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has been in the city most days, measuring the society ladies for winter hats.” He yawned. “It’s been so tiresome watching Mae study all weekend. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why she’s so enthusiastic about teaching.”
    â€œHow can you not? It’s the same as you with your painting, me with my writing, Alevia with her playing, Bess with her—”
    â€œYes, I see.” Franklin cut me off, eyeing the robe draped over my arm. “Thank god you’re taking a bath. You smell terrible.” I rolled my eyes and started down the hallway.
    â€œSo do you,” I called out. “Though in your case I don’t think you can help—”
    â€œVirginia.” Charlie materialized from nowhere, grabbed my hand, yanked me into my mother’s room, and shut the door. The last word of my retort to Franklin caught in the back of my throat, choking me. I swallowed it away.
    â€œHow’d you get in here?” I asked evenly. Wedged in the narrow doorway, I could feel the heat of his body inches from mine and smell his light piney sweat beneath his jacket.
    â€œFunny, Gin,” Franklin yelled, having no idea I’d been detained on my way to the bathroom. Charlie didn’t respond and I pushed past him, lunging for the door, but he seized my shoulders and pulled me back into the room, hands digging into my skin. I hadn’t looked at him yet, beyond a glance when he’d startled me, and didn’t now as I shoved against his chest, trying to free myself.
    â€œI waited until Mae went back to the study and Frank went into your room,” he grunted, struggling against me.
    â€œWhat do you want? Fra—” I started to scream for my brother, but Charlie’s hand clamped across my mouth and forced my face to his. I closed my eyes.
    â€œGinny, please,” he whispered. “Can’t you just look at me?”I swallowed hard, let the tension drop from my shoulders, and opened my eyes. His eyes were rimmed with black circles so dark they made the green seem luminous. The hair on his face was long, save a patch on the right side of his chin where he’d never been able to grow it. I must’ve winced, because he loosened his grip on my shoulders. He looked almost as awful as I knew I did. “That bad?” he said, and laughed under his breath. His fingers peeled back from my mouth, sliding slowly over my lips. I closed my eyes, letting my head drop onto his chest. His heart thumped wildly against my ear—a complete contrast to the hands slowly tangling in my hair and drifting up and down my back. I felt drowsy, as though I could fall asleep against him, but he shifted suddenly, smoothed my hair back, and kissed my forehead. As if his lips had broken some sort of spell, I jerked away from him. I couldn’t believe I’d let him touch me, that I’d forgotten his abandonment so quickly. I crossed the room to the rippled glass window, past the photo of my father as a young man wearing my grandfather’s Union army jacket on the dresser, knowing that if my father had been here he would’ve been furious with Charlie and demanded I stand my ground.
    â€œGinny, I’m sorry.” I didn’t turn around, but stared out at the night sky and then down to the darkened window of the Aldridges’ library. I’d noticed that the library lamps hadn’t been lit since the party, and hoped that his lack of work had something to do with missing me, that he couldn’t create without confronting my memory. “You’ve been avoiding me. I’ve come to see you every day.” I pinched my eyes shut and lifted a shoulder. “Why? Where . . . where have you been?” With you, I thought, remembering the lifetime I’d written in my notebook.
    â€œI was writing,” I said. “Why are you here?”
    I turned to face him. He stared at his hands, opening and closing his grandfather’s