“This is Kenver Nancarrow, my brother,” Effie said a while later, positively bursting with joy at the coming together of his historically favorite people with his new favorite person.
Kenver tried to issue the “half brother” correction, but Effie protested loudly against the qualification. Olive herded Kenver to a chair and handed him a glass of wine while telling him to brace himself for the “delightful disarray” of keeping company with Effie. Archie began peppering Kenver with questions about his plans for the holidays.
It took Simon to cut through the chaos. “Effie,” he said loudly, “You’d better tell Mr. Nancarrow your theory of salt and strawberries.”
“Yes!” He ought to have done that ages ago. He turned to his brother—he turned to his brother!—and said, “Harcourt, Marsden, and I have a theory of family. It goes like this: Some people are salt, and some people are strawberries. Which you are is random, left to Lady Fate. So you might end up a cellar of salt in a family of strawberries, or a leg of lamb baked into a cake.”
“A leg of lamb baked into a cake!” Olive exclaimed while Archie made a retching noise. “That is a new one.”
Kenver looked confused, which was fair. “So what you’re meant to do,” Effie explained, “is find your people. If you’re a strawberry, you need to find a cake. If you’re salt, you need to find a leg of lamb, or something else that needs salting.”
Kenver did not appear enlightened. His brow furrowed. “And what am I?”
“I don’t know, but you’re something that goes with whatever I am.”
Kenver’s brow smoothed, and he looked bashful as he said, “All right, then. I’ve never cared for lamb, so I suppose that makes me cake.”
“Then I’m a strawberry,” Effie said triumphantly.
“You’re ridiculous, you know,” Simon said, though there was affection in his tone.
“That’s why we love him,” Olive said indulgently.
It was Effie’s turn to feel bashful. This was what he meant when he said he was over-blessed when it came to friends. If only his broken heart would mend. He had to trust that time and distance would continue to do their good work—he already felt more clearheaded than he had just after Brighton. Regardless, this conversation was becoming a little too sentimental, even for him. He turned to Kenver.
“You said you had an important matter to discuss? Shall we withdraw? If it matters, I’ve told my friends everything regarding my father’s illness, and his plot.”
“No need to withdraw. I’ve merely come to tell you I’ve had a letter from your mother. She reports that your father is bedridden and awake only a few hours a day. During these hours he apparently asks for you, and requests that you journey to his bedside.”
That was an unexpected development. “Ought I to go, do you think?”
No one spoke initially. After a few beats of silence, Kenver said, “That is a complicated question.”
“And here I thought it required only a yes or a no.”
Kenver narrowed his eyes at Effie. Effie adored that Kenver knew him so well that Kenver knew he was being glib when glibness was not called for.
Effie had indeed been glib, but only to distract from the swirling mass of sentiment that the summons from Father had stirred up. “You are right. It is a complicated question—which is why I asked it, I suppose. One hears tales of the dying repenting their sins, of estrangement giving way to acceptance and mutual forgiveness and understanding.”
“One does hear that,” Kenver said noncommittally.
“What do you all think?” Effie said, turning to the others.
“Is there anythingheneeds to forgiveyoufor?” Simon asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You saidmutualforgiveness.”
“Well, I certainly haven’t been the son he wanted.”
“So you need forgiveness for being who you are,” Simon said. On the surface of things, his tone was mild, but Effie, having known him since they were boys, could hear the affront in it.
“I think,” Kenver said quietly, “you ought to put aside questions of atonement and try to imagine how seeing your father might feel. Would it provide any sort of comfort toyou? A valuable sense of closing the door on a chapter of your life?”
Effie gave it some thought. It was hard to imagine being comforted by proximity to Father regardless of the circumstances, and what was he doing now, with the plan to change his life but providing his own sort of closing of the door on a chapter? “I don’t think so. But perhaps I ought to say goodbye nonetheless.”
“If you want to, by all means,” Archie said. “But I should like to remind you that your father never saw any need to say goodbye to you when he left you at school over the holidays. He never felt the need to say goodbye before leaving you locked in a wardrobe overnight.”
