Dear Ethan—
Your cable arrived yesterday, and the bank draft as well. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you as my brother and now my benefactor. Thanks to you, I am heading on a steamer to the Philippines and will be out of touch for a number of weeks. From there I will go to Siam. Your generosity has caused me to consider both northern China and a glimpse of Korea as well. How can I thank you?
Your loving brother,
Ambrose
*
Siam
Dear Ethan—
Your generosity astounds me. Thank you for encouraging me to go to China and for understanding my desire to completely see this trip through. Thanks to your additional funds I will be able to push through to Korea as well. I will forever remember the brotherly kindness you’ve shown me.
Ambrose
*
Peking
May—
My father’s telegram with news of your engagement to my brother reached me only today. I suppose congratulations are in order. He tells me the engagement is to be a short one. Perhaps the thing is already done. Forgive me if I don’t return home for the wedding. I know you understand my reasoning behind this choice, though I can hardly begin to understand your reasoning or your choice.
Ambrose
THE DRESSING TABLE
After Louis catches Nell in the mirror, he moves toward her with his quick assured step, his blingy watch, his blinding smile, and suddenly Nell starts to feel weary. She tells herself it’s jet lag, that she’s not running away when she heads upstairs just to lie down, just for a minute.
After she’d agreed to spend the night at the farm, she’d poked through the bedrooms, but her cousins had already camped out in the cleanest of the guest rooms.
“You know . . .” Pansy had said to Emerson when they found her wandering.
“You’re totally right,” Emerson had said in their sibling shorthand as they led her into the master bedroom.
She’d had to ask if Loulou had actually died in there. She couldn’t help it. Looking at the draped tester bed, she had to know.
“She died in hospice,” Pansy had said in the dull tone of disgust one uses with a hysteric. “She needed that type of place at the end.”
“Right,” Nell said as Pansy checked the bathroom for clean towels like the proprietor of a country inn.
Now Nell rounds the corner into Loulou’s dressing room. The elaborate vanity table still winks with her silver-backed brushes and cut crystal bottles that had always attracted children like foil-wrapped sweets. When Nell was little she would sneak in here during epic games of hide-and-seek while the adults had cocktail hour below. Now, Nell’s phone and charger and less glamorous accessories are nestled in with Loulou’s loot. She’d felt like a trespasser last night. But now, with the noise of the party downstairs, this feels like her sanctuary.
She sits on the chic little bench in front of the mirror and instantly feels she’s not alone.
“Oh hey,” she says, rising when Emerson emerges from the bathroom. “I didn’t know anyone was up here.”
“Sorry. Was looking for aspirin.” He opens his palm and displays two ancient-looking chalky pills. “Think they’ll kill me?”
“Sketchy.”
“Liquor’s quicker.” He shrugs off the doorjamb to reveal a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in his other hand. “Want some?”
She can never say no to a drink with Emerson. Yesterday at noon was only the most recent example. It’d started the time he’d snuck rum, kept for guests, in a thermos and told her to meet him down at the pond.
“Fair warning, Quincys don’t drink rum,” he’d said as he passed the drink to her. “But I like it.” It had been her first taste of alcohol, and it’d tasted like fruitcake on fire. Emerson had stealthily pilfered from each of the dark, light, and spiced rums in the farm liquor cabinet so as not to be detected by adults—a vile concoction. She didn’t pull a face, though, wanting to seem cool in front of Emerson. “Yet another reason I’m a misfit,” he’d said.
She knew that he was on the school newspaper and the varsity swim team at his fancy school. And from the picture she’d spied on Uncle Baldwin’s refrigerator, he’d taken a pretty girl to the prom. “Right,” she’d scoffed. “Total misfit.”
“I am.” He’d taken another swig. “There’s no way I’m going to live up to any of this shit.” Emerson was the only boy in his generation, and even then Nell knew living with Baldwin’s ideas of Quincy grandeur had to be rough. It wasn’t until later that she’d understood exactly why Emerson had beat himself up like this.
“You’re not a misfit,” she’d said. “You’re an unfit. That’s what my mom calls it. I am, too, I think. There’s a difference.”
“Your mom, huh?” he’d said. “Like, unfit for human consumption?”
“Unfit for Quincy consumption. I’ve heard her say that to my dad.”
“And who would want to be consumed by this stuff anyway?” She’d seen him smile as he’d passed her the thermos again.
They’d eased into the pond that night. Too big a splash would have woken everyone in the house. They’d spent the midnight hour trying to stay afloat in the warm top layer of inky black water, only rarely diving down to the chilly depths below.
Today he goes back in the bathroom and returns with a toothglass etched with flowers at the rim. She accepts the drink as he comes and sits next to her on the bench.
“You look for it?” he asks.
She’d thought about hunting for the necklace last night, but rifling through Loulou’s things by moonlight had felt creepy. She nestles her glass of unwanted whiskey in with the sparkly things.
“Here,” he says, opening the top drawer with a harsh tug. “I know I would.”
It’s all tins of old powder and glass pots of hand cream, a dried-out tube of Revlon Cherries in the Snow lipstick, and a stack of ironed handkerchiefs with a scrolling L on them.
As if he’s satisfied there’s nothing worthwhile in there, Emerson gets up and heads back into the bathroom. She can hear him rustling through the cabinet and tells herself that he isn’t looking for leftover pain medication.
She opens the next drawer, trying for stealth so Emerson doesn’t hear her, though she doesn’t know why. He seems okay with her snooping. It’s filled with bobby pins, a strand of good, yellowing pearls, and many pairs of costume earrings. This isn’t the serious stuff. That’s all been residing in the downtown safe-deposit box waiting for Pansy for more than a decade. Loulou had put it away when she’d stopped going out socially, when a rotating band of nurses had started inhabiting the house with her.
Sitting there, Nell has an idea for her first act as executor.
“Hey, Em,” she calls.
“Yo.” He rounds the corner, visibly swaying as he accidentally bumps into the side of the dressing table.
“I was thinking I’d put some of this stuff out and let people take a little token.” She watches as his eyes narrow and his lips grow thin, the sway gone.
“As a remembrance,” she says at his silence. “It’s all bound for a thrift store anyway.”