Uxorious*

Grief is a funny thing. A strange thing. It's an emotion so very necessary to life, to live again after death, and yet it can be the very hindrance to living again. All too often, it consumes its victim, swallowing him, pulling him down, down, down inside himself. Othertimes, it's quieter. Deadlier. It creeps inside one before he realizes that the woman he loves will be no more. And Grief lingers there, and waits.

Such was true for Robert Crawley.

He had heard them, but had somehow not understood. How could she go before him? How could his life exist without her? Without Cora.

"Read to her; laugh with her. Keep her comfortable."

That's what they had said, those doctors. Harley Street's Dr Craig, Old Dr Clarkson, all those terribly young York doctors - the young doctors she'd organized and encouraged. Young doctors who, four months before, had given her a large bouquet of white roses when she could no longer hide the fact from them that she was ill. All their words still reverberated around Robert's head, their pale looks of finality still fresh in Robert's memory, deepening the worried creases around their eyes.

"Keep her comfortable."

Comfortable. The word was the enemy of itself, the very idea of only being able to be made comfortable somehow the terrifying prelude of what they suggested would happen next.

How could there be comfort at a time like this? How could he keep her comfortable when he felt so very far from feeling anything of the sort? At a time when everything Robert held dear, everything that Robert knew, understood, wanted, remembered, belonged to - everything - was growing fairer, and thinner, and quieter, and weaker. Everything was slipping away. She was slipping away, though she still lied in the bed they'd shared for so many years, the distance between them a finger's reach.

As one does, Robert soldiered on. In spite of the impossibility of ever finding comfort for himself, he strove to find it for her. He strove to keep her happy. To keep everyone's spirits high, to keep their focus on the years that had been and not on the too few moments that remained. Though it hurt him, tore through him, clawed slowly at the beating organ that belonged to her and her alone, Robert did it. And for her.

He called Edith and Bertie. He called Sybbie. He pulled George aside and reminded him to be sure and smile more, to talk of joyful things. He lifted his chin in warning when Mary took her mother's hand, and spoke too softly, blinking away her sorrow.

"Papa," Mary had said later in the hallway outside the door. "Surely I'm allowed some tears."

"No," he had answered. "Not when you're with her."

Robert was always with her.

It went on like this for a week, for two weeks, for days, hours, minutes longer than anyone thought it would - than anyone thought she would - until at last, Robert found that his family's facade was cracking and chipping away. They were no longer keeping up spirits, keeping happy, the comfort Robert strove so hard to create slowly unraveling at the loosely-bound seams.

It had all become a waiting game. His entire life now seemed to have become a waiting game. A long, cruel waiting game, and the lack of sleep settled in his bones, biting at his joints. It settled in his chest, suffocating his lungs. It settled on his lips, and he found he could no longer smile, though he tried.

He sat with her. He watched her rest; he held his breath, evened it, tried to pace it with the breath of his wife - her thin chest rising and then falling in intervals that seemed unnatural, burning Robert's lungs.

He spoke to her. Early mornings, at the first notes of the earliest songbirds, he drew open the curtains himself, and he went through what their family had planned for the day: George and Grace would strive to find a new cradle; Tom and Henry had a meeting in Ripon; Edith would be calling, she'd be meeting Eric back from Eton soon. He'd list it all, and afterward she'd smile up at him, remark on how nice it all seemed, and then they'd fall quiet as they waited for someone to bring up her breakfast. The breakfast he'd feed her every morning. Every morning.

Until, one morning, when he didn't. He couldn't. Because she wouldn't eat.

And grief began to seep beneath the door of her room. It began to seep inside of Robert.

"It does smell particularly good today," he lied as he stirred the broth. "And we'll ring down for some toast when you've finished."

"No," she had whispered. Hoarsely.

"Here then," he continued, ignoring her, feigning as if he hadn't heard her at all. It was easier that way. Much easier. "Have this swallow, and tell me if it could do for some salt. I think it should."

"No."

"We mustn't let it get cold. After all, I think Sybbie's made this batch."

She shook her head slowly at the proffered spoon. She had drawn in a trembling breath, frowning at the sight of it being forced closer toward her. And as Robert watched her pull away from the broth, something in him, then, something in his joints and chest and lips, broke apart. Fell from him.

"Eat, Cora."

She opened her mouth slightly, but not to drink the soup. To speak. To protest, but he didn't give her the opportunity.

"Eat it."

"I- "

"You won't get better, Cora! If you refuse food, how do you ever expect to get better?!"

And then, and then there was quiet. He felt it.

There was a silence between them, loud and deep and heavy, Cora's eyes brimming with tired, unshed tears. Robert's eyes not, but wide and staring at her, his words echoing back around them.

He watched her mouth move again, the sound escaping it barely disturbing the air around them. But he knew all too well the shape of her lips when she said his name.

That's what had done it in the end; that's what moved him toward grief. Robert realized that now. He realized that all the reading and laughing and keeping her comfortable - in some strange way it was not really for her. It was not for her as much as it was for him.

And he realized that she had allowed it. She had allowed his silly talks and late-night hours and folding the pillow just the way she liked. She had allowed the constant company, the fake smiles and long-winded chapters he read aloud. She had allowed it, for she had known.

Robert's mind was always a step behind his heart. His mind that wanted joy around her, dry eyes, smiles, it was the same mind that over fifty years ago had not understood what his heart understood so immediately.

He loved her.

And as he held her hand and as he stroked her cheek, he felt Grief come over him like a cold rain, the morning outside mockingly bright and blue, a cold reminder that he'd live on.