Mom died. Dad sold the boat. We saw less of Frank, only when I was on the beach with Alice, or when Leah watched us. I’d thought grief had made Dad cut Frank out, but it was worse. My mother drowned and he cut ties with his best friend. It’s a simple logic chain.

“Your money fixed nothing. All it ever did was break things. Us. The house went to hell because he wouldn’t lift a finger on it. Not once. He didn’t put a penny into it. He didn’t care if the whole thing fell down because you bought this house to hold on to my mother.” It’s a crippled token of one man’s love for another man’s wife. Dad knew it. He must have sat at that kitchen table, praying it would collapse. “You killed him, too,” I say. “It just took longer.”

“Simon,” he pleads.

“No, you don’t get to say my name.” I can’t be here in this place that smells like varnish, sawdust, and carpenter’s glue—like Frank.

I go to the car. I would run but my leg won’t let me. Frank follows. He’s talking, but I can’t hear him through the car door. I don’t care. I can barely feel my hands on the wheel. I pump them a few times to get the blood back in the fingers; stress causes both vasoconstriction and vasodilatation—a fact I picked up when helping a student with a term paper—this is vasoconstriction. Three pumps. Frank is at the car. He’s broken, but not broken enough. I roll down the window. He puts his hands on the roof, hooking his thumbs into the interior, creeping inside.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “You have no idea how much I wished you’d been my son.”

“You never came by after he died,” I tell him. “We had to go to you.” My shame is that I could have loved him, despite everything, if he’d so much as tried.

“It was too much. With your dad and the house, and there was Leah and Alice,” he says. They hadn’t been enough to stop him before. No, Alice and Leah were only concerns after, when Enola and I were difficult to love, not as convenient as the family he already had. The fruit is too ripe to not be picked. I feel myself smile, knowing I look insane. I throw the car into reverse, spinning the tires. Frank stands in the driveway, covering himself with his arms like he’s naked.

Yes, Alice will be mad at me, but she is already. I lean out the window and yell, “I fucked your daughter. Go ahead and fix my goddamned house.”





18


At dawn Amos woke, legs tired from dreams of chase. Evangeline lay beside him, a soft presence, warm with sleep. He looked toward Madame Ryzhkova’s round-topped wagon and was gripped by unease. Once, he’d seen a man keel over dead while hefting a cask; the man’s face had turned beetle-shell dark before he gasped and dropped like a stone. Ryzhkova’s face had been a similar color the prior night. Her warnings were twisted and misguided, but she cared for him and it was rare enough to be cared for that it should not be taken lightly.

He climbed from the bed, moving slowly so as not to wake Evangeline, and crossed the camp to Ryzhkova’s wagon to wait at the stairs by her door. She’d always known when he approached, teasing, “I can smell your unwashed hands coming near.” When he sniffed himself she smiled and said, “Think you I would not know my own? I know when you seek me.”

Amos waited until impatience demanded he knock. When there was no answer he turned the handle, only to find the door locked. A hard pit settled in his chest. Ryzhkova was dead and he had killed her. He ran to Benno’s wagon and pounded on the door until flecks of yellow paint stuck to his hand. The acrobat opened the door in disarray, peering out through a crack. Behind him the shadowed form of another sprawled across a mattress. Benno stepped down and hastily closed the door behind him.

“What is this?” he muttered, rubbing a hand across his sleep-drunk face.

Amos took Benno’s arm and dragged him down the steps and to Ryzhkova’s wagon. He pulled the handle to show Benno that she would not answer.

“It is early yet, Amos, barely light.”

Amos smacked the door with the heel of his hand, jarring the hinges until they clanked. Inside no one stirred, but Amos continued to knock, looking at Benno in desperation.

“Stop. You cannot work with bloodied hands.” Benno took hold of Amos’s shoulders, gripping tightly until, at last, he stilled. “I’ll help. Wait here.” Benno jogged off, reappearing a short time later with a small leather pouch. He bid Amos stand aside as he produced a series of thin brass strips. Amos looked on while Benno gently pushed the door until the lock caught.

“Where I am from it is necessary for a man to have skills that are not always looked upon kindly. On occasion they prove useful.” Benno put an eye to the sliver of space between door and wagon frame and proceeded to slip two of the strips along the door’s edge, wiggling them around the wood.