(Thank you so much for the lovely reviews of that last chapter. I enjoyed writing it so much, and I'm glad you enjoyed reading it, too! This one probably will only make sense if you read the chapter to which it refers, because I've picked a lot of details from it. Hope you like it!)
A Fortuitous Concatenation of Atoms
"God wouldn't let Mother die, would he, Susan?" asked a white-lipped Walter, looking at her with the grave intentness that made it very hard for Susan to utter her comforting lies. She was terribly afraid they were lies. Susan was a badly frightened woman. The nurse had shaken her head that afternoon. The doctor had refused to come down to supper.
- Anne of Ingleside, Chapter 25
He felt like he was alone in the bedroom. Anne's shallow breaths and her occasional crackling, rumbling coughs were the only signs that he wasn't alone. But she couldn't talk to him, couldn't help settle his mind.
He knew there was nothing he could do but try to keep her comfortable. And in all reality, the nurse could have handled that. But he wasn't going to leave her side, no matter what delicacies Susan had prepared to try to entice him to come down.
Twice before he had thought he would lose her, first at little Joy's birth, then at Shirley's. From Joy's birth she had recovered quickly, at least physically. The loss of the baby had left its marks on both of their hearts, but Anne, far stronger than either of them had known before, had pulled herself up. After Shirley was born, Gilbert had watched helplessly for weeks, wondering if his wife could possibly regain her strength after the exertion of the difficult pregnancy and the even more difficult delivery. But she had, and had lived to add yet another blessed baby to their home.
But neither previous experience compared to the one now before him. How many patients had he lost to pneumonia that year? Enough that he knew there were few treatments that would help. Never before had he felt so helpless. Hadn't he wanted to be a doctor so he could fight illness? And now he couldn't even fight it well enough to save his beloved wife.
He watched her as she lay in the bed they had shared for so many years. To think that at one time losing her to someone else had been his greatest fear! It was nothing to the feeling of thinking he would lose her forever.
Such a thing seemed impossible. She was too full of life, with too much life left to live. How fair would it be for their children to grow up without her, as she had grown up without her parents? But it would be worse for their children, Gilbert thought miserably, because they had known what it was like to have a loving mother. How would they manage without her? How would he manage without her?
He exchanged the cloth on her forehead with a new, cold one, the old one left warm from her burning skin. Then he dipped the old cloth in cool water and dabbed it along her neck and arms. Her body shivered in response before she coughed again, the rattling sound breaking his heart.
He scooted his chair closer to the bed and took Anne's hand again, her pale skin soft against his. Her fingers curled against his, but there was no pressure. He had never seen her so weak
Could it have been only days earlier when she had glided into his office and dropped onto the couch beside him?
"Rilla and Shirley finally went down for their afternoon naps, and the rest ran for the Valley at the first opportunity," she had told him as he handed her a medical journal, marked to an article on which he apparently wanted her opinion.
That had been nothing out of the ordinary; she enjoyed reading up on the advancements in his field, and there was no one he'd rather discuss things with than her.
"What a horrible thought!" she had proclaimed almost immediately upon reading the article. "How on earth could anyone think that there was nothing to life but a lucky combination of elements? What kind of man would write such a thing? Why, how could someone so lacking in human emotions make it so far in life! 'Delicately balanced organic chemistry' couldn't account for dreams and art and all the beauty in the world."
She had paused for a moment to blow her nose and appeared to be ready to launch into a further tirade over Dr. Von Bemburg's proclamations. Then she had studied Gilbert for a moment and upon seeing his twitching lips instead swatted him with the journal in her hands.
"You are horrible," she had said, trying her best not to smile — and failing at the attempt. "Why must you take such pleasure in aggravating me?"
"Old habits die hard, I suppose," he had replied, putting his arm around her and kissing the top of her head. "That, and for love of that fire that erupts in your eyes whenever I do succeed. But I did think it was an interesting philosophical perspective to consider."
"A ridiculous philosophical perspective to consider, I think you mean. All the wonders in this world, all the variations in people and … and the pain, and the love! Why, that poor man must not have a single person to care about in the world to believe that life could come down to such basic notions. Just look around and you can see all the evidence you should need that life is so, so much more than that."
Gilbert had known so then, of course, and he didn't need to look any farther than the woman beside him. But he realized it all the more as he watched her feverish and gasping from air, wondering if she had dreamed her last dream, danced her last dance.
It was that last thought, of her last dance, that made him smile in spite of himself, at the memory of later that same night when they went to Charlottetown and she wore that sequined dress. Oh, how he had teased her about that dress before it was finished, questioning whether it was appropriate for a mother of six to wear something as flashy as that robin's-egg blue dress, with its patterns of silver sparkles. He didn't mean it, and she didn't think he did; of course, even if he had meant it she was not one for asking her husband's permission.
But when he had walked into their bedroom and saw her wearing it for the first time, it took all he had to maintain his nonchalant attitude and not sweep her up into his arms.
He couldn't keep it to himself, though as they twirled together on the dance floor at the party, the lights reflecting off the sequins and off the similar sparkles in her gray eyes. He had pulled her closer than may have been considered proper and brought his lips to her ear.
"It is rather gratifying to know I'm here with the most beautiful woman in the room."
She had looked up at him, her eyes coy and smile bright. "Darling, I thought you weren't going to pay me any more compliments tonight."
He could only shrug and smile down at her. "Candlelight makes a man do foolish things."
They hadn't danced any more that night, the exertion worsening the little cough that had been nagging her for days. And he thought she looked a little pale as she rested on his shoulder on the train ride back to Glen St. Mary.
Within a few days, the little cough and sniffling had morphed into something far more sinister. Gilbert had wasted no time in calling in a trained nurse to help out, and for once Anne didn't fight him on his order that she stay in bed. That worried him even more; nothing short of a deadly disease could keep Anne idle.
And now she had no choice but to be idle — couldn't do anything else even if she wanted. Gilbert watched as she opened her eyes and tried to speak. But another round of painful coughs kept her thoughts sealed up inside her.
Gilbert sat down beside her on the bed and helped her sit up against him. The three pillows already stacked up behind her weren't keeping her from coughing, but maybe he could keep the air flowing through her long enough to fight off the infection. The heat of her fever radiated into him, and her wheezing breaths shook him.
She looked up at him, her eyes desperate and distressed as she tried to catch her breath. He held her tighter and said a silent prayer.
"Anne, you've got to fight for me, please. I know you can beat this. You have to beat this. I can't live without you, Anne. And the children …" Gilbert felt tears building in his eyes at the thought of having to tell the children that … that … Or of making that call to Green Gables. But he couldn't think that way. She was still here. "And I'm sure you plan to wear that dress again. You'd never get a new dress to aggravate me just once."
Anne turned again and gave a small, sad smile resting her head against his chest. Gilbert ran his hand over her hair, loose against her shoulders.
"I also distinctly remember you writing me, in the first letter you wrote me from Summerside, that we'd laugh about our funny adventures in old age, Anne. I can't laugh with you if you're not here, you know … I don't know if I'd be able to laugh at all without you. You've got to beat this, Anne."
He felt her nod weakly against him, and he could see a tear glistening against her cheek.
Gilbert spent the next hours holding Anne and recalling those funny stories from their lives together. A few times he could see her lips upturn in attempt of a smile, but more often she struggled to catch her breath.
She fell asleep, heat still radiating off her. Gilbert thought of all the memories of her, but more of all the memories they had left to make. When he remembered her holding their babies, he pictured her gloating over their grandchildren. The flowers of yesterday became the gardens of tomorrow. He could see her sitting beside him before the fireplace, just the two of them again, as it had been in the beginning in their House of Dreams.
Just as it had been years before, there was no version of his future he could imagine without Anne by his side.
"You just can't go, Anne. Nothing will be of any value without you," he whispered into the room, dark except for where the moon had cast its gold light through the window.
The night crept on, and Gilbert listed intently to every struggled breath. It wasn't until the first amber rays of early sun began filtering into the bedroom that he realized that the breaths were no longer quite as labored. He gasped at the realization that there were tiny beads of sweat on her forehead.
He held her a little tighter for a moment, then laid her against her pillows and moved back to the chair still sitting beside the bed. She was still pale, still weak, but he had watched enough patients recover to know she'd be herself again before too long.
He took her hand again and was surprised to feel her squeeze his fingers.
He smiled down at her through joyful tears as he watched those gray eyes he loved flutter open. Then he couldn't help but laugh a little at the words that came from the still-raspy voice.
"I couldn't have you cast it up that I never listened to you," she said with a weak smile. "And I do want to wear that dress again."
