The Petty Details of So-And-So's Life by Camilla Gibb Page B

“thanks to you.”
    â€œIt’s funny,” said Andrew, relieving her of embarrassment, “but so am I.”

    Saturdays soon rolled into Sundays, and then began on Fridays, and Emma started taking up more room. Moving from the divan through various rooms, cautiously at first, but with an increasingly greater sense of courage. She wanted to take steps in the shoes of every person who lived in this house; there were so many of them that Emma could be distracted from being Emma for a good long time.
    In Andrew’s parents’ room she became his father—a caricature of the distinguished archaeologist. Pipe-smoking, professorial, scatterbrained, and obsessed with detail. She would comment on the furniture: “I say, old chap. I do believe that is a Ming vase. Notice the detailing around the filibuster and the Cornish hen.”
    Andrew easily fell into the game. “Why, Russell, that is a remarkable discovery. And to think I have lived my whole life with this treasure right under my nose and never been aware of it. How careless of me never to have noticed the mushrooms on the hedgerow. I do believe they are
psilocybin cubensis
,” he would muse, stroking his imaginary, yet ample beard.
    In the kitchen Emma played Andrew’s mother. “Mary,” she would gesture to her servant. “Do find me the egg beater so I might whip up a lovely Stilton soufflé for my charming family.”
    â€œHere you are, madam. I just polished it this morning.” Andrew would curtsy, handing Emma a piece of fine silver.
    â€œBe a dear, will you, and wash the fiddleheads.”
    In Andrew’s sister’s room Emma became a very spoiled daughter. With all the pink in her room, Emma could not imagine her to be anything but. “Andrew, do get rid of him, will you?” she would say. “He’s such a dreadful bore even though he does have pots of money. I can’t bear to hearhim ask me to marry him and wave that horrendous crown jewel in front of my face one more time. And by the way,” she said, her expression brightening, “what’s happened to that chum of yours from the academy?”
    â€œBecks, you
are
difficult to please,” Andrew would chide. “I don’t think I can afford to lose any more of my mates to you. You have your wicked way with them and then—off with their heads. You’re like a praying mantis, devouring your lovers in turn.”
    â€œPoor Andrew,” Emma would say. “At least I have love and admiration, which is more than I can say for you, dear brother.”
    Andrew didn’t respond to that and Emma feared that she had perhaps taken the game too far. She ran out of the room and into the next one. The guest bedroom. Of course, this was the room of ghosts. There has to be one, doesn’t there? The Dead Baby Brother’s room—the still-birthed, or murdered, or simply self-suffocated little boy whose presence would forever linger and haunt. The parents, who had decorated the boy’s room while he lay in utero, still, twenty years later, could not bear to use the room for any other purpose than to hold a space in which the Dead Baby Brother’s name could never be mentioned.
    â€œAndrew?” the Dead Baby Brother would call out.
    â€œTiny Pip?” Andrew would ask cautiously. “Can it really be you?”
    â€œIt is I. Your Dead Baby Brother.”
    â€œOh, how I have longed for you my whole life, Tiny Pip. Spoken to you as if you were alive. It is as if a part of me has always been missing. Thank God, at last, you have spoken. Now I too may die in peace.”
    â€œRush not toward my light, brother. Live long and prosper. Be fruitful, fanciful, and multiply. Fare thee well, dear brother,” he said waving, fading, fading, fading from sight, leaving Andrew open-mouthed and saddened. Emma had obviously hit a nerve. There were secrets somewhere in this house.

    â€œAnd you?”