There was nothing left of Jack’s masterpiece, his life’s work.
Jack slowly turned his head in a way that reminded Laura of a wolf. Deliberate, focused on his prey.
Focused on Harry.
The boy stood with one palm planted on the dumbwaiter door, the other clenched at his side.
“Harry, how could you?” Laura spoke to break the intolerable silence, but as she did, Jack was up and across the room.
He slapped the boy, once, hard. Harry fell against the door of the dumbwaiter and Laura cried out, imagining the door giving way and her son falling to his death. Laura ran to Jack and grabbed his arm, holding on tight. “Jack, don’t!”
Jack turned to her, other hand raised, ready to come down on her own cheek. She flinched, stunned at the fact that she was in combat with her own husband. How had it come to this? She’d never seen such a dark side to Jack, but then she never would have imagined her son could do such a terrible deed. Had they been like this all along, or had she missed it, focused on the happy family she imagined they were?
The sudden violence in the room was like an infection, contaminating Laura as well. She was desperate to lash out, to punish. She shoved Jack, hard, with both hands, the blood in her veins at the boil.
In the brief moment that Laura and Jack wrestled, Harry slipped away, down the stairs.
Jack whirled around and disappeared down the stairs after him as Pearl wrapped her hands around her mother’s waist. “Don’t leave me, don’t go.”
Laura turned to her daughter. “I won’t. Go to your room, all right? Everything will be fine, we just need everyone to calm down.”
“But Father’s book . . .” Pearl pointed to the fireplace, but Laura didn’t look. She couldn’t.
“Stay in your room. I’m here, I won’t leave you.”
Pearl did as she was told, and Laura, not knowing what to do next, went into Harry’s bedroom, where his stuffed lamb sat on the bed, looking desolate. Harry had always been closer to Laura than to Jack, it was just his way, and he’d seen Jack go after Laura in the basement. But to have burned the manuscript in retribution? It was unthinkable, something she couldn’t fathom doing even after what Jack had said about her relationship with Amelia and their “unnatural tendencies.” But Harry was so young, and Laura was beginning to grasp now how neglected and misunderstood he must feel. To skip school for months and have neither parent even notice? Not to mention the behaviors Harry might have witnessed with Red Paddy and this gang before he became ill.
She returned to the staircase and leaned against the banister. These rooms had held such happy memories, the fireplace mantel where Pearl had carefully arranged pine boughs in December, the kitchen where Harry had presented his tooth last year.
Her eye went to the place Harry had last stood, watching them as they tried to salvage the manuscript, as if by staring hard enough she could summon him to reappear. Something about the memory was strange, though. The way he’d positioned himself, with one hand flat against the dumbwaiter door, like he was holding it shut.
She stepped forward, examining the apparatus closer. A small piece of paper, hardly noticeable, jutted out from the crack at the bottom.
They’d never used the dumbwaiter; there was no need. In fact, Jack had warned the children soon after they moved in that they weren’t allowed to play with it, that it was too dangerous.
She rose and opened the small latch. As the door swung wide, something fluttered to the ground.
She reached down and picked it up. A ten-dollar bill.
The dumbwaiter car was out of position, a few inches from the top of the opening. Laura pulled on one of the ropes, and it slowly cranked into place.
Inside the car sat a wooden box, which she recognized as the one where Harry stored his keepsakes. Why was it here and not in his room? But when she opened it, she knew why. Ten- and twenty-dollar bills, dozens of them, covered a book. The Tamerlane.
The front door opened and she heard Jack’s heavy tread, but not a second one. Harry had escaped. For now.
Jack stopped at the top of the stairway. She held up the Tamerlane for him to see. “It was here all the time. In the dumbwaiter.”
He moved closer, breathing hard, and looked down at the contents of the box. “What is all this money?” He held up a couple of the bills.
None of this made sense. Stolen books and hidden money—nothing in front of her paired up with the sweet boy she loved so very much. She had to come clean, tell Jack what she knew. “When Harry wasn’t at school, he was hanging with a gang of boys, down near Union Square. My guess is he stole the other books as well, and sold them.”
Jack stood frozen for a moment, taking it in. “Our own son. The book thief. When were you planning to tell me this, Laura?”
“I found these just now, I didn’t know he was the thief. But the books are locked away. How would he get to them?”
“He had plenty of opportunity at night, while we slept, to figure that out. We should hand it over to Dr. Anderson.”
Laura shook her head. “Do you know what they’ll do to Harry if we turn him in? He’ll be sent away. We don’t know the whole story yet.”
Jack leaned against the stairway banister, his face white. “If we turn this in without Harry, I’ll lose my job. I don’t have the manuscript anymore, so there’s no advance, no income. We’ve lost everything.”
Again, Jack’s only care in the world seemed to be for his precious manuscript. But if they were going to figure this out, they would have to come together. For the sake of her children, Laura knew she had to slow her anger and treat her husband like an ally.
“What if we say we found the Tamerlane but don’t know how it got here?” she suggested.
It was a ridiculous idea, and Jack didn’t even bother answering.
“We have to find Harry and see if there’s another explanation,” she finally said. “Maybe the other boys forced him into it.” She moved to get her coat, but Jack stopped her.
“No. Let him spend the evening out on the streets and see how that feels. Maybe it’ll teach him something.”
“But he’s still recovering.”
“I’m not listening to you anymore, Laura.” Jack didn’t bother concealing his impatience. “You can blame yourself for this.”
“You put your hands on me, that’s what set him off. It was your beastly actions that made him angry.”
At that, Jack’s eyes grew wet. “My book. It’s gone. My son is a thief. My wife is . . .” He trailed off.
Laura blinked at him. Did it matter to him at all that their family had collapsed around him? “We destroy it, then. The Tamerlane.” Laura couldn’t believe she was saying this. “We don’t tell a soul. Then, when Harry returns, we put this family back together again.”
Jack regarded the book as if it were poisonous. “I need to think. I’m going downstairs.”
She encouraged him, knowing that it would be better for him not to be there when Harry returned.
She sat down in the big chair by the fire and cried. She cried for her boy, for her husband, for the life she’d imagined she’d be leading. For her arrogance at thinking she deserved more than she had. For the fact that she was willing to destroy a treasured piece of history if it helped keep her family together. She rose and carried the box to the fireplace, placing it on top of the detritus of her husband’s writings.
But she couldn’t light the match. Her fingers shook, the match wouldn’t take, and after a couple of tries she gave up, returning the box to its hiding place. A gentle tug on the rope lifted the box up and out of sight, into the darkness.
Laura woke with a start, unsure of where she was, before realizing she’d fallen asleep in the chair by the fire. Her neck and shoulders ached.