Chapter 19: Giving It Back

The double doors opened again while the applause was still going.

It stopped in pieces, table by table.

Harvey stood in the doorway in a dark overcoat with two moving men behind him.

They were carrying something four feet wide, wrapped in grey blankets and tied with straps.

I knew what it was before anyone said a word.

"I told you to stay home," I said.

My voice came out thin.

He crossed the white floor with every head following him.

His hair was uncombed, and he had not shaved, and he was breathing.

"I know," he said. "Grandfather texted me the first minute. I'm sorry. I couldn't let you do this without it in the room."

He turned to the movers.

"Set it on the easel. Next to the pencil one."

They lifted the bundle onto the stage as carefully as if it were asleep.

Harvey took the blankets off himself.

The Lighthouse Fox stood under the spotlights in its heavy frame.

A red fox on a rock at dusk.

A single yellow window in a white tower.

Under the brass lamp that lit it, the thumbprint of burnt sienna still showed, in the lower right corner, half under the mat.

Beside it on the easel, the pencil study of the same fox leaned against the frame, with its tiny paw print.

The room made a low, stunned sound.

Harvey took a step toward the microphone, and I thought he would ask me for something.

He picked it up in a hand with a bandage on it.

"My name is Harvey Lowell," he said. "Some of you have seen my face this month."

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