Some drabbles about Julia and Richard. I don't own these characters – Terrance Howard does. To Have and to Hold is a novel by Mary Johnston. I Sing the Body Electric is a poem by Walt Whitman. I have shamelessly borrowed it for my own purposes. Feedback is adored.
On her way back downstairs she passes the bookshelf on the landing. Lingering a moment, her fingers caress the spine of a thick anthology of American poetry. It's the only volume they have in the house since her mother died. Since the door-to-door salesmen understood that it was best not to call here.
Pop never did see the value in books, which is why they made such great hiding places. The blue encyclopedia contained the few letters her brother sent. They were never more than a few lines: Hey, sis. Safely in France. On leave for a few days. Looking forward to a drink and a decent meal. Tell Pop I got a great story for him when I get home. Don't take any wooden nickels! Love, Freddie.
For some reason she felt compelled to place another type of correspondence –a telegraph - inside the cover. Dear Mr. Sagorsky. We regret to inform you…
The worn copy of To Have and to Hold used to live beside her bed, in the days when Douglas wrote her poems and promises on scraps of rose coloured paper that still bore the initials of his dead wife. Pop never found them, thank God. He didn't hold with sentimentality. Five years later the book still gaps in the places where his words were ripped out from between the pages. It moved from her bedroom to the landing; her treacherous heart could not leave it outside in the trash, where she had flung it the day she heard about his engagement.
She knows she shouldn't do this now- not when Tommy is waiting for his breakfast, and the coffee needs brewing – but the urge is overwhelming. His absence is felt so keenly that she wonders how she's managed without him all this time, day after day, trapped in this house. The book slides quietly from the shelf and she runs her hand reverently over the gilded letters on the cover. The tiny lace-curtained window above sheds light on a yellowed, dog-eared page that she reads slowly, though she knows the verse by heart.
The expression of the face balks account;
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face;
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists;
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees—dress does not hide him;
The strong, sweet, supple quality he has, strikes through the cotton and flannel;
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more…
Her eyes fall to the other side of the page to the pocket of wax paper she fashioned. Carefully she turns it over and the petals of a lily and a rose fall like feathers into her hand. She wonders once again where he is, and if he knows how deeply she loves him.