He looks as if he should have a pipe in his mouth as he says, "A man wants a woman who
will make life easy for him. She should be attractive, well groomed, knowledgeable in music,
painting, and running a house, but above all, she should keep his name above scandal and
never call attention to herself."
He must be joking. Give him a minute, and he'll laugh, say it was just a lark, but his smug
smile stays firmly in place. I am not about to take this insult in stride. "Mother was Father's
equal," I say coolly. "He didn't expect her to walk behind him like some pining imbecile."
Tom's smile falls away. "Exactly. And look where it's gotten us." It's quiet again. Outside the
cab's windows, London rolls by and Tom turns his head toward it. For the first rime,
I can see his pain, see it in the way he runs his fingers through his hair, over and over, and I
understand what it costs him to hide it all. But I don't know how to build a bridge across this
awkward silence, so we ride on, watching everything, seeing little, saying nothing.
"Gemma" Tom's voice breaks and he stops for a moment. He's fighting whatever it is that's
boiling up inside him. "That day with Mother why the devil did you run away? What were
you thinking?"
My voice is a whisper. "I don't know." For the truth, it's very little comfort.
"The illogic of women."
"Yes," I say, not because I agree but because I want to give him something, anything. I say it
because I want him to forgive me. And perhaps then I could begin to forgive myself. Perhaps.
"Did you know that"his jaw clenches on the word—" man they found murdered with her?"
"No," I whisper.
"Sarita said you were hysterical when she and the police found you. Going on about some
Indian boy and a vision of a a thing of some sort." He pauses, rubs his palms over the knees
of his pants. He's still not looking at me.
My hands shake in my lap. I could tell him. I could tell him what I've kept locked tight inside
. Right now, with that lock of hair falling in his eyes, he's the brother I've missed, the one
who once brought me stones from the sea, told me they were rajah's jewels. I want to tell him
that I'm afraid I'm going mad by degrees and that nothing seems entirely real to me anymore.
I want to tell him about the vision, have him pat me on the head in that irritating way and
dismiss it with a perfectly logical doctor's explanation. I want to ask him if it's possible that a
girl can be born unlovable, or does she just become that way? I want to tell him everything
and have him understand.
Tom clears his throat. "What I mean to say is, did something happen to you? Did he are you
quite all right?"
My words pull each other back down into a deep, dark silence. "You want to know if I'm still
chaste."