EPILOG
COME WHAT MAY
Madeleine gave Ichabod a sense to life. He loved her more than life itself. Soon his laboratory was a room to be forgotten, and the nursery in its place. He built the most elegant nursery you could imagine. It was a grand room with a crib platted with gold and silver and red cardinals painted along the wall. Miniature velvet dresses filled the closet and toys and dolls of all different sorts adorned every nick and cranny of the room. Even with such an exquisite nursery and as our daughter grew older, Ichabod insisted that Madeleine spend her nights in her crib next to our bed.
Each morning, he would dress her in the most beautiful velvets and silks, ribbons and slippers. Then she would sit on his knee while he combed her long, glossy, black hair. And she would giggle sweetly when he sprinkled kisses on the crown of her head.
Ichabod wanted the best our daughter, as did I, including academics. By the time Madeleine was six years old, she knew how to read and write as well as many adults.
It wasn't hard to see that the relationship Madeleine and Ichabod shared was divine. Everywhere you saw Ichabod, you expected to see a black haired little girl with blue eyes right behind him or her soft little hand tucked into his own. You couldn't help but smile when you saw the two of them together. They both seemed like prime examples of perfection, and they were.
One warm summer night after Ichabod tucked Madeleine into bed and she was sound asleep, he came to my bedside and gazed at me as if I was an angel. His eyes were lively and dazzling; sparkling like a sky full of a million a gold stars. And yet behind those sparks of love, he was weeping.
I had been confined to bed for months now. I had no strength left and most days seemed like a blessing if I could make it through without crying out with pain. Many doctors came and visited me, and to them I was nothing more than a mystery. I looked more like a corpse than a woman; My hair hung limp and dull at my shoulders and my skin was white and cracked. Dark circles rested under my eyes and the room reeked of illness. I was dying.
"Melanie," he whispered and stroked my cheek. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms gently around me as if he squeezed too hard I would break. He didn't say anything as he carried me through the house and out into the mid summer's night as the moon radiated upon us and as the stars shimmered above us.
"Dance with me," he whispered and he began waltzing across the field, carrying me in his arms. I looked into his eyes as I remembered our first waltz together when we made fools of ourselves. It seemed so long ago, so far back in my memory. But I grasped on to those memories because soon they would be all I would have left. As I said farewell to my life day by day, I loved Ichabod more at that moment than ever before, and that was enough.
He stopped dancing and we sat down as gasses and blossoms embraced us, like lovers embrace each other. I sat in his lap, my head against his heart. "I love you, Melanie," he whispered and held me against his body as tears flowed from his eyes as life flowed from me.