1869
I, Charles Blakey Boyt Muldon, watched Mrs. Blakey’s face collapse when she heard news of Moser’s untimely death. He died sitting up at his desk, and right in front of a client, the messenger told us. It was “a most embarrassing demise,” Mrs. Blakey asserted later, dabbing at her eyes. He was not my real papa, she liked to remind me. He was a false papa. Untrue papa. There were many things I read in the particular way the widow’s face caved, and one was that she never did really love Moser, or if she did, this love was an easily torn shred tethered primarily to his fiscal holdings, all of which, she had just learned, were bankrupted due to inconsistencies of accounting.
“Run along, Charles,” she said. “I can’t bear the sight of you at this instant. Moser is gone and won’t come back.
