A hush has fallen over the table. The guests are enthralled with Father’s story, and Father is delighted to have an audience. Playing the charming raconteur is what he does best.
“I must tell you that it was the longest moment of my life. No one dared move. No one dared draw a breath. And all the while, Gemma played on, taking no notice until the great cat was upon her. She stood and faced him. They stared at one another as if each wondered what to make of the other, as if they sensed a kindred spirit. At last, Gemma placed her sword upon the ground. ‘Dear tiger,’ she said. ‘You may pass if you are peaceful.’ The tiger looked at the sword and back at Gemma, and without a sound, it passed on, disappearing into the jungle.”
The guests chuckle in relief. They congratulate my father on his tale told. I’m so very proud of him at this moment.
“And what of your wife, Mr. Doyle? Surely she heard the screaming?” one of the ladies asks.
My father’s face falls a bit. “Fortunately, my dear wife was tending to the hospital’s charity ward as she so often did.”
“She must have been a pious and kind soul,” the woman says sympathetically.
“Indeed. Not a bad word could be said about Mrs. Doyle. Every heart softened at her name. Every home welcomed her with open arms. Her reputation was above reproach.”
“How lucky you are to have had such a mother,” a lady to my right says.
“Yes,” I say, forcing a smile. “Very lucky.”
“She was tending to the sick,” my father tells them. “Cholera had broken out, you see. ‘Mr. Doyle,’ she said, ‘I cannot sit idly by while they suffer. I must go to them.’ Every day she went, her prayer book in hand. She read to them, mopped their feverish brows, until she took ill herself.”
It has the air of one of his well-told tales, but though those may be embellished, none of this is true. My mother was many things: strong yet vain, loving at times and ruthless at others. But she was not this confection—a self-sacrificing saint who looked after her family and the sick without question or complaint. I look at Father to see if anything betrays him, but no, he believes it, every word. He has made himself believe it.
“What a kind and noble soul,” the woman in the tiara says, patting Grandmama’s hand. “The very picture of a lady.”
“Not a harsh word could be said about my mother,” Tom says, neatly echoing Father.
Forget your pain. It was what I said when I took Father’s hand in the drawing room yesterday, what I repeated again tonight. But I didn’t mean this. I must be more careful. Yet what bothers me isn’t the power of the magic or how, to a person, they’ve all accepted it as truth. No, what unsettles me most is how much I want to believe it too.