In the Shadows

The carriage was waiting. Closing his case, he climbed out the

window. If he walked past the rooms where he had had a home for

the first time in so many years, where he had been happy, he didn’t

think he could go through with it.

This was best. He would leave Minnie, Cora, and Mrs.

Johnson. He would leave Thomas and Charles and trust them to

take care of the girls in his absence. He would leave.

It was not lost on him that he was leaving the house the same

way he had arrived: alone and afraid.

But this time he knew what he would do with the path he

was on.

In the Périgord Noir,

France, Last Week

twenty-seven

C

ORA AND THOMAS FOND IN EACH OTHER SOMEONE TO

BOTH TAKE CARE OF AND BE TAKEN CARE OF BY, AND

THEY WERE HAPPY AND CONTENT AND HAD RIDICU-

LOUSLY FAT BABIES WHOSE LAUGHTER WAS LIKE LIQUID JOY.

Thomas became a musician, and, after the boardinghouse burned

down, their family moved to New York. But they returned, staying

&nbs

p; every summer with Minnie like the terrible tourists they’d always

looked down on.

Charles lingered on for longer than any doctors predicted.

Minnie stayed by his side and was with him for his last cheery

breath, taken just after making a joke at his brother’s expense.

He was mourned the way he lived: with gratitude for the time

he’d had.

Minnie was left alone. But she held on to a secret, one she