Page 90 of The Phoenix Bride
“Ah, you should be crueler,” he replies, and I sigh. “You are permitted some comfort in avoiding another’s misfortune. It is a pillar of humanity.”
“Call me a beast, then,” I tell him.
He gazes across the crowd. “It is a horrid thing,” he says. “All that has been lost.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Is it possible for us to return to the way things were?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Perhaps it will be better if we do not.”
To that, he has no response. We continue to walk in silence. There is enough around us to keep us distracted. There are the sounds of the crowd: gasping, praying, prurient laughter. There are children playing within the creaking shells of the gutted houses. There are gulls shrieking as they swoop toward theThames. Life continues, as it always will; it doesn’t matter how much has been destroyed. London will always survive, despite what it has lost.
—
By October, the city is rebuilding. I am not. When I walk the streets, they are crowded with scaffolding, beams bursting from the ground like saplings, people scurrying across them like aphids. Bricks and mortar, wood and tile. London is stitching itself together.
Work continues. Life continues. I continue, in a half-dream haze, unchanging and unaware. The events of the previous summer feel almost imaginary. Some days it is as if Cecilia never existed; some days, there comes a knock on the door, and I open it expecting it to be her. Perhaps I am mourning her, but it doesn’t feel like grief. I grieved Manuel, and I grieved my father. This feels like impatience, except hollow, pointless: waiting for something I fear will never come. From the moment I last left Samuel Grey’s house, I have been telling myself I will never see her again. I must tell myself that, I must expect her promises to be false. But sometimes I remember the determination on her face when she promised to return—and I am tempted, for a moment, to believe otherwise.
In November that year, Sara marries Joseph Alvarez. The ceremonies are small, as they must be in our community. We are less than fifty families, all in all. It is well known that Sara and I were once together: At the wedding, some look upon me with pity, presuming I must be jealous. I am not. But after the contract is signed, the prayers are made, and we return to Sara’s home for celebration, I find myself momentarily despising her and her new husband. I cannot look at them; they seem to blindme. Sara is radiant in a gown of turquoise silk, beads of gold wrapped in her hair. Joseph is just as handsome, near a decade younger than his new wife, with a sprawl of brown-red hair and a beard that curls wildly around his chin. He looks at Sara as if she is summer itself, come to keep the cold outside at bay. I watch them watch each other, and something inside me aches.
Leaving the room, I go outside to sit on the front steps of the house. It is almost dark. Inside, the candles are lit; squares of orange cast by the windows glow and sputter on the cobbles in front of me. There is something strangely violent about the movement of the light. It almost seems as if the building behind me is on fire.
Sara emerges from the front door and sits down beside me.
“You will ruin your dress,” I tell her.
She shrugs and pats her skirts. “It can be cleaned.”
I look back to the street. In the house opposite hers, a hazy figure passes across the upstairs window.
“You are upset,” she says. “What’s wrong? Joseph thinks you are jealous of him, but we both know that isn’t true.”
“I am glad you are happy,” I say.
“Of course.”
“I only…I wish I was happy, also.” I groan, scrubbing my face with my hand. “Pardon. I have had too much wine, I think.”
Sara watches me in silence, frowning. Then she says, “You were like this, also, when Manuel died.”
“Yes.”
“You miss—this person. The one you told me you loved.”
“Yes.”
“Are they dead?” she asks.
“No. She isn’t dead.”
“Will she come back?”
“She…” I sigh. “I don’t know.”
Sara squeezes my shoulder and stands, offering me her hand. “Come,” she says. “This is not a night for sorrow. Drink more wine, if need be, and speak to my husband. Put his fears at ease. You could be good friends, I think.”
I take her hand and stand. “Thank you, Sara.”
