“But I can’t go—” Sylvia says. “The children are still recovering, and I have to be at the flat to wait for my phone,” she elaborates, her voice earnest. Churchgoers and early park strollers with dogs on leashes amble past her along the footpath. From the pram the children appeal to the glances of passersby, smiling winningly, their noses red and running in the cold. “And I still don’t have a nanny. It could be weeks,” she adds, sandbagging her argument.

“What do you need?” Dido asks. “Perhaps I can save Ted the bother—”

She scrambles to think, her heart whitening. The truth of what she needs is inexpressible, not something Dido or anyone else, even Ted, can supply. “Our apples, Dido,” Sylvia answers, trying to modulate her pleading tone. “They’ll go bad in the cellar if they’re not used. I brought all I could manage in the car.”

“Oh yes, I heard about those apples,” Dido says, mildly sarcastic.

“—and my curtain material, my red corduroy. I need it—I can’t finish the children’s room without it. And a jar of my honey. I’ve used up the one that I brought with me.”

“Heaven protect the obstacle that prevents you from more lebkuchen,” Dido gently mocks. “I’ll struggle into my wrap and try to wake Ted,” she exhales. “No doubt you know better than I the mayhem he stirs up while he’s packing. It’s good that you’ve told me your list. I’ll be able to remind him.”

“Dido, thank you,” Sylvia says, genuinely grateful, suddenly—the feeling so remote she hardly knows it—even hopeful.

Dido lowers the phone and walks away to awaken Ted. There is a click of the receiver meeting marble, a wash of wind crackling on the open line. There is the click of the clasp on Sylvia’s pocketbook as she fishes nervously for a hankie for the children, and the magnifying sound of her own silent waiting—her blood beating, the quick rhythm of her beating heart.

34. “Daddy”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

“Daddy”

DECEMBER 31, 1958

BOSTON

Through the sharp hawthorn blow the winds. Six floors above Beacon Hill maunders the sluggish hebetude post-teatime. Snow crusted on the banks of the Charles River below; sooty gables of neighboring brick limned with snow and wisping chimneys. The stark crowns of the trees of Boston Common strung with fairy lights blinking on as the afternoon fades. Businessmen streaming home down Riverside Drive on neon fantasy: kissing the boss’s wife in the confetti dark, before the swells of “Auld Lang Syne.” Ted articulated in the other room by the grave strains of Beethoven. Sonata Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Twenty-six.