I think we should do a skit about the Fanny Wars," I told Sixby. We sat at the top of the second floor staircase. Tourists had been climbing the stairs since we opened that morning, hoping to view a nude portrait of Jane Austen allegedly hanging in the second floor hallway. No nude portrait existed and Vera sent me upstairs to fend off the curious and distribute fliers explaining the bogus Internet posting. Tourists expressed such disappointment that I nearly redirected them to Magda's room as a consolation prize. Magda and Archie fooled no one, arriving and departing separately.
"Did you hear the comments at the Fanny Wars discussion the other night?" I asked Sixby. "Some readers might enjoy voting Fanny out of the book." An old man wearing a beret huffed up the stairs; most of the nude portrait pilgrims were men. "So sorry," I said, handing him a flier as he looked past me into the hallway and I looked past him down the stairs. The real reason I agreed to perch on the landing had more to do with the possibility of encountering Willis arriving or departing. Although I had mentally rehearsed our encounter, I had no idea what I would say if he appeared, and I felt sick with waiting.
"A Fanny Wars skit sounds deadly dull," Sixby said from the floor, slumped against the wall, arms on his raised knees, stifling another yawn.
"Why are you so tired?" I asked.
"Because," Sixby said, "I fell victim to the Regency skirt of a young fan who enticed me from the pub to her hotel room last evening."
"So you're in love."
"Not exactly; she wouldn't keep her dress on."
"Well, wake up. We've got to focus or we won't be ready."
"That's why they call it improv, Lil."
I offered fliers to a group of women. "So sorry," I said. "An Internet hoax." And then to Sixby, "What angle can we take to amuse our audience?"
"Let's amuse me for a change. How about a hot love scene; Edmund finds his groove."
"By the way, there's no kissing in this skit, Sixby. None."
Just then a woman with three little children struggled up the stairs, the children looking very much like Sheila's, but it wasn't Sheila; it was Bets, a baby in each arm, big brother following slowly. "Bets, are you babysitting?" I asked. Sixby sat up wide-eyed.
"Not for long," Bets growled.
"Where's their mother?"
"In her room crying." Bets plopped the babies on the floor next to Sixby, who jumped up.
"Why do you have them?" I asked.
"Because Sheila dumped them on Archie who dumped them on Magda who dumped them on Gary. And Gary is totally clueless about kids."
I looked at Bets and the babies.
"I was planning to dump them on you. I'm meeting Bella for lunch."
Sixby waved. "I'll see you later, Lily. Pleasure, Bets."
"No way," I said, the horror of my last experience with the little brutes still fresh in my mind. "I've got work to do. Where's Magda?"
"The visa office with Gary."
"Again?" I handed a flier to a portrait pilgrim without providing an explanation. "Hard work renewing a student visa if you're not in school." I stared into her eyes. "You're not going to marry him, are you?" One of the twins screamed, prompting the other two to do likewise, making it hard to hear.
"No," Bets said, turning to go.
Suddenly events blurred: Bets walking away, the children following her, the tourist who got past me searching for the nude portrait. I felt the first flicker of relief as my life burst into color and the earth resumed its revolutions without me having to pedal. I understood the ease addicts feel when the drug finally enters their bloodstream. Willis was coming up the stairs. He stopped at the top; no books in his arms, no question about the fliers in my hand, no amusement over the nude portrait. Willis knew that I knew. We locked eyes as the twins' cries receded down the stairs and the floor creaked under the tourist's footsteps. Slowly, I deflated, recalling the horror of the engagement ring.
"Today is my father's wedding day," I said, breaking the silence.
Willis drew back. "I'm so sorry." His hands in his pockets reminded me of my dad. He nodded to the attic door, "Coming up?"
I shook my head.
"I understand," he said.
"You understand what?" I asked, angry since I'd hoped for a denial, furious that he would give up without a fight. The tourist kept trying doors, going from one to the next, turning knobs relentlessly, finding them all locked. "There's no nude portrait," I called over my shoulder, my eyes still gripping Willis, the tourist's heels still clicking on the wood floor. "It's a hoax."
"Well," Willis said, stepping away from me, walking backward; gaining on the attic door as I silently dared him to leave me without an explanation, lusty despair rushing in to fill the emotional vacuum.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
The tourist opened a door behind us, the same closet stuffed with rotting curtains I'd found just before discovering Willis.
"If it's any consolation," Willis said, "I'm just as bewildered as you are."
Willis watched me drop the fliers on the floor. The curious could help themselves. I left the folding chair and walked away without giving him a second glance. Just as bewildered as I am. Not possible. He went up his stairs as I went down. Not the Willis I knew. No explanation; no words of comfort. No apology. Some priest. I cried for myself, familiar pitiful tears, dripping all the way down the stairs, crying as I passed Magda going up, crying as I walked through the entry, and crying as I exited the front door where Archie entered. The curious turned to watch me as I marched down the front steps and across the lawn, away from the house to the secluded hedge behind the Carriage House where Archie hid to smoke. Previous visitors had packed the earth into a hard dirt floor littered with butts. Overturned milk crates offered seating. I reached up and patted the dirty ledge until I found the pack holding cigarettes and lighter. Seated on the ground, I smoked an unfiltered cigarette, inhaling deeply, alternating between thoughts of self-pity and anger. I kept returning to things Willis had said to me in our conversations, unable to reconcile the good person I loved with the jerk hiding his engagement. I couldn't yet admit I'd been wrong about him or acknowledge my disappointment in him, but my anger ceased spinning as nausea took over. I lowered my head until the effects of the cigarette passed and I recovered enough to walk.
Making my way to the east wing, I avoided the stairs, crossing through the narrow doorway where the addition began and the pattern of wood planks dramatically changed direction. Closer to the office, a familiar sound emerged: the drama of crying twins. Claire sat at her desk, one ear on her phone, her hand to the other ear, struggling to hear. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" she said, her voice competing with the babies' rising howl. When she saw me, Claire gestured largely to Nigel's office. The twins stood by the door, noses and eyes running, crying for attention, the older boy crouched on the floor behind Nigel's desk, likely up to no good.
I approached the older boy slowly as if stalking a wild animal, but he didn't see me. His eyes fluttered open and closed like a child trying not to fall asleep. I grabbed Nigel's medicine box from his grubby hands. A chalky white pill lay in a pool of saliva on Nigel's chair; several other candy-colored pills lay about. All the pillbox doors of the weekdays were open, several pills remained in their slots but how many were gone and how many were in the boy's mouth? I pried his fingers open and discovered a small round red pill and a yellow and white capsule in his moist palm.
"Oh my God," I said.
Claire walked in. "What's he done?" she asked.
"He's taken Nigel's meds. Call Sheila," I said. "And Vera." Prying his jaws apart with one hand, I swept the interior of his mouth with my index finger, retrieving a partially melted blue pill and another that might have been one of the small red pills before the sweet coating dissolved in his tiny mouth. "And call Archie," I said, as the boy vomited on Nigel's threadbare carpet. "Oh my God, he's sick." I picked him up and his little body melted into my shoulder. "Don't go to sleep," I said, his eyes closing. "No sleeping." I shook him and thumped his back.
"Do you have 911 here?" I asked.
"Sheila and Vera are coming," Claire said. "I can't find Archie." Claire unrolled some paper towels and threw them on the floor. "And it's 999," she said reaching for the phone again.
"I know where Archie is." I jostled the boy on my arm to wake him. "Watch those two," I said to Claire. "Make sure they don't find any pills on the floor. I'll be right back." I ran down the hall, shaking the child as I went. "Don't sleep," I said. "No sleeping now." Every time I shook him his eyes would open before fluttering shut again. I ran up the stairs to the second floor and banged on Magda's door. "Archie," I said. "Open up, I have your son and he's overdosed on Nigel's medicine." The boy started crying and gagged as if he would vomit again. I held his shirt to his mouth.
The door opened and Archie stood there half dressed, eyes glazed, throwing his arms into his shirt. "What happened?" he asked, fingers trembling around buttons. "What happened!" he said again, louder, a madman in his distress, unable to button his shirt. "What happened!"
"He swallowed pills, I have no idea how many or what kind. Vera's on her way. The twins are in the office. Take him." I handed the child to Archie as Magda appeared behind him, pulling her long hair into a ponytail.
Downstairs one of the twins wandered the hall. "Really, Lily," Magda said, "what are you people doing down here?"
She'd picked the wrong moment to provoke me. I stopped in my tracks and stared at her. "What were you doing up there?" I hissed. "This is all your fault." I pointed at Magda. "You and Archie."
She closed her eyes.
In the office, Archie lit a cigarette with the hand not holding his son. A plume of gray smoke taunted Magda. "Is he going to be okay?" Archie asked. "Just a simple answer to a simple question," he said, frantic, his voice breaking. "Oh my God, baby," he said to the sobbing boy in his arms. "What did he swallow?" Archie asked me.
"I don't know," I said. "Nigel and Vera are on their way. "Don't let him sleep," I said.
Claire was still on the phone. "I'm speaking with the Poison people. They want to know what he took."
"Did you swallow any pills?" Archie asked the child tenderly.
"Did you eat the pills?" Magda asked, employing sign language with the child, bunching her fingers and touching her open mouth as she moved herself closer to the huddle, edging me out. I took the pillbox and my findings to another corner of the desk as Magda continued asking questions and Archie shushed her, putting his ear closer to the child's mouth. Actors and a few volunteers clustered outside our door, concerned expressions all around.
"Is his pulse okay?" Archie asked me, his cell phone hunched in his shoulder, trying to reach Sheila.
I touched the child's neck but I wasn't a nurse. The twin Magda held squirmed out of her arms and reached for Archie but Archie ignored the baby to focus exclusively on his oldest son, displacing everyone, including Magda. He dropped his cigarette into a paper cup half full of cold coffee where it emitted a quick hiss at Magda. She closed her eyes. I felt so angry at the two of them, or maybe all three.
"Does anybody know what exactly he swallowed?" Clare asked, her hand covering the receiver.
The other twin, Roger of the pointy head or Teddy of the freckled bum, jumped on the sofa as Nigel and Vera arrived and counted pills, hands trembling, struggling to clarify what the child had swallowed and what Nigel had already taken.
"Wake up, baby," Archie cried, prying the boy's eyelids open. "Oh God, where's Sheila. Don't die, baby. Don't die."
"But I forgot to take the Tuesday pills," Nigel said, clearly undone. "Why don't they go to the hospital?" he asked.
"Didn't you take them late?" Vera asked.
"Did I take today's pills?" Nigel asked.
"Yes. Remember? Right after you took the call from Tate. That's why we have the box," Vera shrugged.
Claire moved the phone away from her mouth. "You need to take him to the hospital immediately," she said.
My little mint up the nose seemed nothing compared to the deadly effect of Nigel's medication on this small child. Suddenly the crowd at the door parted and Sheila walked in. Not Sheila of the Frumpy Tunic but Sheila the Mother: fierce, all-powerful, master of the child's universe. The boy reached for her, sobbing as she took him. Archie automatically lifted the heavy diaper bag from her shoulder and took the car keys from her hand.
"Do we know what he swallowed?" Sheila asked Vera. She clipped her words to save time, already turning to leave as Archie lifted one twin and fetched the other from the sofa.
Vera handed her the paper indicating which pills remained in question while Archie looked on, balancing a twin in each arm, the diaper bag relegated to his back. Sheila folded the paper as Archie turned, allowing her access to the bag, movements like choreography, smooth from endless repetition.
"Keep us informed," Vera pressed her hands together as Sheila slipped the paper into the pocket. But Magda made the first move, her nostrils flaring as she abandoned ship, walking toward the door silently. Archie made no move to stop her; seemed unaware of her action as the affair ended in our presence. I felt we should not be watching; yet we did. Magda left without a backward glance. Oddly, I knew exactly how she felt.
"My car's in front." Sheila didn't seem the least bit frumpy now, having parked at the door of Newton Priors, passing carriages and crashing gates to get there. I patted the boy's back, wondering if I might suggest a simple X-ray of his nasal cavities for mints as long as they had him in the ER.