Chapter 11: The Ash Tin

Avó went up at nine, and I stood at the kitchen sink and waited.

Vasco came in at ten past with a small tin box in his hand.

It was a cookie tin, blue, with a picture of a lighthouse, and the lid was dented.

He put it on the table and sat across from it.

"I cleaned the stove this morning," he said. "Avó asked me. She said it was smoking."

"Vasco."

"This was in the ash pan."

He opened the lid.

Inside lay a corner of card, the size of my thumb, brown at the edges.

Under the scorch marks, someone had written in a round hand:

Daddy promised.

I sat down.

The kitchen was very quiet, and the harbor light came and went on the wall.

"It was from my sister," I said. "It came the week after the loft."

"Your father brought it."

"Yes."

"What did it say?" he asked.

"A year. Daddy promised. Be kind to him, he isn't as bad as he looks."

He took that in without moving.

"She meant you," I said. "She meant you aren't as bad as you look. It was a postcard, Vasco. Yellow tram. She was in Lisbon."

"You burned it."

"I read it once, and I put it in the stove."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I wasn't going to keep a clause in my pocket."

He pushed the tin an inch toward me.

"I heard what he said on the porch," he said. "That you were a placeholder. That the paper doesn't say which."

"I know you did."

"I've been angry about it for three weeks."

"At me?" I asked.

"At him." He rubbed his thumb along the scar. "At me, mostly. I called you that word in this kitchen. I handed it to you and let you carry it."

"It's his word."

"I know."

"I thought you believed it," I said. "I thought you were keeping me warm until June. I thought that's why you touched me."

"Ines."

"And the first night, in the vestry, you said nobody would mistake me for her. And I've never known which way that went."

My voice was steady.

I was proud of that.

"I meant it as," he said, and stopped.

"Don't."

"Let me."

"If it was a compliment, you'll find a better one." I put my hand over the tin. "I'd rather wait."

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