Asia has stopped talking. Probably she made a persuasive case. Edwin goes to the door of his room. “Mother?” he says. “Mother?” he says, more loudly, though he knows she hates to be yelled for. When there is still no answer, either because she didn’t hear or is pretending she didn’t hear, he takes a lamp and goes downstairs. The kitchen smells of yeast and rising bread.

Mother and Rosalie are sitting at the table, planning out the next week’s meals. The doors to the oven are open. A few red embers glowing inside provide the only light. The sound of the storm heightens the sense of warmth, like a snug berth on a rocking ship. Edwin feels the same wave of anticipatory homesickness he used to feel as a boy whenever he left with Father.

“Mother,” Edwin says. “I need Father’s Iago costume. Also Richelieu.”

Mother looks at but not into his face. “I’m saving Father’s costumes for John,” she says. She goes back to her shopping list, apparently feeling this needs no explanation or apology.

Edwin has seen Mother over the past weeks altering the pants, the tunics, the robes. Father was a small but bulky man. Edwin is very slight. He’d assumed those alterations were for him. He’d told his manager as much. Uncle Ben has been cobbling bits and pieces together for him, sewing with great galloping stitches while Edwin rehearses. These makeshift make-do’s are nothing compared to Father’s jeweled and fur-trimmed elaborations. Who knows when John will play Iago? If ever. Edwin will play him next week. And also the week after that. Edwin is the one Father chose to carry his legacy. He feels the ghost of Father’s hand as it landed on his shoulder, dubbing him heir apparent.

“I see,” Edwin says. Heat has flooded into his face and neck.

He holds the lamp away so as not to show that.

“Some critics would recognize Father’s costumes,” Rosalie says. “It might be better not to wear them.”

“That’s right,” says Edwin. He’s trying not to sound sullen. He leaves the room and goes back up the shadowed stairs. The lamp on the wall throws one shadow, the lamp in his hand another. The result is a misshapen creature, spiderlike, with four arms, four legs. Thunder rattles the windows on the second floor.

He sees Mother’s hands, the needle dipping and rising over Richelieu’s robes, white skin against the red velvet. Of course John should get the costumes. John didn’t kill Father.

My heart, he thinks, is a withered apple.

Asia looks up sleepily when he enters. “Are you all right?” she asks. “You look a little strange.”

“I’m flattered you think that’s a change,” Edwin says.

iv