Invisible, as Music

by Caren J. Werlinger

  “Why didn’t you say something before?”

  “Because I was just a companion before.”

  Henrietta allowed herself a grudging smile. “You were never just a companion, Meryn.”

  Within a couple of days, the village got the snow cleared and people emerged again. Henrietta drove up to the club for bridge on Thursday, checking to see if the entrance was clear enough for her to walk safely. One of the employees met her at the curb, escorting her inside and then parking her station wagon for her.

  It was the first time she’d been there since the opening of her show at the library. Most of the bridge ladies commented on it, congratulating her, though she suspected they probably hadn’t been so complimentary when they were speaking to one another.

  “Now don’t be like that,” Bonnie had said just yesterday when Henrietta voiced that thought. “If they are unkind, it’s only because they wish they had your talent.”

  Henrietta doubted that, but she appreciated the loyalty behind the sentiment.

  Bonnie had been excited about Meryn’s plans to paint. “I can vacuum behind all that furniture while it’s moved. You be sure and tell her. I want to do a good cleaning in there.”

  Between the two of them, Henrietta felt a little as if she was being ganged up on, but, if she was honest with herself, it was comforting. She normally wanted to be in control of everything at all times, but it was kind of nice to trust that she could let them take charge with this.

  “What do you look so happy about?”

  She turned to see Genevieve Talbert, pressing a tissue to her nose, her eyes red and puffy, taking a seat at her table.

  Henrietta quickly hid her grimace as Genevieve blew her nose and reached for the cards. She considered getting up and changing tables, but that would cause a row, as everyone else was already seated.

  “Just happy to be out of the house after all that snow.” She gingerly picked up her cards, mentally reminding herself not to touch anything else.

  Perhaps if Genevieve had a cold, she would forego smoking. But that hope was dashed as the first cigarette was lit. No matter that it made her cough and hack as if a lung were coming up. That was something Henrietta never would understand.

  “How are things at the college?” Henrietta asked sweetly.

  “Ter—” Genevieve sneezed, and Henrietta recoiled. “Terrible. Some little hussy got herself in trouble and now it’s Jerry’s problem. Not that he—” Genevieve obviously realized what that sounded like. “But he has to deal with it. It’ll probably cost him his promotion. If we ever find out who was behind it…”

  Henrietta made a sympathetic noise. So, Leonard Croson hadn’t told them who informed him. Perhaps he had more discretion than she gave him credit for. More likely, he didn’t trust Jerry not to tell Genevieve and didn’t trust Genevieve not to spread it like wildfire. Smart man.

  “Do you still have that underling of Jerry’s living with you?” Genevieve asked.

  “You mean his new professor? Yes, she’s still living with me.”

  Genevieve tried to sniff dismissively, but her nose was too stuffy, and she snatched her tissue again. “Is she even Catholic? I notice she doesn’t always go to Communion when she accompanies you to church. I thought she might be Jewish or something.”

  “Oh, it’s worse than that,” Henrietta said. “She’s a Democrat.”

  “Are we playing or not?” complained Mary Ellen Greene.

  By the time Henrietta got home a couple of hours later, she was cursing herself for not getting up and leaving as soon as she saw Genevieve was sick. Despite repeated trips to the ladies’ room to wash her hands, her throat was starting to get sore.

  She considered calling Dr. McCourt, but she was still embarrassed over the fuss made when she’d had that spell at the library, and she hated to seem like an alarmist over a simple cold. She made herself a cup of tea and poured a dash of bourbon into it. She would just have to ride it out.

  She thought about going to the studio, but decided it would be best to rest. She stretched out on the sofa with a book and her throw and promptly fell asleep.

  “Henrietta.”

  She started awake to find Meryn kneeling next to the couch, gently shaking her. She was dizzy and groggy when she sat up.

  Meryn steadied her with a hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right? I’ve been trying to wake you for a few minutes.”

  Henrietta tried to speak, but her throat felt as if it were full of jagged glass. “I think I’ve caught a cold. Don’t want to make you sick.”

  “Don’t worry about that. Would you like some hot soup?”

  Henrietta shook her head. “Just bed, I think.”

  She struggled to her feet, too shaky to argue when Meryn insisted on following her to her room. She allowed Meryn to lay out her nightgown and turn down the bed while she brushed her teeth and took some cold medicine.

  “I’m going to leave your door open just a little bit, Henrietta.” Meryn backed out. “Please call me if you need anything.”

  Henrietta just nodded. She nearly gave up and called for help to unbuckle her braces. Her hands were shaking so she could barely grasp the straps, and her muscles were like mush. At last, she fumbled her way out of them, but she gave up trying to get changed. Wearing only her chemise and underpants, she slid between the covers. She’d started to shiver, and her eyeballs burned hot behind her lids when she closed her eyes. It was going to be a long night.

  Ryn sat up in bed reading, her door also open wider than usual. She kept getting up, tiptoeing to Henrietta’s room to listen. Everything seemed to be quiet. It was about midnight before she turned out the light and crawled into bed.

  She had no idea what time it was when some noise startled her awake. She sat bolt upright in bed, listening. There was a kind of moan. Leaping out of bed, she ran to Henrietta’s room and pushed the door open to peek inside.

  It was impossible to make anything out in the dark, but Henrietta’s breathing was a ragged whistle. Ryn flipped on the hall light to partially illuminate the bedroom and crept to the bed. Henrietta didn’t stir. Ryn laid a hand on her head. She was burning up with fever.

  “Shit.”

  Ryn knelt there for a moment, uncertain what to do. She knew Henrietta hated asking for help from anyone, but her breathing sounded bad.

  Ryn hurried to the desk and clicked on the lamp there. The Rolodex was, thankfully, neatly arranged in alphabetical order, and she found Dr. McCourt’s number. The dial seemed to take forever to rotate through the numbers.

  “Dr. McCourt?” she said quickly when he answered sleepily. “This is Meryn Fleming. I live with Henrietta Cochran.”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding immediately more awake.

  She hastily explained the situation.

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Ryn yanked on jeans and pulled a sweatshirt over her ratty sleeping shirt. She had the front door open for him when he arrived, bag in hand. He hurried through to Henrietta’s room where he retrieved his stethoscope to listen to her lungs.

  “Henrietta? Henrietta!”

  Her eyes opened, but she didn’t answer.

  “Help me get her to my car.”

  He tugged the sheet loose and swaddled it and the blanket around Henrietta, plucking her up as if she weighed nothing. Ryn grabbed his bag and followed him, sliding her bare feet into her boots and pulling the door shut behind her.

  She opened the back door of his Buick so he could place Henrietta inside. Ryn got in next to her. He started the engine, quickly backed out of the driveway, and roared down the street.

  Ryn wrapped an arm around Henrietta, cradling her tightly so that she wouldn’t slide around on the slick leather. Dr. McCourt maneuvered around to the hospital’s ambulance bay and braked to a hard stop. Without waiting for a gurney to be brought, he picked Henrietta up again and carried her inside, Ryn on his heels.

  The small emergency room waiting room was empty in the middle of
the night. A handful of nurses rushed out to greet Dr. McCourt, ushering him and Henrietta through a set of swinging doors. One nurse threw out a hand to block Ryn.

  “You’ll have to wait out here.”

  Ryn stood there, watching them through the small square of glass in the door until they turned a corner out of sight. A clock on the wall read two-thirty. She dropped into a hard plastic chair along the wall and fidgeted.

  By three-thirty, she was pacing circles around the waiting room, but there had been no word. She had no idea if any of the staff even knew she was out there. She went to the window, but no one was at the desk. She knocked on the glass; no one responded.

  She zipped her jacket and laced up her boots. Outside, a half-moon lit the way as she walked the empty village streets. No cars passed her on the country club road, and the house was as she’d left it. Sleep was out of the question. She figured she’d just have to wait until daylight to call the hospital and get information.

  She left the lights off and opened the curtains covering the picture window. Sitting in her chair, she watched the night and waited. And thought.

  The fear that had gripped her—that still gripped her—when she found Henrietta so helpless, so fragile—it had shaken her. Against her will, she found herself imagining the worst. She pushed to her feet and nearly went back to the hospital, but what was the difference between waiting here and waiting there? If she couldn’t be with Henrietta, she’d at least feel closer to her here. She stood in front of the window, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

  I love Henrietta.

  She had to accept that truth. But where was the line between loving someone and being in love with her? She had no idea.

  She sat down again, and must have drifted off, because the ring of the doorbell scared the crap out of her. She ran to the door to find Dr. McCourt standing there.

  “I didn’t mean to abandon you,” he said, looking exhausted.

  “Come on in. Coffee?”

  “Sounds good.”

  He hung his coat up and followed her into the kitchen. She quickly made a pot of coffee and poured two cups, forgetting she didn’t like coffee. His silence while she worked frightened her, but she couldn’t make herself ask.

  When she set a steaming mug in front of him and sat, he finally said, “I think she’ll be all right. We’ve got her on antibiotics and oxygen.” He paused to take a drink, and she wondered how he wasn’t scalding his tongue. “Henrietta knows better. Her colds always turn into bronchitis at best, pneumonia at worst. She should have called me right away.”

  “I think she just got sick yesterday afternoon. Someone at the club, she said.”

  He nodded. “I’m going to keep her in over the weekend, until she can breathe easily on room air. She’ll need a few things, if you can bring them to her.”

  “Of course. I’ll do it this morning.”

  He drained his cup. “She’s in room 114. Tell the nurses I instructed you to come, even if it’s not official visiting hours.”

  “Thank you.”

  She accompanied him to the door.

  “Tell Henrietta I’ll be by later today after my office hours to check on her.”

  “Okay.”

  She waved him off and thought about trying to get some sleep, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to. She did call Beverly’s office number and left a message that she wouldn’t be in.

  Going to Henrietta’s room, she flipped on the light. She made a mental note to try and get the sheet and blanket back from the hospital.

  “What will she need?”

  Her back and leg braces were lying next to the bed, where Ryn supposed they sat every night. She placed them on the bed and turned to the dresser. Underwear, probably her own nightgown, real clothes for the day she was discharged.

  It felt incredibly intimate to be going through Henrietta’s closet, through her drawers. She laid things on the bed to be packed in a bag. In the bottom of the underwear drawer, her fingernails scraped against something that sounded like glass. She shifted the undershirts aside to find a framed photo.

  Feeling slightly guilty at snooping, she tugged it free and held it under the lamp. Two teenage girls, laughing with their arms around each other, stood in front of a house Ryn didn’t recognize. Even in black and white, Una was very pretty, but Ryn stared, transfixed, at Henrietta. Her dark hair gleamed in the sun, her face—full and soft and unlined—stared back with eyes that Ryn recognized. It must have been summertime, because both girls wore shorts and sleeveless blouses. They could have been poster girls for the 40s.

  Henrietta’s legs were long and slender and shapely. Her young breasts were outlined under her blouse, tucked in to show off a narrow waist, and her shorts hugged her hips.

  She was beautiful.

  She turned the photo over to see if it was inscribed with a date or place. Instead, she saw, written in an elegant hand, a poem.

  This World is not Conclusion.

  A Species stands beyond —

  Invisible, as Music —

  But positive, as Sound —

  It beckons, and it baffles —

  Philosophy — don’t know —

  And through a Riddle, at the last—

  Sagacity, must go—

  Ryn dropped to the bed, holding the photo. Tears welled up from nowhere, and she didn’t try to stop them. She cried for Una’s death and the life she and Henrietta never got to have together. She cried for the tribulations of the girl in the photo, for everything Henrietta had been through, the unfairness of it all. And she cried for herself, though she wasn’t sure why.

  Chapter 17

  There was nothing that aggravated Henrietta more than being treated like an invalid—especially when she was. Without her back brace, her weakened trunk sagged sideways, which made it even harder to breathe, but the brace was uncomfortable to wear for hours when she was stuck in this stupid hospital bed.

  At least she had her own nightgown to wear. She’d spent months draped in hospital gowns—if she was covered at all—while in the iron lung, and she hated the damnable things. It was slightly mortifying to realize Meryn had gone through her drawers—“it’s no different than my going through them to put your laundered clothes away,” Bonnie had pointed out when she came by the hospital and Henrietta mentioned it, but it felt different.

  Meryn had said little, but had insisted on sitting at her bedside for hours. Henrietta didn’t remember most of the first couple of days, as she drifted in and out of awareness. But by Sunday, the antibiotics and oxygen had started to do the job. She was still stuffy and congested with her cold, but she was more than ready to be home.

  A nurse came in to chart her temperature. While the thermometer was in her mouth, Meryn arrived in the room.

  When the nurse plucked the thermometer from her lips to read it, Henrietta said, “You tell Dr. McCourt that I expect to be discharged today. I will not spend another night here.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The nurse left.

  “What are you grinning at?” Henrietta asked, frowning at Meryn.

  “Nothing.” But the girl still had a smirk on her face. “It’s just the first time you’ve barked at anyone. Must mean you’re feeling better.”

  “Hmmmph.” But Henrietta couldn’t hide a little smile. “Good enough to be out of here.”

  Meryn reached into her bag. “I brought you one of Bonnie’s oatmeal muffins.”

  “Thank you,” Henrietta said, holding her hand out, but Meryn snatched it back.

  “Before I give you this, you have to promise you’ll follow Dr. McCourt’s orders once you’re back home.”

  Henrietta glowered at her, but that muffin looked so tempting. “I promise.”

  Meryn handed her the muffin, along with a napkin and fork. Henrietta rolled her bedside table into a more comfortable position.

  Meryn sat on the only chair in the room. “The house has been quiet without you.”

  Henrietta glanced over at her. “I would h
ave thought you’d be enjoying it. Staying up all hours. Having wild parties with your friends.”

  “Did that.” Meryn shrugged. “Wild parties just aren’t as much fun as they used to be.”

  Henrietta sniffed. “I wouldn’t know.” She ate a bite and closed her eyes. “Oh, that’s so good.”

  She opened her eyes and caught Meryn watching her with a peculiar expression on her face. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing is wrong.”

  But there was something in her eyes, something that made Henrietta’s heart beat faster. She reverted her attention to her muffin.

  Meryn picked up her bag. “I have to go enter my grades. I’ll come back in a couple of hours and see if you’ve been discharged.”

  Henrietta stared after her. Her memories of the last few days were fuzzy, but among the clear memories was Meryn’s face, her hands, so warm and comforting, on Henrietta’s arm as she sat beside the bed.

  She jumped when Dr. McCourt entered the room.

  “How are you?” He tilted his head, looking her over. “You look flushed.”

  He consulted the chart and then listened to her lungs again. Flipping the stethoscope around his neck, he straightened.

  “I’ll let you go home this afternoon, but I want you on antibiotics for two more weeks, with a follow-up in my office. No cancelling,” he added sternly. “I know you, Henrietta.”

  She huffed. “All right, all right.”

  He wrote everything out in the chart. To the nurse beside him, he said, “Have the pharmacy deliver this prescription before lunch.”

  “Yes, doctor.”

  “I’ll see you in two weeks, Henrietta.”

  She waited impatiently, picking at her lunch when it was brought. At last, she heard Meryn’s voice approaching from the corridor. She entered the room, pushing Henrietta’s wheelchair. A nurse’s aide was with her.

  Meryn picked up a bundle sitting on the wheelchair seat. “I was thinking.”

  “Now that’s a problem.”

  The aide looked shocked, but Meryn just chuckled.