Theo Read Free

mother’s hands, her face inches from his, her eyes starry and dark. It was hard to say no to her when she was close like that, her eyes so big. But later when she’d vanished again he’d eaten a bite of cake, because he was hungry. And nothing happened.
    Colin had then found that cake, where Theo had set it in the scullery, and Colin grabbed fistfuls and tamped cake into his mouth until there was no room, then he found the dogs curled on a sofa and tried to make the dogs eat some. Uninterested, they patiently stayed and allowed Colin to try, but shyly kept turning their heads. Colin stuck fingers in the back of Alex’s jaw like pushing a button to open and managed to get a pink hunk onto Alex’s tongue, but Alex shook his head and the wet cake slumped into a mound now dried and gray on one of the sofas. Theo couldn’t remember which one.
    At the silver car now Theo slides the box out from under, smelling the car smell of things he just knew as car, warming in the sun. He unties the ribbon, flips open the box, crouching. The cake is red, with icing piped in swirls and curves, and words Theo knows are French, and pictures. An icing guitar, and an icing skull.
    He pushes the box out of the way and reaches under the car for the bear, on which a little greasy fluid dripped. It has a ribbon, pink, and a little T-shirt that says ‘rock n roll.’ He stares at the toy guitar fretboard, a small arm reaching out from under the fat black tire. When his mother leaves, he can collect the guitar and put it with the other things.
    It has been a week since the last offering. Things appear in a variety of locations, occasionally on the back terrace, sometimes at the foot of a tree, but mostly on the front steps. Early one morning Theo had awoken and threaded his way down the long stairs and through the back hall toward the house’s rear and across the ballroom, the leaning motorbike’s bright lime-green against the far dark wall, Theo’s head swirling and light feeling and still mossy with sleep, and he saw a man in a tuxedo outside on the terrace laying a bunch of red roses in the middle of the tiles, alongside a black bottle with a cork. Theo walked to the French doors and stood, while the man carefully finished, then noticed Theo. He bowed, and turned, and walked toward the trees and the ocean. Theo walked out behind him, watching the man get smaller and disappear into the dense wiry low forest that stood up against the ocean and the storms and wind and salt just behind the dune line. The man had also left a book that said
Les Fleurs du Mal
. Theo yawned, and his eyes watered. He stood for a while until he began to sway, and wandered back in and up the stairs and back to bed. When he came down later, Colin sat cross-legged on the terrace drinking out of the black bottle and wearing a wide Mexican hat made out of straw.
    He’s got the wrong celebrity map. He thinks he’s visiting Poe’s grave. But champagne cognac, he’s got excellent taste.It’s one of the side benefits of being a priest in this particular temple, eh.
    What.
    Nothing, my friend. Why don’t we go fishing today.
    Sure.
    Theo squinted up into the sun and down at Colin, the hat big as an umbrella. Then Colin had forgotten about fishing and gotten into a sword fight with somebody Theo’d never seen before who burst out of a room, and Theo then spent the day in the trees, reading and listening to the ocean.
    Theo leaves the thick house doors open; the car looks like it wants in, and they are wide enough. He threads his way back through the chess field and then up the left staircase to the second floor, thumping on the carpet, a bleached color with an old design but still sponge-thick. Theo keeps his hand on the banister all the way, feeling the cool red-brown, not thinking much. He reaches the top and turns left, where his mom usually ends up.
     
    His mother often came with gifts for him: animals, candy, things she thought were pretty like rocks or pictures,