Royal Tenenbaum bought the house on Archer Avenue in the winter of his thirty-fifth year. Over the next decade, he and his wife had three children and then they separated. They were never legally divorced. Etheline Tenenbaum kept the house and raised the children, and their education was her highest priority. She wrote a book on the subject. Chas Tenenbaum had, since elementary school, taken most of his meals in his room, standing up at his desk with a cup of coffee, to save time. In the sixth grade, he went into business, breeding dalmation mice, which he sold to a pet shop in Little Tokyo. He started buying real estate in his early teens and seemed to have an almost preternatural understanding of international finance. He negotiated the purchase of his father’s summer house on Eagle’s Island. The BB was still lodged between two knuckles in Chas’ left hand. Margot Tenenbaum was adopted at the age of two. Her father had always noted this when introducing her. She was a playwright and won a Braverman Grant of fifty-thousand dollars in the ninth grade. She and her brother Richie ran away from home one winter and camped out in the African Wing of the Public Archives. Four years later, she disappeared alone for almost two weeks and came back with half a finger missing. Richie Tenenbaum had been a champion tennis player since the third grade. He turned pro at seventeen and won the U.S. Nationals three years in a row. He kept a studio in the corner of the ballroom but had failed to develop as a painter. On weekends, Royal took him on outings around the city. These invitations were never extended to anyone else. Richie’s best friend Eli Cash lived with his aunt in a building across the street. He was a regular fixture at family gatherings, holidays, mornings before school and most afternoons. The three Tenenbaum children performed Margot’s first play on the night of her eleventh birthday. They had agreed to invite their father to the party. He had not been invited to any of their parties since. In fact, virtually all memory of the brilliance of the young Tenenbaums had been erased by two decades of betrayal, failure and disaster. Royal had lived in the Lindbergh Palace Hotel for twenty-two years. He was a prominent litigator until the mid-eighties, when he was disbarred and briefly imprisoned. No one in his family had spoken to him in three years. Richie had retired from professional tennis at twenty-six. His last match had been widely discussed in the media. For the past year he had been traveling alone on an ocean liner called the Cote d’Ivoire and had seen both poles, five oceans, the Amazon and the Nile. Eli was an assistant professor of English Literature at Brooks College. The recent publication of his second novel – -- had earned him a sudden, unexpected literary celebrity. Margot was married to the writer and neurologist Raleigh St. Clair. She was known for her extreme secrecy. For example, none of the Tenenbaums knew she was a smoker, which she had been since the age of twelve. Nor were they aware of her first marriage and divorce to a recording artist in Jamaica. She kept a private studio in Mockingbird Heights under the name Helen Scott. She had not completed a play in seven years. Raleigh’s next book was on the subject of a condition he called Heinsbergen’s Syndrome. Chas’ wife, Rachael, was killed in a plane crash the previous summer. Chas and their two sons, Ari and Uzi, were also on the flight and survived, as did their dog, who was discovered in his cage several thousand yards from the crash site. Over the last six months, he had become increasingly concerned with their safety. Etheline became an archaeologist and had overseen excavations for the Department of Housing and the Transit Authority. She taught bridge class twice a week with her friend and business manager, Henry Sherman. Since her separation from her husband, she had had many suitors – -- but had not considered a single one until this moment. That night, Etheline found all of her children living together under the same roof for the first time in seventeen years. The next morning Richie woke at dawn. He had decided birds should not be kept in cages, fed Mordecai three sardines, and set him free. Immediately after making this statement, Royal realized that it was true. Royal dug a hole for Buckley behind the garden shed, and buried him in a canvas duffle bag. Etheline and Henry were married fortyeight hours later, in judge’s chambers. Margot’s new play, The Levinsons in the Trees, was produced at the Cavendish Theatre. It ran for just under two weeks and received mixed reviews. Raleigh and Dudley went on a lecture tour to eleven universities in the promotion of their new book. Eli checked himself into a rehabilitation hospital in North Dakota. Richie started a programme teaching competitive tennis to eight- to twelveyear- olds at the 375th Street Y. Royal had a heart attack at the age of sixty-eight. Chas rode with him in the ambulance, and was the only witness to his father’s death. In his will, he stipulated that his funeral take place at dusk.