The Golden Mean - Annabel Lyon [103]
My father’s estate is set back from the sea. The big house is dark but from a distance we can see light in one of the outbuildings. Closer, the window of the garden cottage. When our footsteps sound on the pebbles, an old woman appears in the doorway.
“Hello, Beauty.” Callisthenes ducks down to greet her.
She’s a hunchback and twists herself so she can look at our faces with sharp eyes. I don’t recognize her.
“Do you live here?” he asks.
“I know you.”
Callisthenes smiles. “I don’t—”
“Not you.” She looks at me. “You.”
I tell her my name and my father’s name. “If you know me, you know where you’re living.”
“No one’s been here for years. They rebuilt it first and it stood empty. I keep it nice.”
“May we see?”
We follow her inside the cottage.
“Ah!” I say. It’s small; they rebuilt it small, or my memory did. Six years ago it was half-burnt, roof gone. It’s clear the old woman lives in this one room with the neat hearth and the dried lavender hanging from the ceiling. How is it possible the place smells the same after all that’s happened, all this time? “Do you keep the big house, too?”
“As I can. I sweep it out most days. I’m trying to bring back the garden, too. Can’t manage the orchard, though, except for the windfall.”
“You’re alone?”
“I’m too old to leave. My boys aren’t far. I lived with them for a while after the war, after the exile order, but I belong here. I came back last month when I saw the big house was finished. Army knows I’m here; army don’t care. Nobody cares. My boys check on me every few days, bring me what I need.”
I’m scouring my brain, trying to place her. “Sons. No daughter?”
“You should know my little girl.”
“Should I?”
“My baby, Herpyllis. She serves your lady.” She sees my face. “No. Not my baby before me.”
“No, no. It was my wife who died.”
“Ah.” She relaxes, shakes her head, pats my arm. “I’m sorry. How long?”
“A year and a half ago. Herpyllis—” I look at and then away from Callisthenes, who’s considering the ceiling. “Herpyllis was a great comfort to her lady through her sickness. To me, too.”
“You didn’t get rid of her, then, after.”
“Ah.”
Callisthenes is humming faintly, eyes closed now.
“No. As a matter of fact—” I’ve never had a mother-in-law. “Shut up,” I tell Callisthenes.
“Sorry.”
The old woman laughs. “That kind of comfort, is it?”
“A son is a great comfort.”
“A son!” She claps her hands; pulls her dress wide with her fingertips and describes a slow circle in the middle of the room: dancing. “A grandson!”
“Herpyllis is very happy,” Callisthenes says.
The old woman has gone pink in the cheeks. “Will I show you the big house? It’s ready for you. You’ll bring them here, bring them back. Won’t you? Get the lantern for me, love. Up on that shelf.”
“Tomorrow.”
Callisthenes begins to talk about my household, Herpyllis and the baby, the good food they eat, the nice clothes they wear, all easy and expansive, distracting her from the answer he knows I haven’t given. She asks us to stay, but the officer expects us back for a tour of the reconstruction first thing in the morning.
“In the afternoon, then.”
“The afternoon.”
Callisthenes and I walk back to the soldiers’ camp.
“You’ll break her old heart,” he says eventually.
“I can’t help that.”
“I know.” It’s late; cold. Our breath smokes. “This is why we came. For you to decide.”
I can’t speak.
“You’ve seemed better, lately.” Callisthenes doesn’t look at me. “Your illness. It was so bad for a while, but just lately—”
“Illness?”
We’re on a small rise overlooking the soldiers’ encampment. I raise my hand to acknowledge the sentry, who’s spotted us. He sits back down at his fire.
“Please,” Callisthenes says. “Won’t you talk about it, even to me? Haven’t I known you long enough?”
I shake my head.
“You’re better when you have someone new to love. Alexander, at first. Herpyllis, now. Me, once. You pull out of yourself. It helps you. I remember when I first came to you, in Atarneus. Everyone warned me what a miserable man you were, but I was never happier