Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

From: “Toulouse Trotter”

To: “Amaryllis”

Subject: No Subject

dear l.t., I had lots of fun too. my mom likes lani and gilles very much and said that the next time we see each other, my dad would like to even come. LOVE, tull (toulouse)

From: “Amaryllis”

To: “Toulouse Trotter”harlequinboy@home.com

Subject: LOVE

“I didn’t want to tell you,” said Lucy, one windswept August afternoon.

She had invited Toulouse to join her in the latest addition to what she called Stradella Fields, a charming Russian-style gazebo crammed with more pinecones and willow-work than Twig House itself, and not far from where Edward had been found in the wayward buggy. Afternoon tea was something new for her, as were many things English. For most of the summer, she’d affected an accent that could only be called a poignant variation on the real thing. Lucille Rose, as she insisted on being called, put a cool face on her passionate interest in the Royals (especially Lady Sarah Chatto), and was surprisingly fluent in the languages of, say, Damien Hirst or Hussein Chalayan. She devoured back issues of Hello! and once, when Epitacio drove them home from a visit with Toulouse’s father, they detoured around the Beverly Hills Farmers’ Market on Cañon Drive — seeing fruit sellers in their stalls, she turned up her nose and hissed, “Look at those yobbish costermongers!”

Settling back on the silk mohair club chair beside the vert de mer fireplace, Lucy took a sip from her cup, then scrunched her brow. “I didn’t want to tell you, but it looks as though I’m going to be living in Europe.”

Toulouse nearly choked on his crumpet. “What do you mean?”

“England, mostly — that’s where I’ll be going to school.”

“But how? Why —”

“When Trinnie and I were in Iceland, we met the Hectares. As in Lord Hectare. They are bloody rich. I got on quite well with Amanda — she’s their daughter. And they asked if I wanted to come stay with them.”

“Staying with them is one thing. Living is another.”

“Then bugger it all, Toulouse, they asked if I wanted to live with them, OK? It’s not like they don’t have room — they just bought Sutton Place for forty million pounds. It’s a bleeding castle.”

“Bleeding or bloody?”

“They’re so rich it’s both , you arse. We’ll be going to Monte Carlo first; they have a cliff house Aunt Trinnie says is très Belle Époque. They’re quite friendly with the Grimaldis, you know. We’re going to see Charlotte, Princess Caroline’s daughter — we’re almost the same age. She’s got a bulldog called Romeo, isn’t that sweet? I so love a little bulldog! And one of Lord Hectare’s best friends is the man whose family makes ink for all the world currencies. Isn’t that brilliant?”

We shall return to the cousins in a moment, for the above scene is not yet done; but first a little context should be provided, as months have gone by that were relatively unaccounted for.

The departed invalid-genius became both muse and, daresay, mascot for Toulouse and his parents, offering his imprimatur to the baby steps that the reborn family took each day. They invoked him often; the boy became a sacred spot in their secret garden, a wistful, contemplative presence that eased not only the sorrow of his being gone but that of their own sad history. Practicing a gentle psychomancy, Toulouse felt closer to him than ever.

Yet as one family knitted together (two, if we include the Motts), another unraveled in the wake of his passage. Joyce emerged from paralysis to throw herself into work with manic compulsion. The Candlelighters bought up more ground (all that was left, in fact) at the Westwood park, but awakened more phantoms than were put to rest. For it was no longer the cracked tower that haunted her neighborhood but rather the empty monuments of Olde CityWalk — not to mention the east wing of the main house, where sat the tub in which she had poured water over her son’s bird-like, terminal frame. In the hour of the wolf, it was not unusual for Winter to awaken Dodd on the intercom with news that Candelaria had espied the mistress barefoot and febrile, moondancing about the Mauck with its ghostly incubus of buggy within. When, to break the terrible cycle, the doleful billionaire sold off both vehicles without warning, Joyce took to her bed for weeks.

Each day, she visited his grave, which by late summer was surrounded by others, who kept their respectful distance; she could not bear anything encroaching on Edward just yet. As in Castaic, the dumpster tribeschildren were given biblical names, and the Candlelighters (which now included the Palisades lesbians, who had since made Joyce godmother of their son) stuck colorful pinwheels in the fresh plots, with tiny name-banners attached. Whirligigs spun in the wind, and Dot thought them a welcome addition, even though she knew they brought much grief to the eldest Trotter, whose visits to his own humble memorial had for the most part quit. Her sister Ethel said it was a family affair and to stay out of it, which she did.

Among Edward’s papers was an epigram the boy had lifted from the pages of his Roman middle-namesake (a name bestowed by his grandfather); he had pasted it on a photo-montage of stones like an epitaph. Joyce thought the text to be morbid, but dutifully had a plaque engraved and set in the ground — a guilty compromise for having betrayed his dream of anonymity:

EDWARD AURELIUS TROTTER 1990–2001

“Soon you will have forgotten the world, and soon the world will have forgotten you.”

After a few months, the old man returned to the park and for the first time attended his grandson’s grave. He was disgusted by its meagerness. The tacky windmills whirred in the periphery of his vision, but he refused to acknowledge them. Still, he was moved by the inscription — at least she got something right.

Louis Trotter had actually taken the initial steps of filing a suit to disinter the boy and bring him “home”—but the lawyers (if one can imagine), not to mention Katrina, were strongly opposed. Trinnie even brought their old friend Dr. Kindman to bear and warned her father flat-out that she would never speak to him again if he dared follow through with such an action. Besides, she asked, where would Edward be traveling but to another empty field? She had a point. After all these years, the great patriarch couldn’t decide on a memorial for himself, let alone for his grandson. What it came down to, then, was pride and entitlement. In life and in death, it seemed always to come to that.

He began bringing the boy flowers. One afternoon, he even trod the Candlelighters’ turf for a closer look at the “charity cases.” Mr. Trotter clasped his hands at his lower back, clucking and chuffing in largo. How freakish and asinine! he thought. Selfish devil-woman.… He kicked himself for having hired her in the first place — none of this might have happened! But then Edward mightn’t have happened, either. His lip began to tremble with the sadness of it.