Read The Second Life of Samuel Tyne for Free Online Page A

couldn’t fathom. She was the most charming girl Samuel had ever seen, with skin the colour of oats and almond-shaped eyes of a nameless hue. Samuel unconsciously clasped his hands. He was aware that, despite the pristine lines in his suit and the elegant way he’d placed his bowler on his head, he smelled distinctly of solder. He laughed a little, and the girl frowned and wouldn’t meet his eyes. He cleared his throat.
    “Samuel Tyne,” he said, offering his hand, in which she placed her shaking one.
    “Ama Ouillet,” she said.
    “Ama?” said Samuel, giggling. “You do not at all look like you are from Gold Coast, is that right?”
    Ama looked confused. “No. Yes. Ama is short for Amaryllis. My parents aren’t from Gold Coast.”
    He held her hand longer than was proper. Stepping away, he frowned at his twins. “What seems to be the problem here, girls? What is it you are arguing about?”
    All three in unison said, “Nothing.”
    “All right,” he said, distracted. “Allow me to change, and we will eat.” He straightened his tie and, clearing his throat again, snatched the bowler from his head and lurched past the girls to go upstairs.
    The twins’ laughter intensified Ama’s panic. She didn’t like how long the twins’ father had held her hand, and the fact that they, too, must have noticed it mortified her. In truth, the Tyne house was the last place she wanted to be. She’d only come because her father, having caught Ama’s friends bullying the twins on the playground, sent her to the Tyne house to apologize on her friends’ behalf. In the twins he saw an opportunity to teach Ama about mercy.
    Catholicism was Ama’s birthright. Her piety seemed to annoy the twins, who’d accused her of using her crosses, rosary and moral dignity to make herself a saint, like she “needed to believe she was better than other people.” They called her “Godgirl” and “Asthma” (in fact, Ama seemed almost tubercular), and accused her of having set her friends on them.
    On this last point, especially, they were misled. Ama disliked her friends as much as the twins did; they’d had the gall to make fun of her mother, whose MS worsened by the month. She only accepted their company because, blindly, her parents approved of them, the daughters of pious and monied families.
    When Ama had rung the doorbell, Mrs. Tyne was so pleased to finally meet a friend of the twins that she invited her to stay for dinner. Amid the clutter of knick-knacks and other trifles, Mrs. Tyne had set a colourful table, with teal placemats and a narrow-throated vase of marigolds as a centrepiece. The food looked strange to Ama—scorched bananas, sludge with cubes of meat—but sitting to eat she found she liked it. The twins sat on either side of her, and their tension made for grudging conversation. To lighten things (though, Ama believed, also out of loneliness), Mrs. Tyne ran off at the mouth. The twins seemed mortified. But despite an aggressive happiness, Ama often caught the woman looking critically at her. She smiled when their eyes met, but not kindly.
    When Mr. Tyne entered, smiling with the nervousness of a small child, he glanced at Ama, who stiffened in her chair. “Do not stop eating on my account,” he said.
    “Then don’t be so vain to think it’s on your account,” said Mrs. Tyne, who’d risen to heap his plate with plantain and bean stew.
    The dinner continued in silence. Samuel kept glancing at Ama, and seeing the girl was nervous, he surmised there must be some hidden reason for it. Trying to put her at ease, he began to look more earnestly at her, as if to say, I, among everyone, am on your side . The girl squirmed in her chair, and pleased she was uncomfortable, the twins glanced coyly at each other.
    Seeing his daughters’ strange eye movements, Samuel knew he had solved the riddle. “Girls!” he said. “Stop that tomfoolery with your eyes. Can you not see you are making your guest