Chapter 6

“Do you think we could take that down?”

We were eating breakfast after Violet’s morning workout. There still had been no discussion of the previous day. It didn’t feel like we were avoiding the subject, exactly. Our mutual silence on the topic wasn’t due to discomfort. The emptiness had an invisible energy to it, as if there was a membrane that vibrated silently between us, forming shapes that we were both still trying to discern. I had the sense that if either of us dared to speak of what had happened the magic would disappear forever.

“This?” Carrying my bowl of cereal, I walked up to the framed photo and tapped the glass. “I thought it would be important to you.”

It was the last happy occasion with our father and her mother in my memory, when we were all together as a family.

The picture had been taken on the shores of Lake Geneva, in front of the famous fountain. We’d been there for the buyout of our father’s engineering firm by a Swiss conglomerate, a deal that had led to his first real fortune. It wasn’t long after that that our parents had divorced, sending Violet to the other side of the country.

I’d been 13 at the time, Vi two years younger. In the photo her mother’s hands were on her shoulders, but she was still the centre of attention: one hip cocked out, flashing a V sign at the camera, all brash kid confidence in a tartan skirt and newsboy cap. She’d been fashionable even then. I stood a little off to the side of my father, looking stiff, all gangly limbs and awkwardness.

“Not really. It’s the fakery of it I can’t stand.” She stepped closer to the image. “Look at her. You can see it in her smile. She’s desperately trying to enjoy herself.” I assumed she was talking about her mother.

I nodded. It was odd. The camera shutter had clicked at just the right instant, preserving one fleeting happy moment. A rare exception, not the rule.

“There weren’t any fights that trip. Not that I can remember, anyway.”

She shook her head. “There weren’t. She was getting what she wanted, a jet-set life. And he was making millions. But you remember the months after that.”

I did. Vi and I had conspired to run away from home, it had been so bad. Only our parent’s announcement of their divorce had stopped our plan.

“So when I look at it,” she continued. “I can’t just see that moment: it’s everything before. And everything that came after.”

“Alright.” I set my empty bowl on the kitchen island and unhooked the photo, placing it carefully on the floor facing the wall. “Why don’t we make that part of your tasks today. Any family photos you don’t like, put them here. Any you want to keep, over there.” I pointed to the tall china cabinet in the adjoining room.

“Okay.”

“While you’re here you should go through the place settings, too. Box up any sets you’d like, mark the rest.” Travelling nine months out of the year, I didn’t have any real need for china plates or silver cutlery. “Use the boxes and paper in the garage.”

Violet nodded. “Where will you be?”

“I have to go through Dad’s library. There’s a few first editions in there that we can sell. The rest I’ll box up. I was thinking of giving the fiction to a foundation that promotes literacy.”

“Good,” Violet smiled. “He’d have hated that.”

Going through the library’s books consumed my attention for most of the day. Outside of Violet, reading had been one of the few ways I’d found to escape the emotional violence at home, and it had become a life-long passion.

I had always been deeply confused by the fact that someone as emotionally cruel as my father could be so erudite. St. Thomas Aquinas, Durant, and Khayyam stood side-by-side on the shelves. They weren’t the leather-bound volumes people of my father’s class bought by the yard to impress houseguests: these books were well-worn, spines cracked, the leaves dog-eared with use. Riffling through them fanned the scent of his Cambridge tobacco from every page. I had so many memories of my father’s half-shadowed figure sitting on the back deck at night, pipe stem curled at the corner of his mouth, squinting through smoke as he read, a glass of wine beside him.

When I was finished the boxes of books formed a fortress wall of giant cardboard bricks on one side of the room. I’d left behind a few volumes for myself, although I had no idea how I’d keep them with me after I sold the place.

Downstairs the sun was just beginning to appear through the western windows. I saw three stacked boxes labelled and taped at the edge of the kitchen. Deeper into the lounge a fourth box sat half-filled, month-old newspaper pushed around white china teacups.

Violet was sitting on the sofa, long legs stretched out. She was on her phone again. I cleared my throat.

Startled, my sister leapt to her feet. Holding her hands behind her back, she lowered her head in the same contrite pose of the day before. “Sorry. I got distracted.”

I took a breath. The game she was playing was obvious to me now.

“Do you need to be spanked again?”

She nodded once. I saw her eyes dart back to the couch.

“No, not there.” I pointed to the cabinet. “There.”

Without a word Vi moved to the cabinet and faced it.

“Lean forward. Hold on to the top.”

My sister’s breathing quickened as her heels rose. She stretched up, fingers sliding over the dark cherrywood, body inclining forward as she rose on her toes, her spine forming a perfect line.

“Stay there. I’ll be right back.”

When we were children our father had installed a ping-pong table in the basement of the house. He’d frequently sent us down there when he was working on something and didn’t want to be disturbed. It had worked. We had spent whole nights at the table bouncing tiny white balls back and forth.

Last week I’d come across the leftover sports equipment in the garage. For some reason Dad had kept the ping-pong set with him, taking it from house to house long after we’d left. Not the boards for the table, or the trestles that supported them. Not even any of the balls, as far as I could tell. Just the net, wrapped around two paddles.

I found the box and pulled them out. The red paddle had been Violet’s, the blue one mine. Countless hours of play had thinned the laminated leather, leaving perfectly smooth surfaces.

I chose the red. Twirling it in my hand, I returned to the living room. I saw a tiny shiver of anticipation work its way down Violet’s back as she heard my steps, but her head never shifted away from the glass. She was still on her toes, her calf muscles given tremendous endurance by years of ballet. I came to her side and held up the paddle. “This?”