For a brief time, a few hours though it seems much longer, Asia is the only member of the family who knows that Father is dead. The captain of the Chenoweth had telegraphed Mother to say that Father was very ill and she must come at once to Cincinnati to meet the boat. Mother departed immediately, leaving Asia and Rosalie to determine for themselves just how concerned they should be. Rosalie reminded Asia that there’d been many similar alarms over the years. Still, after a short period of dither and delay, Rosalie had decided that Johnny and Joe must come home from school. She’d gone off to fetch them.

So when the second wire arrives, Asia is the only one home. She reads it. She puts it on Father’s desk. She puts some of his other papers on top of it. For one mad moment, it seems like a secret she can keep. Maybe the rest of the family need never know. Father is so rarely home.

Even better would be not knowing herself. If only she’d gone with Mother, she’d be on a train right now, traveling in the same anxious ignorance the rest of them are enjoying. She’d be worried, but not much. She’d be assuring Mother that Father is indestructible, which is what she really believes, even now, even after the wire.

Instead she’s been left to deal alone with the fact that Father will never again walk in the door, bringing all the noise and excitement of the great world with him. In his absence, the house has always felt inconsequential to Asia, a place of petty concerns and niggling quarrels, no one in charge and someone’s feelings, usually hers, perpetually hurt by one careless remark or another.

Nothing will ever be the same, she thinks, which sounds more like a line from a play than something a person says, and yet how true it is. All is lost, she thinks next, which is less true but not untrue. She thinks that she’s performing grief rather than feeling it. What she feels is nothing.

She stands for a long time looking out the parlor window, where Father’s death has not changed the view. The clouds are low and unbroken, a gray lid set over the city. A strong wind is ripping the few remaining leaves from the trees, tossing them into the air, trapping them against the fences and the snowdrifts. A man passes on a plodding bay horse. Another, on foot, keeps his hat on his head with his hand. There was no reason for Mother not to have taken her along. Father would have been pleased to see her face.