"As much as you might not appreciate geometry, you do have to admit Euclid was a genius, and it's a worthy subject to be studied. Kepler said that even God himself used geometry as a model in creating the world.* Imagine that! Discovering the very essence of how God fabricated the world together. It's absolutely fascinating."
"Shhh..." Anne said, stopping at the top of the hill and placing a hand on Gilbert's stomach to still him.
Gilbert turned to her, feeling a pang of annoyance. In recent weeks Anne had become more whimsical and dreamlike than normal-and that was saying something. Unlike their usual combative debates, there had been countless times when he felt that she were not computing what he was saying, and beyond that, not listening at all. It was as her mind had floated into another sphere, right smack in the middle of their conversations, and unless he said her name countless times, she would go on staring out across the field, out the window, dazing at a wall-anything was a distraction. When she would finally come to, she would not even have the remorse to apologize. It was aggravating.
"Well, what?" Gilbert said, trying his best to apply the very greatest of gentlemanly patience his father had instilled in him. It was becoming increasingly more toilsome and unrewarding when in the often nonsensical realms of women.
Her small white face was the picture of still contemplation-she stood pensive and unmoved, all but her hair, which softly tickled in the summer breeze that gave its last kisses of warmth before becoming evening. The sun lay low and lazy, twinkling like mirrors upon the distant sea below them. It's orange hue embalmed the fields of flowers that lay in descending expanse, each bud swaying softly in synchronized song until they dissolved into a distant mix of sunset and shore.
"Can't you hear them? The lupines?" Anne said softly.
Gilbert listened reluctantly. He supposed he could hear something like shushing as the breeze combed through the fields. It was nice, in a calming sort of way.
"Do you know the story of the Lady Lupin?"** Anne said.
"Sure. Everybody knows it. The woman who wanted to make the world a more beautiful place, so she planted lupines all over the Island, and every year they spread more and more beauty. And ever since, she's been known as the Lady Lupin. Now, did you hear what I said about Kepler-"
"But did you know that she passed on a message to the flowers themselves?" Anne said quietly, as if she were afraid to interrupt them.
Gilbert looked at her with a tight jaw.
"She told them to spread as a reminder to all that beauty still remains in the world, lest they forget. They were to be a symbol that goodness presides, year after year, and not only presides, but grows. And so they sing their song every summer, 'Remember, remember, remember,' so that we shall never forget."
Gilbert stood mystified as a tear glided down Anne's cheek. In his shock and realization that something brewed below the surface beyond whimsical distraction, he grabbed a handful of purple and pink lupines from the ground, ripped them out, and handed them to her.
"No, no, they can't be for me," she sniffled. "I haven't been planted yet. But, I know someone you can give them to." Without another word, she left him standing, flowers outstretched, and made her way down the hill towards Blythe Farm.
It wasn't to Gilbert's home she went, but to the cemetery. With nimble steps, she made her way quietly to a stone that was well visited and honored, that bore the name of a man dearly loved and missed, and reflected the day's date of exactly one year prior.
Gilbert felt his heart falter to the very depths of his stomach. Matthew's anniversary. How he could have been so careless, so ignorant, so idiotic, to not only have forgotten, but to choose the hideous subject of geometry as the topic of discussion today, of all days, and to resent her for her absence of mind.
With a repentant heart, he lay the bouquet gently upon the head stone, and took his place next to Anne with head bowed.
"I'll always remember," Anne said. "I'll always remember the beauty and goodness, Matthew, until the day I'm planted, too, and can spread on what you first gave me."
Gilbert placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, and there they stood, until the sun descended for the night.
"...And that's why we give them only to those who've come to the end of this life. To those who leave with us so much love and so much good."
Unnoticed, Gilbert leaned against the door frame. He watched the scene with a contented smile, drinking in the motherly, soft voice that rapturously captured the young audience before her, and the loving hands that tucked and tended so gently.
"Daddy!" The two girls cried from their beds, wriggling under the covers as Gilbert came to tickle their sides and receive their small arms about his neck.
"Gilbert! I didn't expect you to be home so early!" Anne cried in delight. "We've just ended our story time."
He slipped an arm around his wife's waist and gave her a kiss on the cheek as Nan and Di jumped on the bed around them.
"I wasn't expecting to either, Anne-girl." He laughed as the girls continue to dance in delight singing, 'Daddy's home! Daddy's home!'
"I think bedtime is completely forgotten by now," Anne smiled.
After many kisses, tickles, more bedtime stories, and all efforts of coercion by both Mom and Dad, calm was finally restored, or at least enough that the girls were secured back under the covers.
Leading the way to their bedroom, Gilbert wrapped his arms from around Anne's back, stooping to plant kisses upon her neck while she stumbled across the hall in girlish giggles.
After the door was closed, Gilbert continued bestowing kisses upon Anne's neck, forehead, and face, who now faced him and was rubbing his back tenderly.
"And how long do I get you this time?"
Gilbert only briefly paused his perusal. "All night. And all tomorrow, too."
"No," she said in disbelief, stilling his face with her hands.
Gilbert ran his hands along her hips and nodded. "Miss Everett's condition is much improved, and I've got that doctor who owes me a favor to cover my patients for tonight and tomorrow. Being away an entire week is too long not to spend some time at home."
"You can't mean it."
Now released, Gilbert picked Anne up and laid her gently on the bed and continued his affections upon her. "I was thinking we take a day at the shore." He nuzzled a caress into her neck. "The boys have been begging me all summer."
Anne sighed in blissful delight at the thought. "So that means lots of time tomorrow to talk?"
Gilbert paused. "Yes..."
She fumbled at his tie, sliding it off and working at the buttons on his shirt.
"Because I was thinking we would be otherwise occupied tonight to catch up."
A boyish grin spread over Gilbert's face.
"Very occupied, I would think."
The following spring, a brown boy lay peacefully in his crib, forgotten by all but one. For just as his life was beginning, it seemed the natural balance of the world would be made just paces away in the master bedroom.
At the beckoning of their father, Jem, Diana, Nan, and Walter stood at the doorway and watched the scene before them fearfully. A nurse sat beside a pale, unconscious Anne, dabbing at her forehead gingerly with a wet cloth, while Gilbert paced the room, deep dark circles below his eyes.
Gilbert paused to look at the four wide, petrified eyes. His own held the hollowed emptiness of an exhausted man.
"Is mom..." Jem trailed off.
"No," Gilbert said sternly. "But I need you take care to be a responsible young man and watch out for your younger siblings. I can't leave your mother's side. Before you put them in bed, I need you to do one thing for me."
Jem stood silently and obediently, straightening his back. Gilbert thought he looked far older than just seven.
"I need you to pick some lupines from the Valley."
Jem's eyes widened in understanding.
"Go on, now," Gilbert said. "Be quick."
When Anne stirred in the early hours of the morning with heavy lids and damp skin, the flowers were the first thing she saw. Her head slumped back back onto the pillows, eyes glassy. Gilbert sprung to action, hands shuffling over her and checking her vital signs, administering medicine, and quickly murmuring to the nurse for more water.
"You mean it? Truly?" Her voice was thick and weak, and with great effort she searched his face with hope and expectation.
He smoothed her nightgown back into place.
"Truly...but don't leave us just yet, darling. Not yet, if you can help it."
Her lids flickered, succumbing back to sleep. Her mouth twitched in effort of a smile.
"Not yet, I think."
April 10, 1921
Medical Notes
Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
Suppressed appetite and limited mobility; inability to stand. Increased pain in the lower lumbar, morphine administered in three hour spans. Short term memory loss in regards to time and place.
Estimated time: 1.5 weeks.
April 13, 1921
Medical Notes
Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
Acute liver failure. Constant hematuria. Anorexia. Mobility limited to hands and head. Inhibition of speech; communication limited to hand squeezes and blinking. Right facial paralysis, excepting for occasional spasm, once per hour. Inability to regulate body temperature. Too weak to be rushed to hospital.
Estimated time: One, perhaps two days.
There are no blooms this time, but this time it is certain.
Anyone who knew anything in Avonlea knew that a summer day never did pass when a certain gravestone did not have a bundle of fresh lupines atop it. Each evening on his daily walk, the old Dr. Blythe would pick a new batch of flowers and head to the cemetery.
As time went on and the old doctor became too aged to continue the tradition himself, that James boy of his always made sure to help him out.
*Johannes Kepler, Harmonices Mundi, 1618
**My grandmother from P.E.I. told me this story as a child, for there are masses and masses of lupines on the Island, but they are not a native flower to the region. After some google searching, there is some truth to the legend; an English woman moved to Maine in the early 1900's, and spread lupines all across the region because they were her favorite flower. The story was adapted and made into a well known children's story, Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney in the 80's. I'm guessing that similarly, someone liked lupines and planted them on P.E.I., and because they are an invasive species they spread everywhere. Nonetheless, the tale still holds a lot of nostalgia and magic to me.