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they woke up Charles . . .
“You can’t ask me to do this.”
Thom let out a relieved breath. Here was the domineer-
ing man he knew. Even though they’d never gotten along, Thom
realized he depended on the stability of his father’s power.
Heeled footsteps echoed off the marble floor of the office,
slow and uneven, as though the woman were walking around the
room, examining it. “Willingly give one, or be stripped of all. Your
decision. You agreed.”
When Thom’s father spoke again, he sounded as broken as
Thom had felt since Charles had gotten sick. “I’ll make the
arrangements.”
“There’s a good boy,” the woman said.
Thom barely made it around the corner before the office door
opened. Unsettled and unable to ask his father what the con-
versation had been about, Thomas dragged his own pillow into
Charles’s room and slept on the floor, counting Charles’s breaths
until he finally fell into sleep.
The next morning Thom awoke with a pounding headache to find
Charles leaning over the bed, grinning slyly at him.
“Had yourself a bit of a bash last night, I see.”
Thom groaned, swatting ineffectively at his brother. But
secretly he was thrilled, feeling lighter in spite of the pain. With
Charles awake and teasing, it was going to be a good day. A
hopeful day. “I heard some new ragtime,” he croaked. “I think I
remember enough to play it for you.”
“Boys,” their father interrupted from the doorway.
Charles raised an eyebrow quizzically, and Thom rubbed at
his own forehead, renewed unease washing over him. If his father
was here, that meant that last night hadn’t been a dream.
