placidity, I could detect the vibrating hum of hope. Malabar would be seeing Ben soon. This love affair, born from a kiss a dozen years earlier, was potentially about to bear fruit. She might finally be getting the life she’d always dreamed of.
I thought of Vanity Fair’s protagonist, Becky Sharp, easy to revile for her raw ambition. On the index card I’d made for this novel, I’d transcribed the following quote: “Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire?” Beside it, I’d written Malabar. For all of her faults, my mother was a woman who knew exactly what she wanted, something that could never have been said of me. The next quote I wrote was this: “Are not there little chapters in everybody’s life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the history?” Beside it, I’d written The kiss.
* * *
Jack and I arrived in Plymouth the next day, a typical New England late-autumn afternoon, cold and damp, the trees naked, the landscape various shades of gray. There were cars in the driveway, and when we pushed open the door, the house smelled of wet coats and stew. A pair of rust-colored mittens stuck out from the pegs that lined the entryway, and Jack hung our parkas over them. Under each peg were the initials of a Souther family member, written in the uneven lettering of a child. Even as a little boy, my husband had craved order.
A steady stream of neighbors and friends, as well as several widows from around town, came and went. They held Ben tightly by the arms or shoulders and shook their heads, uttering words of comfort. There were casseroles and pies on countertops, cards in a basket, vases full of cut flowers that brightened corners. The bounty of condolences demonstrated the community’s affection for Lily and the collective assumption that Ben would be lost without his wife of almost fifty years.
When the last of the visitors left in the early evening, Ben turned his attention to us, his family.
“How about a drink?” he said.
There was no argument. This was simply how days ended. It was just the four of us now—Ben, me, Jack, and Jack’s sister, Hannah—with some intermittent and welcome interruptions from Ben’s siblings and their spouses, who were handling various aspects of the funeral arrangements. Ben made our cocktails, and once everyone had a drink in hand, he raised his glass to toast his late wife. I no longer remember his words, only that they were kind and practical, not in the least romantic or nostalgic.
“Skoal!” we said in unison, Lily’s favorite salute. We clinked glasses.
Ben grimaced at his gin and tonic. “This is God-awful,” he said and then continued sipping.
Jack and Hannah recounted some family expeditions: backpacking trips to Wyoming and Montana, river rafting and other adventures that highlighted how game their mother had always been with regard to Ben’s need to hunt and fish.
When we’d drained our drinks, Jack got up to make a second round and discovered the reason behind Ben’s foul-tasting cocktail. Previously overlooked, a strip of masking tape ran along the bottom of the Schweppes tonic bottle, labeling its contents with a skull and crossbones and the words Plant Food—written in Lily’s block letters.
Jack and I stayed in Plymouth for a few days after Lily’s funeral to help Ben organize Lily’s things and to go through her treasures and find a keepsake or two. On the morning we intended to return to San Diego, I rose before dawn and slipped into the bathroom. From the second-story window, I noticed a figure on the lawn. It was Ben in a green parka hunched over a dark object, alone. At first, I couldn’t make out what he was doing, but I imagined that he was doubled over in grief, crippled by the reality that his wife was gone, ending five decades of life with her. My heart ached for him.
Then I slid on my glasses and pressed my face close to the window. Below me, Ben sat on a stool, his knees on either side of an old barrel, something fluffy and gray flailing in his hands. Birds. Ben had a handful of baby pigeons, their tiny necks clamped tightly between each finger. One at a time, he twisted their heads, slit their throats, and held their bodies over the barrel to allow the blood to drain down the inner edge.
Once all of the birds had suffered their