As the guests followed my father into his study, Liev retreated to the kitchen. He had sold one painting—to a woman who bought whatever my father had to offer. Even if he had taken the path of his brother and lived in the East End of London selling violins, she would have bought up every one of them.

I joined him in the kitchen, perching on a stool beside him as he leaned against the table. His head was in his hands. He looked like he was crying, but there weren’t any tears.

“Why aren’t you crying, Liev?”

“Because I am sad.”

“No, silly. I said: ‘Why AREN’T you crying?’”

“Oh. I guess I aren’t crying ’cause I guess I aren’t sad.”

“Good. Then I aren’t sad with you.” I leant against his chest. He smelled of fresh leather.

He bent down and put his face in my hair. “You smell of freshly laundered chickens.”

“Freshly slaughtered?”

“Freshly laundered …” and then he started crying. “Oh Ruby, let’s not talk anymore.”

My mother lent Liev no comfort. By then she had retreated to her room, gray, overweight, and dejected. She was humiliated, once she began to lose them, to realize that her looks were more important to her than she thought. She forgot that she had once been interested in Liev and, though I never doubted she loved me, I could see that I made her head hurt.

They had promised Liev an umbrella of support and not only were they not coming through, they were also pretending it wasn’t raining. I could not work out what there was to keep him, and I sensed, with rising alarm, that neither could he. When my father was in his study, I would crawl into bed beside my mother and nestle up close to her expanding girth. She’d put a sad, heavy arm around me and kiss the top of my head. Although her arm was now heavy enough on my back to cause me serious physical discomfort, I would not allow myself to move it until I knew she was asleep.

That year, she drifted in and out of sleep and in and out of my life.

The less my mother left her room, the more Liev and I played together. My father wavered between boredom and hostility toward Liev—his show had been, as Daddy had feared, completely derided—and relief that he was there for me to play with. Several times Liev said he felt it was time for him to move on and each time my father gave him incentive to stay, promising that they would mount another show for him. Daddy was over Lila, could barely remember what had brought any of them together. He never held grudges because he never held people in his head long enough to develop ill will toward them. His vengeance was swift and neat, then over and forgotten.