Bard was silent, scanning the brief letter as if for a clue of how to answer.

“Well?” Roger pressed. “It’s not as if you’re doing anything worthwhile since you left college and decided not to apply to university. And don’t start in about the fire and your ‘state of mind.’ You’re twenty-one. Time to be a man.”

Bard raised his eyes, wishing he could summon the terror of the store filled with black smoke, the stench and heat of furniture up in flames, the screams that turned to coughs that turned to choking, the weight on his shoulder of the boy that he had dragged out to the street, the sight of his own scorched hands, how he had thought his singed skin was ash he could rub off until he saw the raw red flesh beneath—summon it and put it all inside Roger Fox’s head, inside his belly. Put it there without the relief of the rain that had fallen on him as he’d wiped the dust off the boy’s face, saw his eyes flutter and open.

“I’m writing music reviews,” Bard said quietly, feeling that it was a mistake the moment he did, knowing that it was when Roger turned on Bridget. It was what his father always did when he really wanted to hurt his son.

“Look at this useless cunt you birthed,” Roger said with piercing, sadistic precision, each word level and perfectly enunciated in his acquired Received Pronunciation. “But of course I should have known what he’d be. Like births like. It’s a mercy that Cassandra hasn’t turned out a slut like you. Yet.”

Even as Bard winced, he balled his hand into a fist. He kept his gaze fixed on the second button of his father’s suit jacket. Punch him there, double him over, knee to the groin, elbow in the face.

Bridget sucked in her breath, closed her eyes. She would let the insults to her flow past her, Bard knew, but those to her children she allowed in, held, transformed into her own love for them. When she opened her eyes again she hid her steeliness behind her lilting brogue that Roger hated so much. “Bard, what do you say to your father?”

Bard swallowed hard and looked up at his mother, at his sister. Cassandra had her hand on their mother’s shoulder. She mouthed Thank you, I’m sorry at him.

“Thank you, Father,” Bard said, raising his eyes to look Roger in the face. “I’m sorry for acting ungrateful for the jo—for the opportunity.”

Roger turned the corners of his mouth down farther. “Don’t disgrace me, boy,” he said.

Bard nodded, looking back at the floor. “Yes, sir.”

Roger hmphed and then walked to the door, holding his hand out expectantly in Bridget’s direction.

“You won’t stay for breakfast?” she asked while handing him his overcoat.

“Breakfast here?” he said dismissively, even though Bard knew there would have been hell to pay if Bridget hadn’t offered. “I’d sooner eat in the factory canteen.” He gave a last glance at Cassandra. “Learn from your mother’s mistakes,” he said to her. Bridget opened the front door for him.

He walked out into the gloom, turning up his collar as he waited for his chauffeur to come over with an umbrella. Milton’s rain didn’t touch him as he walked under it and then got in the black car without looking back.

Cassandra and Bard gave a shudder as the door closed and then looked at their mother. Bridget stood with her hand still on the doorknob, looking at the toes of her worn work shoes—old beige-and-navy spectator pumps, frayed around the trimming. Cassandra put her arm around her.

“Buck up, Mater,” she said, leading her mother away from the door and into their tiny kitchen. “We know you have to put up with him so we’re not all put out on the street. We don’t believe a thing he says. He’s a monster.”

Bard put the kettle on and then spooned tea leaves into the pot as Cassandra settled her mother at the kitchen table. They had their routines, their way of rebuilding after the storm whipped through, of warming their hands and filling their reserves of resolve.

“You’re not really going to work in that dreadful place, are you, Bard?” Cass asked.

“If I don’t, he’ll take it out on Mum.”

“Don’t do something you don’t want to do on my account, love,” Bridget said.

Bard bent his slender frame and kissed the top of his mother’s head. “I want to do anything that helps you, Mum.” He went back to the stove and poured the water into the teapot. “Drink your tea. Now, if you will excuse me, destiny is calling from my typewriter.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes dramatically.

“I’m off to work in a quarter hour,” Bridget said. “Bard, try to remember to eat today.”

“I won’t,” Bard promised as he made his way to the stairs.