“You are worried about him, aren’t you?” I said.
“Of course I am worried about him.” She yanked her hand away, seemed offended at the very question. “He is my husband, is he not?” Before I could respond, she added, “And have I not already said as much?”
And yet when she spoke of him, there was so much disdain in her voice.
That same night, as I again heard those disturbing man-woman noises coming from the floor above, I wondered that she could expend so much of that kind of energy on a man she so obviously now held, for whatever reason, in contempt.
. . . . .
There were eleven at dinner: the four of us—Mother, my father, Aunt Martha, and myself—as well as the Williamses, the Tylers, and the Clarences, accompanied by Minerva.
I thought it odd, given Mother’s ostensible concerns over my father’s well-being, but she had decided that a dinner party was in order.
Twin candelabra displaying blue tapers adorned the ends of the linen-draped table, while for a centerpiece there sat a shallow bowl of irises that had had their stems neatly chopped off.
“I hear that Joseph Carson is planning to remarry,” Mary Williams announced cheerily as I picked up the tiny fork at my right and removed an oyster from its shell.
“That is sudden,” my father said. “How long has Elizabeth been dead now?”
“Less than a year,” Mother answered. “Still, I suppose that it is harder for some to be alone than it is for others. Perhaps he missed the companionship.”
“Then he will not return to London?” my father asked, indicating that the servant should pour him more wine.
. . . . .
Soup replaced the oysters.
“Have you received any new letters from Kit?” Minerva asked Mrs. Tyler as I raised my soupspoon.
It was a question I had wanted to ask, but did not want to ask too early in the evening, and now I was frustrated that she had done so before me.
Kit had originally said he would write me every day, but it had been two weeks since I had had a letter from him. Not that I minded, not very much, for I worried that if he did write me daily, he would ignore the more important business of staying alive. It was a recurring nightmare of mine: Kit, out in the desert somewhere, writing to me and never seeing the bullet that would take his life.
Mrs. Tyler’s brow furrowed with worry, but she also looked pleased to have the opportunity to speak of Kit.
“I had a letter just today,” she said. “Kit writes that his camel is still alive.” She forced a bright smile, adding, “I suppose we must count that a fine thing.”
“Thank heavens the camel is still alive,” Mother said. “I think this calls for a toast. Frederick?”
My father called for more wine and, when the glasses had been filled, raised his. “To the camel!”
Then he drained it dry.
. . . . .
Fish course, meat course.
“How have you been occupying your time since Kit’s departure?” I asked Mrs. Tyler.
I felt guilty. I had promised Kit that I would look in on his mother regularly but had failed to do so as regularly as I might have. It was not that I did not like her—I liked Mrs. Tyler, very much so—but seeing her was a sword with two edges. On the one hand, when I saw her I saw him, for they were so alike; while on the other, it filled me with an aching pain, for however much they might be alike, she was not the genuine article. No one was him.
Now when she smiled, it was genuine. “I have taken up croquet!”
“And I must say,” Mr. Tyler added, “she is quite good at it.”
The Tylers taking up croquet, with Mrs. Tyler winning nearly every time, apparently called for more wine.
. . . . .
Salads came, along with cheese, bread, and butter.
“And tennis!” Mrs. Tyler erupted.
“Tennis?” Mrs. Clarence was puzzled.
“Oh, yes!” Mrs. Tyler said enthusiastically. “When we are not in the mood for croquet—meaning when John gets tired of losing—we now play lawn tennis!”
“Lawn tennis,” Mother mused, looking down the length of the table at my father. “You should take up lawn tennis, Frederick. Or croquet. Really, any form of exercise would be good.” Then she expanded her gaze to encompass the table at large. “More wine, anyone?”
. . . . .
Pudding, fruit, bonbons.
We never did make it into the parlor for coffee, for my father’s head had begun to droop, and the others thought it best to call it a night.
“But I haven’t said anything about the book I’m working on yet!” my father said, rousing himself. “I have new stories to tell you!”
“Never fear,” Mr. Tyler said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You can always come by tomorrow and tell me all about it.”
And then our guests were gone.
“I think I may have had too much to drink,” Aunt Martha said, trying to mask a hiccup behind her hand and failing miserably. “I think I had better go to bed.”
“Frederick?” Mother said, blowing out a candle.
“In a while, dear, in a while.” He waved her off. “I just want to finish off some work first.”
“Very well,” she said. “See you in the morning. Lucy?”
“I will be up shortly,” I said.
“Very well,” she said again, and was gone.
“Father,” I said once we were alone, “don’t you think you had best go up to bed now? The work will be there in the morning.”
“The morning?” He looked confused by the very concept, as though variations in time meant nothing to him. “No, I do not think it can wait. So!” He clapped his hands against his thighs. “A cigar, and then work.”
He was nearly out of the doorway when he turned back.
“I am sorry, Lucy,” he said.
“For what?”
“For everything.” He shrugged. “For things you will never know. I am just sorry.”
• Thirty-three •
Thump. Thump.
I had fallen asleep on the sofa in the front parlor.
For some reason, even though I was accustomed to my father working late when “the Muse,” as he put it, was upon him, I had been worried about him when he’d gone off to do so following the dinner party. Then, too, I was hoping to learn what he had meant by saying, “I am sorry.” So, rather than going up to bed myself, I’d lain down with my copy of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, intending to stay awake until my father emerged, and yet sleep had overtaken me.
But I awoke now at the sound of:
Thump. Thump.
My father had put on so much weight over the past two years that now whenever he ate or drank too much, which was pretty much daily and nightly, he ran the risk of suffering an attack of gout in the left leg. Whenever this affliction was upon him, the sound of his footsteps became heavily biased to one side, making me think that he should really borrow Aunt Martha’s cane. It also made it possible to hear him coming from a mile away, as it were.
Thump. Thump.
“Lucy, what are you doing still up?”
As I dragged myself to a sitting position, the open book rolled away from my chest, thudding to the floor. I rubbed the dream from my eyes, saw that the fire in the grate had nearly burned itself away to nonexistence.
“I guess I fell asleep while reading.”
He regarded the book where it lay on the floor.
“Ah, Carroll,” he said. “His use of mirror themes is excellent.” Then he sighed. “Some days, I wish I could make time run backward.”
“If you could do that,” I asked, trying to appear blithe in my questioning, “where would you make time run to?”
It was as though he sobered instantly. “To that New Year’s Day,” he said, “when we found your mother and Helen.”
I saw it all clearly then: he still felt guilty, as I felt guilty, for having been away from home that awful day. Had we both been here …
“I feel so re
sponsible,” he said weakly, then he jerked his head toward the ceiling. “I am sure she blames me as well. Although I sometimes wonder if … actually, I often wonder …”
“Wonder what, Father?”
“It never should have happened,” he said with sudden strength. “And since that day? It has all been such a muddle, such a waking nightmare for me. That baby … There are times when I don’t even know who … ?”
“Who,” what? What was he talking about?
He shook his head.
Then he collapsed on the seat beside me, his bulk making the sofa shake like a small boat tossed by strong seas, the cloud of alcohol rolling off him in waves.
He put his hands to his face, fat sausage fingers covering his eyes.
His peculiar behavior solved no mysteries, only raised more questions.
But I could not press him further, not in his condition. There would be time enough when morning came, or perhaps the next day, or the day after that, when he was feeling better, stronger. So instead I asked the question I knew would make him most happy:
“How did your writing go?”
He pulled his hands away from his face, a gleam entering his wine-filled eyes now.
“It went most excellently! I cannot wait to get back to it, so that I may return to all my characters and their fanciful world!”
But it was as if those two enthusiastic sentences had exhausted him and his hands went to his face again.
“I am so very tired, Lucy. So very tired.”
“Then you must sleep, Father,” I said. “The work will still be there in the morning.”
“Morning … yes … sleep … bed …”
With a great effort, like a soldier trying to catapult an enormous stone over the fortified walls of a castle, he heaved his bulk off the sofa. Almost immediately, he faltered, stumbling back down again.
“Stay here tonight, Father! I can get a blanket for you. You can sleep on the sofa.” I did wonder how he would ever fit on it, but still I insisted, “I can make you quite comfortable right here.”
“Lucy?” Confusion had entered his eyes. It was almost as though he had forgotten where he was, whom he was with. He placed his hand against my face, tentatively felt my cheek like a blind man trying to trace the features of one who might be a stranger.
I covered his hand with mine. “Yes, Father. It is Lucy.”
“Lucy.” His face melted into a fond, wondering smile as he patted my cheek. “Such a good girl.” And one last pat, more serious now. “I do love you.”
It is not an exaggeration to say that I can count, using less than one hand, the number of times I had ever heard my father say “I love you” to me, and yet he was saying it now. For my part, I—who had spoken those words uncountable times to Mother—could tally no more than that in return. It had never been our habit.
But the situation appeared to require it now and, anyway, it was no hardship for me to say, “I love you too, Father,” however unfamiliar might be the constellation of words.
“Very good,” he said in a dismissively vacant tone as though already he was drifting away from me again, his hand falling away from my cheek. “Very good.”
“I will get that blanket now, Father,” I said, rising.
“No!” He nearly shouted the word. It was a wonder that the volume did not raise Mother, but then I remembered that both she and Aunt Martha had enjoyed a fair quantity of wine with supper themselves; not to mention that we had all grown used to my father occasionally being a little …loud at night. “No,” he said more softly, his voice almost a whisper as with one final great heave he extricated himself from the comfort of the sofa. “I must go to your mother,” he said urgently. “I must be with Aliese!”
“Then lean on me and I will help you,” I said, insinuating myself into the space between his torso and arm, pulling on that arm until it came around my shoulders and I could hold his hand with mine, putting my other arm firmly as far as I could reach around his waist.
“Such a good girl,” he murmured. Then he exploded again, “I must go to your mother!”
“Then I will take you.”
It was a snail’s journey from the front parlor to the foot of the stairs. And—oh—those stairs! Twice we had to stop when his breathing became too labored and once—on that favorite sixth step of mine—he teetered, nearly pulling us both back down again. But at last, finally, our pilgrims’ progress attained the safety of the landing.
“We are halfway there, Father,” I encouraged him. “Just one more flight—”
“Wait!” he cried. “I have to add something to my story!”
With a force and speed I would not have imagined was in him anymore, he spun away from me.
“Father! No!”
I turned just in time to see him falter on the top step, his hands going to his chest and then he was flying—I reached out, but my hand only grasped air!—and then he was tumbling down that flight of stairs.
It was a long flight.
I raced after his body, but when I reached the bottom, I saw there was no point in calling for help.
. . . . .
When I had seen Aunt Helen dead in her coffin, I had thought of a book I’d read once and a mother saying her child did not look dead, only sleeping. At the time, I could only find falseness in such an assertion: there had been no mistaking that Aunt Helen was dead. But now I saw that, even though my father’s eyes stared open, a dead person could appear to be sleeping. It was as though he had not died, but rather, had merely left his body for a while.
I fell in a heap beside his head.
My father had always been a cipher to me; in death, even more so. Who was this man whose books were his life? Whose blood was part of my blood?
Beneath the fleshy folds of his face, I could still see the handsome man he had once been.
“Father.” I whispered the word as the tears came.
If he could still speak, he would say we were like Lear and Cordelia, only it was me cradling his body in my arms, entreating, begging him to stay a little.
He was just forty-seven years old. His parents still lived. How could he die?
It was a long time before anyone found us.
I was grateful for that time alone.
Later on, the doctor would tell me that his heart had simply given out: he was dead before he hit the marble floor.
• Thirty-four •
If I never went to another party again, it would be too soon.
I had begun to associate parties with death. I had begun to fear them, for it seemed that, nearly every time we had one, someone died in the aftermath.
Throw a party on New Year’s Eve? Aunt Helen is murdered the next day. Have a dinner party? Father’s heart fails to keep beating the very same night. I was done with celebrations. If I never celebrated anything else for the rest of my life, with people and food and drink, it would suit me right down to the ground.
I resolved that if there were ever again something in my life to make merry over, I would do it in the privacy of my own heart, leaving more public displays for those foolish enough to tempt cruel fate.
. . . . .
Dearest Lucy,
Never have I felt more the pain of you being there while I am yet here. I cannot escape the notion—insane, I know!—that if I had been with my parents when they came to your home that evening, your father would somehow not have died. But such is the hubris we men are made of, that we think our mere presence in a place can forestall disaster. This last is truly ironic since in my time in the desert I have seen that men are more often responsible in causing disasters than preventing them. If these were better times, you would no doubt object to my last statement. I can almost hear you laughing, saying to me in that modern way of yours, “But what about the women? Surely we are just as capable of causing great disaster! You do us an unfair injustice, sir.”
But I know that you are not laughing. I know that these are not better times. I know that these are the worst of ti
mes, made so because we are not together. To think, by the time I received the letter informing me of your father’s passing, the event had long since transpired, the church bells had tolled their sad song, the black cloth had been taken down from the mirrors.
If the world were fair, I would be with you right now. I would have been with you on that dreadful night your father died, even though I do know I could have done nothing to prevent it. I would have been with you in the churchyard, by your side and holding your hand on the day you saw him laid to rest.
No, my body was not beside yours through any of those awful moments. But know this, Lucy: should I survive this desert …“sojourn” of mine—and it is my every intention to do so, camel willing—I shall never leave your side again. And know this too: even when I am not with you in body, I am always, always with you in your mind and in your heart. Indeed, I think that is where I live.
Love,
Your Kit
. . . . .
I fell into a well of sadness.
When Aunt Helen died, I had been devastated. But at that time I had had my anger to hold on to. Then, too, there had been the mystery of trying to figure out the truth behind what had happened to keep my mind occupied.
But this death was different. It was the death of a man who, all my life, I had known only incompletely.
And now I never would know him.
Life was a puzzle to me. Even when you thought you knew what you were looking at, there was always another world beneath the visible world.
• Thirty-five •
Mother had taken to going out in the evenings.
At first, it was a sudden engagement once a month, then once a week, then every day. Walks to the park, never inviting anyone else to accompany her. By the time I did notice, I had also noticed that when she returned from these forays, the color in her cheeks was high, a look in her eye forbidding any questions.
So I asked Aunt Martha.
“Where do you think she is going?”
“Your mother has long since given up sharing any confidences with me,” she said with asperity, as though the fault lay solely with Mother. Aunt Martha in the past two years had grown more crotchety, seeing offense at every turn but too timid to voice such offense when Mother was within hearing. But then her next words belied this tendency toward crotchetiness. “Your mother is still a relatively young woman, Lucy. I suspect it is impossible for us to expect her to remain indoors, in mourning for the rest of her life.”
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