gardens are in, it will look a treat.”
Grandfather is wrong. It already looks like paradise to me. Daddy picks mother up and spins her around.
“And a special garden for you,” he says to me, pointing towards the garden beds surrounding an ornate gazebo. “And together we’ll plant all your grandmother’s favorite flowers.”
Grandfather is the happiest I’ve seen him since before grandma died. I can hardly believe we are going to have a house—a real house.
My parents excitedly pore over the house plans with grandfather, making changes here and there, which grandfather doesn’t mind. They speak of adding a nursery to the left wing of the house. Father pokes me in the ribs and asks what I would think of having a sibling or two. The idea is surprising at first, but then I nod. I could instruct and teach a baby. Daddy says he wants to leave the circus and become a gardener. My mother crosses her arms and says she’s not ready to throw in her act as Lady Lark. She doesn’t want babies or for daddy to be a gardener. Miss Kitty purses her mouth and says she’s being ridiculous—that mother has to give up the thrill of highwire act. Miss Kitty doesn’t approve of the circus. It’s always difficult to believe that she and mother are family.
The wide marble tiles inside the house are cool under my bare feet. Workmen install cupboards in the kitchen and plumbing in the powder room. I wander through into a great hall—glossy black and white checked tiles underfoot. I dance one of the waltzes Miss Kitty taught me, twirling and curtseying.
Exhausted, I throw myself down and stretch out on the floor. I imagine a baby crawling across the floor towards me and daddy tending the garden just outside the glass doors.
The dream stays with me all the way to our next circus show at St. Louis. All the way until Mister Magnifico threw his knife at the Wheel of Death. The day daddy died. The day everything turned black.
The house on the island seems not so much a memory but a scene from another life. A life that was not mine. I don’t know what happened to the house. Grandfather never spoke of it again.
14. COPPER CANYON
We make no stopovers on the way to Mexico—the only stops we make are to change trains. We sleep and eat on the train. The train now thunders into the state of Chihuahua. It’s my first time here—the landscape looks foreign, barren. Massive red mountain ranges rise around us everywhere. Rays of burnt orange sunlight spark off the tunnel ahead. The sight of the land disappearing beneath us as the train passes over a long bridge is dizzying.
Brown-skinned people clothed in traditional dress stand at the station staring openly at the carriages, pointing at the carriages that hold the animals. I wonder if any circus trains have ever been here before or if the people have even seen an elephant or a lion. The lettering on the station’s sign says Creel.
The train seems to stall here. Grandfather strides from the train and along the platform.I ache to run out there to him but he has requested to be alone on this trip. Then I notice men here and there barely concealing guns as they watch grandfather. I want to warn him, but he nods at one of the men as though he knows they are there. Grandfather has a conversation with someone and quickly takes an object from them and hides it under his jacket. I realize that the men with guns are guarding grandfather as he steps back onto the train.
The train rumbles off again as I walk the narrow corridor past Henry and Audette’s compartment. Henry wears no shirt, just trousers and suspenders and his black magician’s cape. He chews a pencil, then makes marks on some kind of map. Audette stands behind him with her hands underneath his suspenders. She makes a long lick along his neck up to his ear. I shudder.
Henry sees me and smiles with all his teeth. Audette sees me too, but she doesn’t stop licking Henry. She sticks her tongue inside Henry’s ear. He moves a
Grandfather is wrong. It already looks like paradise to me. Daddy picks mother up and spins her around.
“And a special garden for you,” he says to me, pointing towards the garden beds surrounding an ornate gazebo. “And together we’ll plant all your grandmother’s favorite flowers.”
Grandfather is the happiest I’ve seen him since before grandma died. I can hardly believe we are going to have a house—a real house.
My parents excitedly pore over the house plans with grandfather, making changes here and there, which grandfather doesn’t mind. They speak of adding a nursery to the left wing of the house. Father pokes me in the ribs and asks what I would think of having a sibling or two. The idea is surprising at first, but then I nod. I could instruct and teach a baby. Daddy says he wants to leave the circus and become a gardener. My mother crosses her arms and says she’s not ready to throw in her act as Lady Lark. She doesn’t want babies or for daddy to be a gardener. Miss Kitty purses her mouth and says she’s being ridiculous—that mother has to give up the thrill of highwire act. Miss Kitty doesn’t approve of the circus. It’s always difficult to believe that she and mother are family.
The wide marble tiles inside the house are cool under my bare feet. Workmen install cupboards in the kitchen and plumbing in the powder room. I wander through into a great hall—glossy black and white checked tiles underfoot. I dance one of the waltzes Miss Kitty taught me, twirling and curtseying.
Exhausted, I throw myself down and stretch out on the floor. I imagine a baby crawling across the floor towards me and daddy tending the garden just outside the glass doors.
The dream stays with me all the way to our next circus show at St. Louis. All the way until Mister Magnifico threw his knife at the Wheel of Death. The day daddy died. The day everything turned black.
The house on the island seems not so much a memory but a scene from another life. A life that was not mine. I don’t know what happened to the house. Grandfather never spoke of it again.
14. COPPER CANYON
We make no stopovers on the way to Mexico—the only stops we make are to change trains. We sleep and eat on the train. The train now thunders into the state of Chihuahua. It’s my first time here—the landscape looks foreign, barren. Massive red mountain ranges rise around us everywhere. Rays of burnt orange sunlight spark off the tunnel ahead. The sight of the land disappearing beneath us as the train passes over a long bridge is dizzying.
Brown-skinned people clothed in traditional dress stand at the station staring openly at the carriages, pointing at the carriages that hold the animals. I wonder if any circus trains have ever been here before or if the people have even seen an elephant or a lion. The lettering on the station’s sign says Creel.
The train seems to stall here. Grandfather strides from the train and along the platform.I ache to run out there to him but he has requested to be alone on this trip. Then I notice men here and there barely concealing guns as they watch grandfather. I want to warn him, but he nods at one of the men as though he knows they are there. Grandfather has a conversation with someone and quickly takes an object from them and hides it under his jacket. I realize that the men with guns are guarding grandfather as he steps back onto the train.
The train rumbles off again as I walk the narrow corridor past Henry and Audette’s compartment. Henry wears no shirt, just trousers and suspenders and his black magician’s cape. He chews a pencil, then makes marks on some kind of map. Audette stands behind him with her hands underneath his suspenders. She makes a long lick along his neck up to his ear. I shudder.
Henry sees me and smiles with all his teeth. Audette sees me too, but she doesn’t stop licking Henry. She sticks her tongue inside Henry’s ear. He moves a
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