“If you have no further need for me, then, madam,” he said.
“What I need from you is something you cannot give. Go. Go to your home in Birmingham.”
She turned away, her shoulders straight and cold. He could go to her, put his arms around her, join them again as they were meant to be joined.
But he didn’t.
He picked up his coat and went. He went and went and kept on going until he reached his house in Birmingham.
The housekeeper looked put out when Joshua came barreling into his house without warning, and he suspected it had something to do with the dust sheets over the furniture and the piles of clutter throughout the main rooms.
“We didn’t realize you’d be here, Mr. DeWitt,” Mrs. White said. “We pulled everything out of storage to clean and make sure there was no damage. There were rats, you see. All gone now—the rat catcher came—but I thought it best to do a right thorough spring clean anyway.”
Rats. Worse than sisters, were rats.
Go and stay gone. I’m not keeping you here.
“Carry on,” he said. “Get my rooms ready and put out a meal. I want to be alone tonight.”
The housekeeper looked around helplessly, more embarrassed than the clutter merited. A closer look revealed why.
These were not Joshua’s things.
He had had them take away all Rachel’s and Samuel’s clothes, her books, his toys, but here were the things he had kept. Rachel’s blasted clock collection, a dozen of the things, mercifully silent. He had never understood her fascination with clocks, the way they ticked ticked ticked all the time. And there was the horrid tiger-skin rug. Blazes knew why he had kept that.
The clutter took up too much space and made him fidget.
You aren’t my husband. We just happen to be married.
“Will you be traveling again soon, sir?” Mrs. White asked. “We’ve not got a full staff on, but I can have them back here by morning.”
He waved a hand, seeing not clocks and clutter but a private garden, alive with flowers and bees, with a fountain and a woman.
What I need from you is something you cannot give. Go. Go to your home in Birmingham.
“I have to get back to—” He stopped in time. If he had finished, she would think he had taken leave of his senses. Because he’d been about to say “Birmingham.” It had been his refrain for so long that it was all his brain seemed to know.
What he sought wasn’t here. Because—
Of course not. He only used this house for dressing and sleeping.
“Never mind,” he said. “I don’t need much. I’ll spend most of my time at work.”
Out in the streets, he headed for the factory on foot, surprised by how fast everyone walked. Of course they walked fast—this was Birmingham; it was he who had turned slow. He quickened his pace and soaked it all up, the noise, the bustle, the surge of effort and victory and loss. The smoke from the factories, the stench of the canals, the yells of canal men, and some factory workers singing. Yes, Birmingham, where money was king and hard work was his queen.
By the time he reached his headquarters, he was walking at a decent speed again, his head was used to the clanging, and he had mostly stopped coughing. Yes, Birmingham. Everywhere everyone was working, producing, making useless stuff useful.
Das looked only mildly surprised to see him, rising from the desk, where dossiers were neatly stacked and everything appeared to be in order. And, of course, when he quizzed Das, he learned that everything was in order. He let Das talk, while he paced around the office, and tried to find it interesting, but most of what the man said was gibberish, which was odd, as Das was usually focused and clear.
I want a husband. A whole one. Not one who is always leaving me.
Everything felt odd, not only Das’s gibberish. Everything was meant to come together once he got back here. But Das had everything under control, and the secretaries had taken to making decisions themselves, and it seemed that they made good decisions. They weren’t secretaries, now, though, were they? They were managers, and those were the new titles that Das proposed. Joshua had made himself redundant. They didn’t need him either.
I want you here. This is your home too.
No. No. His home was here, in Birmingham. This was who he was. He had just…forgotten.
“Well, I’m back now,” he said, cutting Das off mid-sentence, ignoring his raised