Shattered Echoes

by B. A. Shapiro

  The last time I had baked a cake was on my seventh birthday, when Aunt Doris and Uncle Simon had given me a dozen boxes of teeny-tiny cake mixes and teeny-tiny cake pans as a gift. After the third time I coated the bottom of the oven with burnt blotches of lumpy chocolate goo, my mother took the remainder of the teeny-tiny boxes and hid them somewhere.

  This time it would be different. And it was—sort of. This time I only burned one. My final product was a perfectly credible birthday cake—although it did list slightly to the left. I was quite proud as I cleared off a spot on my bureau so Richard would see it as soon as he came into the bedroom.

  Stealing an idea from one of those stupid women’s magazines, I greeted him at the door stark naked, except for a Saran Wrap bikini and a big, red bow. “Happy birthday.” I pulled him into the apartment and took off his coat. Then I took off the rest of his clothes and led him to the bedroom.

  He was strangely uninterested in his birthday cake—until I scraped off the frosting and spread it all over his body. Very slowly and very thoroughly, I licked off every last bit of the dark, sweet chocolate. Moaning something about it being the best birthday cake he’d ever had, he pulled me up to him. Our lovemaking exceeded anything I’d ever experienced. We even had one of those elusive simultaneous orgasms.

  Sticky and sweaty, we rolled apart; I stretched out on my side of the bed, resting my hand lightly on his thigh. The real world slowly returned; I could hear the cars on Storrow Drive and feel the lumpy blanket under my leg. I opened my eyes. “Shit!” I said, sitting straight up. “Isabel—what the hell?”

  “What? What is it?” Richard raised one eyelid, but remained motionless, as if his body were glued to the bed. “Isabel? Who’s Isabel? What are you talking about?”

  “I didn’t say Isabel—I said, ‘What the hell?’ “ I pointed at the bureau. “Look.”

  With great effort, he raised himself on one elbow. “Your cake, my cake …” The cake was facedown on the carpet. It had somehow leapt off the bureau and landed on the floor; there was chocolate everywhere. Richard began to laugh and grabbed me. “I can’t believe we were going at it so hard, we rocked the cake off the bureau! This is one for the books.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “One for the books.”

  I was suddenly very anxious to leave. We cleaned up the mess—as well as you can clean chocolate from a light blue and peach Oriental rug—and headed for the Cape.

  The beach is an odd and wonderful place in the wintertime. Bundled in our parkas, mitten in mitten, we walked along the lonely shore, kicking sticks, climbing rocks, and staring silently at the pounding, frothy waves. We stayed at one of the few inns open off season, and except for an elderly couple and a distracted, haunted-looking woman, we had the place to ourselves.

  We ate huge meals and talked and made love and walked the beach each day. We curled up in front of the fire with our books and went to bed early each evening. The first night I dreamt two men with long beards and children’s pails were burying me in sand; they scooped and they poured until sand filled my mouth and covered my nose. I couldn’t breathe; I woke up screaming about air and suffocation and hairy men with red pails. Richard kissed my tears and rocked me gently as if I were a child.

  Every night after that, my sleep was deep and dreamless. I hated to think about going home. But Monday morning beckoned with its software manuals and contracts and torts. Already nostalgic, we drove north toward the lights of Boston.

  It was late when we finally reached the apartment, and we were both tired and grumpy. Richard dropped the suitcases in the entryway and headed for the bedroom. I noticed a strange odor coming from the kitchen. I stood, rooted in the entryway, knowing I had to go in there and knowing I didn’t want to see what awaited me.

  I walked very slowly, glancing down at the mail in my hand as I crossed the living room. I stopped and dropped the catalogs and envelopes on the coffee table. Then I took a deep breath and walked into the kitchen.

  The smell was horrendous. It was coming from the refrigerator. I grabbed the handle and then hesitated, my fingernail tracing the metal edge. Finally I pulled the door toward me; the smell was even worse. Green-streaked cheese and brown-spotted peppers and milk that had gone bad days before. I opened the freezer and stuck my head in; it was warm. I closed the door and leaned my cheek against the smooth finish. Then I leaned over and reached behind the refrigerator.

  My fingers touched a piece of thick wire. It was slack and swung freely. I grabbed it and pulled; the cord slid through my fingers until the plug rested in the middle of my palm. How could she? I looked down at the three prongs, shiny and pointed and angry.

  I took Isabel to Belle Gardner’s—to the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum—but she didn’t seem to be having much fun. I had hoped it would be a treat for her, a way of making up for my preoccupation with Richard.

  It was a cold, windy day in late March; a day close enough to April on the calendar to inspire thoughts of spring, but a day that in Boston is always gray winter. We walked into the courtyard of Fenway Court—the Florentine palace Belle Gardner had bought abroad and shipped piece by piece to Boston—and were transported not to Italy, but to summer.

  Orchids and nasturtiums and huge ferns filled the garden; the incongruity of their fecundity and the air’s sweetness and humidity on such a day increased the impact of their beauty. I stopped to listen to the water trickling through the fountains and to appreciate the audacity of the woman who had stood up to winter the same way she had stood up to Boston.

  But I could feel Isabel’s restlessness. She seemed bored, almost annoyed with the gardens and the music room and the collections of Rembrandts and Raphaels and Whistlers. She didn’t want to climb the horseshoe staircase, or see the chapel or even go into the Gothic room where Sargent’s portrait of Belle—the portrait that had shocked Boston—hung.

  The only things she seemed to take any pleasure in were signs of the robbery: the yellow police strips slashing between rooms and across corners, the empty spaces where the stolen paintings had hung, the doors with hastily scribbled signs stating “no admittance.”

  We went into the area where Belle’s personal memorabilia were displayed, into a room filled with books and letters and photographs and outrageous dresses. There were hats twice the size of a human head, pictures of Rex—the lion she had walked down Tremont Street—and the two diamonds she had set on gold-wire springs and worn like insect antennae. What a remarkable woman.

  Isabel wanted to leave. But I lingered, reading of the exploits of “Mrs. Jack,” who drank beer instead of tea and became Buddhist in a society that only tolerated Unitarians and Episcopalians. I felt a spot of pressure on the side of my head and braced myself for Isabel’s anger. I held on to the glass case and looked at the hard, sharp edges of Belle’s oversized jewelry.

  But I didn’t feel anger; what I felt was sadness, a deep-down grieving sadness. It was black and deep and shadowy, cavelike and depressed. It didn’t make any sense. Why would Isabel be sad at the home of her idol? What could Belle Gardner have done to make Isabel so miserable?

  I let go of the case and glanced up at the drawings and photographs of Belle: Belle leading Rex on a leash; Belle sitting in the lower branches of a tall tree; Belle waving a paint can as she stood on a precarious piece of staging in front of a half-built Fenway Court. Belle had been different. Strong. Strong enough to do as she pleased and strong enough to laugh in the faces of all who tried to tell her what she should be.

  “Sorry,” I whispered softly; we quickly left the museum.

  17

  March 10, 1885

  It was well past the New Year when the desire for a journal grabbed me strong and true. This desire is quite different from previous desires, for I wish neither family chronicle nor friend. What I desire is a place for my secret life to reside. A place where my true thoughts may live open and free.

  I went to the stationer’s to find a book with strong lock and empty pages with no dates. I shall d
ate the pages myself. I shall write when I wish, rather than when the dated pages command. I shall be free to fill five pages in a single day if it be my fancy. Or write not at all if I prefer. At least I shall have freedom between your covers.

  March 11, 1885

  Your lock is strong, and I think you safe haven for reflections the world would call wicked, but I would call mine.

  What wicked reflection ought to be the beginning? Shall I write how hideous I find the pearl and spun-gold ring Montague gave me after the first time he struck me? Or perhaps I ought tell that the great family founder, the golden silk merchant of fond family lore, Mr. Lyman Adams Davenport, Sr., was really a thief.

  I shall write that I do actually detest archery and think macrame lace to be most dreadful stuff. And I shall tell how vulgar it is when Cousin Lawrence Cabot Adams is unable to keep his mouth closed while chewing his food.

  I laugh as I read these thoughts I call wicked, for wicked they surely are not. And yet I have kept them unspoken until now.

  March 13, 1885

  Although I profess desire to speak openly, I am having much difficulty in doing just that. A lifetime of keeping my thoughts to myself has made it most difficult to speak true.

  I shall tell you I despair of my life. I shall confess Mother Davenport suffocates me to almost unbearable fury.

  Is this all I think? Are these my deepest thoughts? I wonder if perhaps I know not what my true thoughts are. Sometimes I fancy only a small portion have I kept to myself, while the larger number have been kept from me.

  March 14, 1885

  Cook complains that the arsenic she keeps in the back of the pantry has failed to discourage the mice. It is a tedious and tiresome worry.

  April 12, 1885

  Mother Davenport died in her sleep Sunday last. Doctor recorded “old age” as the cause.

  Today she was listed in the Transcript and was buried with all of the tributes proper and appropriate. She always did love a good funeral and would have been most pleased with her own. The hymns and the verses were as per her instruction. So, too, were the pallbearers and occupants of the front-row pews. As she had written, the only flowers allowed on the casket were those sent by persons connected with Harvard.

  Montague was most pleased with the number of people who stood outside Trinity Church in the cool rain. I was most pleased.

  * * *

  April 13, 1885

  After the funeral, the men gathered in the library to smoke and talk of important events. The women retired to the drawing room to make macrame lace. Why cannot women smoke and talk of important events? Why must these things be the sole province of men?

  It must be as Godey’s Lady’s Book says: Women are God’s appointed agents accomplishing their mission through moral influence. Making macrame lace is surely a most moral activity.

  I detest rum cake.

  January 1, 1886

  I have not written in many months, but the advent of the New Year prompts me to take pen in hand. In my memory, 1885 shall always be the year Mother Davenport died, the year my life did become so much more pleasant and free. It has been such joy to be released from her copybook axioms and her sharp nose. All of Mother Davenport’s hideous Lowenstoft china and Derby bisque figures have been removed from the house. I am dreadfully saddened to have to tell you, dear journal, many pieces were broken on the way to the box.

  If only I could be released from Montague’s presence as well.

  February 28, 1886

  Since the New Year, Montague has spent many nights at his club. But yesterday he returned to his rooms. He says he shall stay here forever. He says I shall be the wife he demands or he shall be forced to punish me as is his right.

  I shall not allow it.

  March 13, 1886

  Montague is drinking far too much port. He almost set the house afire two evenings past when he failed to notice the lit pipe that lay upon his mackintosh coat. The reek of burned rubber clings to him and to his study.

  March 27, 1886

  My hand still shakes as I write these words. Montague tried to harm me once more. He came into my rooms on this savage and stormy night in a temper most vile. He was wet and he was ugly, and he cursed me and slapped me and chased me into the corner. I had nowhere to run, nowhere to go. I was trapped by his body and the walls of my room. The odor of burned rubber and horses and liquor was thick around him; his eyes were glazed with anger and drink. I screamed, and he pressed his wet hand to my mouth and pulled my head back by my hair. I bit him and kicked him and I tried to hurt him with everything inside me. Somewhere I found remarkable strength. He roared and released me, then he stumbled from my rooms.

  Shall I never be free of him? Shall his stench never leave me? As the good Lord is my witness, that evil man shall hurt me no more.

  March 30, 1886

  Montague returned home and shut himself in the library with his port and his foul anger. Even now I hear him bellowing and cursing and hear the sounds of breaking glass. Thoughts of my dear father strengthen me.

  March 31, 1886

  Montague had far too much port and slipped on the stair in front of my rooms. I was unable to move as I watched his eyes turn wide and dark, his arms flail in wild panic. Those horrible eyes bored into mine with the hatred that those who see their own death have for the living.

  I shrank back into the corner as his head hit the wall and his body crashed hard into the landing at the turn of the stair. A wide and a long shadow of blood followed him down the runner as he slipped and he thumped with a loathsome noise till he lay in a crumpled and silent heap upon the vestibule floor. I ran down the stairs, my heart beating wildly. I leaned over his still body and placed my hand upon his chest. My hand came away red and sticky and wet. There was no movement, and his head was turned at an angle most strange.

  Then there was much shouting and noise, and Doctor came running. But there was nothing to be done.

  April 5, 1886

  Mary and I stood, the grieving widow and fatherless child, at the side of Montague’s grave. I played my part well, but all the while my heart was singing: I am free, I am free, I am free.

  I cannot believe this has happened. Through his own folly Montague did get himself killed. And through this same folly Montague did emancipate me.

  April 17, 1886

  The police have just taken their leave. They have been here quite a bit since the night Montague died. They have asked many questions and I think are finally convinced I had nothing to do with the event.

  Why should I have? It was not necessary. Montague killed himself with his port and Madeira and his wicked ways.

  May 15, 1886

  My hand still trembles and my heart does fear so. I have been arrested! To my great horror, the police think it was I pushed Montague down the stair.

  I was taken to the station and asked many questions and told I would have to stand trial. Cousin Lawrence Cabot Adams came straight from his offices and talked with the police and then did take me home.

  They are much mistaken. A man in his state did not need to be pushed. Montague did not need me to kill him. Montague did it himself.

  * * *

  January 1, 1887

  Once again it is the New Year that prompts me to pick up my pen. Now it is 1886 that has passed, a year that should have been one of joy and of freedom, but instead has been one of fear and of pain.

  Cousin Lawrence says there may not be a trial. He thinks it shall all be forgotten. Perhaps it shall not come to pass, but neither I, nor society, shall ever forget. I am thankful Mary is so small.

  March 8, 1887

  Cousin Lawrence was unable to stop the trial. I sit for long hours upon a hard bench and listen to lie after lie. I am shamed and know not how I shall see the thing through.

  For Mary. I shall be strong and true for my sweet Mary.

  March 10, 1886

  What folly is this? What nonsense? My shame is turning to anger as I listen to the barrister’s words. />
  I am not the villain of this tale. Montague is. Yet he is portrayed as a man of strength and character while I am the one who is revealed as the devil.

  March 11, 1887

  I beg and I plead, but Cousin Lawrence refuses to allow me to address the court. I cannot bear to keep my silence. I must soon speak the truth or I fear I shall die.

  March 25, 1887

  Oh joy! Oh joy! The jury, too, knew there were many untruths and were unable to reach a common verdict. I am free, and Cousin Lawrence says he shall make sure I remain so.

  April 14, 1887

  There shall be no more trials. My heart rejoices.

  * * *

  April 15, 1887

  It is with certainty that I write that I shall never remarry. The whole world may be commanded by men who think little of women, but inside my house this shall never be.

  A man may live alone with the approval of society, but only a widow is allowed the same privilege. Mary and I are the last of the Lyman Davenports and shall be quite comfortable and content in our small house of women.

  April 17, 1887

  I think I shall go to Wellesley College. It opened the year Mother Davenport died, and if it were possible, she would have died twice to see a place where women learn more than to be attractive to men. I shall begin in the autumn.

  Mary shall also go to Wellesley College. She shall study literature and history and even mathematics. She shall not be educated to be a decoration for some man to display in his drawing room.

  April 20, 1887

  I took Mary to Symphony yesterday. It was her first time, and she delighted in it immensely. She swayed with the music and smiled so brightly. She has an excellent ear.

  It brings my heart such pleasure to see my sweet daughter enjoy herself so. We shall go always to Symphony together.

  April 27, 1887

  Mrs. Lowell Ellerton Ames refused to return my nod at Symphony today. As Mary and I entered our seats, Mrs. Ames and Mrs. Charles Homans Winslow averted their heads and hid their pointed noses behind ostrich-feather fans. They think me a murderess.

  I would not care a fig, but for my Mary. The burdens upon the poor, innocent child do tear my heart so.