Dries waited for my response, but I couldn’t form words. The best I could do was stand there in the middle of the kitchen and not collapse.

I will not cry. I will not howl. I will not rage.

I swallowed my unbearable pain in silence.

My brother grabbed his hat and strode to the front door. “I am going to find a doctor who will admit him into the hospital. The Maison Dubois.”

“Don’t take us from each other, Dries. You can’t.” I ran to him, desperate to hold him back. “Could we not just write Dr. Gachet to come? He is a friend. He treated Vincent.”

“Where is Vincent now?”

The words rang in my ears like a slap.

My brother pulled away. “It’s for the best. You can’t save Theo on your own, Jo. Not from this.”

And then the door was closing behind him.

I staggered back. I wanted to wake up from the nightmare, shake myself out of the numbness. Don’t collapse. You can’t. Not yet.

“Mama?” Wil’s sweet voice woke me. He’d finished his meal.

I could not let his father be taken. Our love would heal Theo. I would not give up on him and give him over to strangers. I had a terrible premonition that if I let him go, I’d never have him back.

I grabbed up my son and was out the door with him the next breath. “We are not going to let anyone take your papa.” I shouldn’t have let Dries leave. What have I done? “We’re going to catch your uncle.”

I would stop my brother if I had to beg him in the street.

I ran.

Chapter Seventeen

Emsley

“I can’t tell if it’s a circus or a funeral.” My mother shifted on her chair, the kind of shocked horror in her voice she normally reserved for people who quit perfectly good jobs or marriages to “find themselves.” Or for when one of her friends’ children chose to study liberal arts. “What kind of funeral home would even allow a carnival band? An accordion player, for heaven’s sake.” She tugged on my father’s elbow. “Philip, stop that man.”

“They have bagpipes at Scottish funerals,” Dad said in a philosophical tone.

Mom sat up straighter, not a small accomplishment since she’d already been stiff enough to give ramrods inspiration. She’d been holding her solemn-Nancy-Reagan expression for so long, I feared her features might freeze that way permanently. I’d mistakenly called it a discreetly-grieving-Jackie-Kennedy look when she’d arrived. She’d corrected me with “Don’t be crass, Emsley. I would never look like a Democrat.”