But the painting, in the end, was hung.

It was hung exactly where I wanted it, it was directly across from Howard’s desk. Some light fell across it, the right amount and kind of light, from the window. We — I, Howard, Candace, and Frans — stood together, stepped back, and looked at it. We stood in silence, we stood. Then Frans said, ah, okay baas, is done then. As if from a trance Howard turned and said, yes, it’s done, thanks, Frans. Thank you. And Candace said, stirring, it’s the perfect spot, Mrs. Kline, you were right, look how the sun falls on it. Her voice was softer than it usually was, and she looked again at the painting. It’s very beautiful, she said. Thank you, Candace, I said, and I turned and hugged her. I don’t know what came over me, I never hug people.

YOU’VE ASKED ABOUT my children, how they were. They were happy children. Helena liked reading, as I did. She continued with her ballet classes, she became better and better. She spent hours at home prancing around on the tiles, practising her pirouettes. She’d have me watch, then she’d have Emily watch. She’d trip sometimes over Emily’s cleaning buckets, her vacuum. I’d hear Josias admonish her: Helena, don’t jump where I’m busy, don’t jump!

The dogs would follow Helena around when she danced. There’d be barking then. Chester, especially, was playful that way. The other dog, Teddy, was an Alsatian, he’d been a neighbour’s dog and they had moved to Cape Town. We offered to take him, we’d been thinking of getting another dog for the children. But Teddy was old, perhaps it had been a mistake to take him. He was frail, often I had to take him to the vet. He was like a grandfather, or an old lion, perhaps the children enjoyed that. They’d joke about him, about his age, his grumpiness. He didn’t play or respond much to them and their teasing. He stuck close to Chester though: where Chester went, he was never far behind. He lay around, and slept, I’d see him sleeping under the laundry lines, in the yard.

When we went to Villiers to visit my parents, Helena would disappear for hours, later I discovered where she went. A room at the back of my parents’ house had a cupboard you could walk into, you could shut the door behind you. There was even a light, it was an enchanted cupboard, for a child. The cupboard was filled, floor to ceiling, with books, old books. They were the books of my childhood. What Katy Did, followed by What Katy Did at School and What Katy Did Next, and others I don’t remember. Books about girls that I wished I could be, or about girls living lives quite unlike mine. Where, in those girls, was I?

Occasionally I see copies of those books, antiquarian books now, there’s a store on 59th Street where I once saw the What Katy Did series, it was behind glass in a heavy wooden bookcase. The books had dark red covers, faded, and it was so dim in there, behind that old glass, in that sanctum. I thought I would not disturb the books there, in their dark resting place, that case, it seemed wrong to take them, I would not take them, no.