A/N: Oh my goodness. What a turnaround with this story. I went from saying, I can't take this anymore, to wanting to find people just so I can give them my favorite candle of all time (it's my oprah gift, you know, my favorite thing I give to people?). Seriously, the responses of some of you here and on tumblr (I'm ladonnaingenua on tumblr) have been so touching and so humbling. I can't say enough. I really can't. But your enthusiasm, when you "feel all the feels," makes me determined to write more and more quickly and determined to cross the many mountains this story includes. I won't include names of specific people because I would be terrified to leave someone out, but seriously THANK YOU. Also, I only replied to reviews up to Chapter 20, I think? because I have to keep my lips zipped. I want to thank LaLa-Kate for her help in making sure this is an authentic chapter. And Kavan, baby's spirit animal, for all the meta. xo
Chapter Twenty Four
A governess taught Mary French, how to accept or decline a dance with politeness and grace. She learned which fork went with the fish and all the courses, how to cut her meat, what size her bites should be. Training her posture, how to hold a tea cup and its saucer, the correct tone and syntax within a thank you note–she learned them all. Sometimes she felt like a beautiful doll they taught to speak and dance and walk and eat.
But no one ever taught her what to say when told: your husband is dead. No one showed her how to hold her shoulders (specifically in a hospital bed, without the aid of a corset). She does not know where her eyes should go. Should she look at her own lap? At her sister Sybil, who stands quietly beside her? Or at her father who delivers the news in this strange room in the hospital? Is she allowed to cry? Are the rules different in America? What are the rules?
Her head feels light and when she does look at Papa or at Sybil, her eyes water and she grows dizzy. Are they even real? Is the thick knit of the blanket on her thighs beneath the pads of her fingers really there? Sybil looks pale and so grown up. Her father...The reality of them both float in and out of her mind. It is hard to keep them there, to hold them in her own eyes. The words: your husband is dead float in this room too, and she does not like it. So she goes away.
"This is how I shall curtsy to the king and queen someday!" Sybil chirped once during lessons, nearly falling over in what she surely imagined, as a six year old, to be a graceful motion. Her pinafore, the color of a robin's egg, touched the floor.
"You won't," Mary replied archly. "Or I shall laugh at you and say I never knew you."
"But you're my sister!" Sybil leapt towards Mary as the governess helped Edith with a particularly difficult French verb. "You will always know me!" Her dark head bobbed as she nodded, her blue eyes too large in her small face.
"Not if you curtsy like that," Mary insisted.
"Well, if you forget me, I will remind you and remind you until you remember!" Sybil concluded, her tongue between her teeth.
Mary's adolescent mouth twitched. "All right," she agreed. "All right, Sybil."
But Mary isn't twelve. She tries again to focus on her father's face, on Sybil's face. "I want to see him," she struggles to say. "I want to...I'm sorry but I just...I-I don't believe you, Papa." She shudders and knows she sounds childish but she cannot help it. Her body aches and yet there is a thin veil between her and the pain; she might be able to put a hand through the veil if she tries. Would Mack be there? Or is that where the pain lives? Mack is not dead, though. Not Mack, warm and funny and tan, with three dimples. Mary touches her hand (the one without the cast) to her face and finds a surprising wetness.
Her husband is not dead and she is not crying.
"You must rest," Papa intones.
"No," Mary replies. "No, no."
"Mary," Sybil steps forward. Dear Sybil would never lie to Mary. "Just relax, darling."
Mary grabs Sybil's wrist with the same hand that touched her cheek so Sybil's skin absorbs her sister's tears. "Sybil, darling. Mack isn't...dead? He can't be. Sybil, is he? He's not," she finally repeats harshly.
"Sleep is really the best–" Sybil, the nurse, begins automatically but Mary is shaking her head, slowly back and fourth, quiet tears falling down her cheeks as she bites her lip. "Oh, Mary. Oh, God. I'm so sorry."
Mary holds tight to her sister's wrist. She will not release her. Her grip is strong. "But why should you be sorry?" Her voice sounds like a long, terrible whine in her own ears but Mary feels as if she cannot control it.
"Oh." Sybil's tears are quick and angry. She wipes them with the back of her free hand, much like her son does, knuckling them away. "Oh, because Mary, he is dead."
Mary begins to shake. Sybil's hand shakes too, in Mary's grip. "Then let me see him. Then, I must see him!"
"It's impossible just now," Sybil soothes. "I would bring him to you if I could, but I cannot and really you need another dose of laudanum."
Mary bites down on her lip until it bleeds. She cannot feel it. But her arm hurts. Her mind is sluggish and yet works a kilometer a minute. I am not a widow. I am not a widow. "Then ask him. Ask Mack to give you what's in his pockets. He won't. And then I'll know he is all right. Then I will sleep and take the medicine. I promise. I promise. I promise."
"Mary," Sybil begins.
"Do as she says," Papa insists so that Sybil leaves the room and Mary is alone with her father, waiting for Sybil to return empty handed because surely Mack would never hand over the thing he keeps in his pockets.
"He is alive, Papa," she tells him. "He isn't dead. He can't be." I am not a widow. Mack cannot die. He is the closest thing to Peter Pan–the forever boy, the summer child. What is it his mother says about him? Mary tries hard to remember. The sunshine follows that boy wherever he goes. On their wedding day, she smiled through tears. Now, it will follow you too, Mary.
Now, it will follow you, too.
The door swings open and Sybil walks through it slowly. She holds something in her hands and Mary's lips begin to tremble. "They're stockings," Sybil tells Mary. She looks at Papa. "Why would he carry stockings in his pocket?"
"They're my stockings!" Mary wails. She hates the sound of her own voice. She cannot make herself move. "There was champagne. On the beach. I threw them. Dancing."
"Here, darling, here." Sybil spoons something into Mary's mouth and closes her lips with her fingers so Mary swallows it. "Rest."
"No," Mary cries. "Who gave you these? Did you go into his pockets?"
Sybil shakes her head, seemingly in slow motion. Her voice is far away. "Matthew...Matthew got them."
"Matthew," Mary hisses like a cat. "Matthew doesn't belong here. Matthew is a liar. Mackenzie is not dead!" She is very tired but this is an important fight. Her father holds her hands gently and it doesn't take much force to keep her from moving, especially with the cast.
"Go get Matthew," her father tells Sybil.
"Papa," Sybil censures.
"Now," Papa insists.
Mary whimpers and looks up at Papa. His face is smeared, an oil painting left out in the rain. Is it because of her tears or because of the medicine? "Papa," she whispers. "Papa. Mack is not dead. He can't be. We went on a picnic."
He brushes the hair off her face and presses his lips to her forehead.
"Don't soothe me! Not when there is no reason to be upset!" she yells, but even her own voice sounds small in her head.
The door swings open again and then Matthew is beside her. He does not touch her, perhaps because she rears away from him. "Where did you get those stockings?" she demands to know.
"Tell her, Matthew."
Matthew looks at Papa with anger simmering in her eyes. Mary wills herself to remember this. But then he is looking at her. With pity and guilt and grief that makes his eyes glacierous. "I found the stockings in the right side of Mackenzie's jacket, in the pocket. I'm sorry, Mary. I'm so sorry."
"Don't say that," she whispers.
"I'm sorry," he repeats.
"Don't say that." She cringes. "We were never friends. You told me. We are not friends. And you go into my husband's pockets? And you tell me you're sorry?" There is an ever increasing darkness that pulls at her but she flinches away from it. "You're never sorry. Never. He is not dead. My husband is not dead. I don't believe you."
"Mary," Matthew murmurs. "Mary, I'm sorry. For what I said earlier today. It wasn't true."
She snaps. "Oh, I don't care about you said earlier today!" She knocks the hand he places on her bed away with her casted arm and it aches. "I don't want you here. Who cares what you said? My husband is dead!" she wails and the darkness is tight around her now. It closes in.
Later, Mary is on a row boat. There is no cast on her arm. The sun is bright and the lake is murky. If she turns, she can see her grandmother's house. She is alone in the boat, with both oars. But she never rowed before. Mack could teach her though. She will ask him to teach her.
Then she sees his shoes and socks rolled neatly together, at the bottom of the boat. Panic rips at her throat. She told him he could only take off his shoes for propriety's sake. They aren't married. She can't love him. She won't go to the last wedding of the summer.
He must be somewhere in the lake, but why? Both oars are safe. She screams his name. She screams so that her throat feels as if hands are viciously clawing it apart. "Mackenzie!"
She expects his head to pop up from the water but it never does. When she tries to rise, to go after him, she finds herself stuck. She goes on screaming in horror. He is drowning with bare feet, with his shoes and socks in the boat.
She never told him she loved him. She made him take off his shoes and socks. And he dove in the water because of the oar...but both oars are here.
"Mackenzie!" she screams.
Gentle hands shake her awake. "It is all right," Sybil's voice soothes in her ear. Is this how she speaks to Declan? Is Mary a child now? She feels like one, curled and unable to move. She would like to be held and rocked and soothed...but from what? "Matthew is right here," Sybil continues. Mary feels Matthew's hand on her own. She tries to speak but cannot. Her mouth is dry, as if she stuffed cotton balls inside. "You were calling for him," Sybil explains. "You kept calling for him and since he was waiting outside..."
"I'm here," Matthew murmurs to her and Mary cannot lift the lids of her eyes.
"I–" she begins and Sybil hovers over her.
"Where–" she tries again. "Where is Mack?"
There is a moment of silence before Sybil speaks in her soothing voice. "Darling, I'm sorry. We told you. He died."
"He-" Mary tries to gulp air. Matthew's hand still covers hers. "He drowned?"
"No," Matthew speaks now, in low tones. She wants to be held and rocked and soothed. Will he do it? Slowly, she remembers she is angry at him. She wants to move her hand but she does not want to move her hand. And anyway, she can't move at all. "He died in a car accident. You were hurt as well. But you will recover."
"D-dead?" she asks. Her brain is so fuzzy.
"Here," Sybil says.
"No, don't," Matthew corrects. His hand leaves Mary's for a second. "Don't give her anymore. Only if she is in physical pain, Sybil. You can't numb the rest. Otherwise, every time she wakes up..."
"Oh, don't you think I know that? She's my sister and she is–" Sybil snaps with anguish. Mary hears her walk to the corner of the room. She thinks maybe Sybil is weeping. I am her sister and I am–? What? I am her sister and I am a widow?
"Matthew," Mary says with difficulty. "I dreamed–"
His other hand touches her hair. "I know. The dreams are hard. They make you think things that aren't true."
"Why are you here?" she whispers, her eyes still closed. "You told me we were never friends."
"I-" he begins but quickly stops. "I was wrong earlier. I said things I shouldn't have. I'm sorry."
Mary sleeps. She barely feels his hands–one in her hair, the other cover her cast and fingers. But they are there all the same.
It isn't long before she is home, bedridden in the red room. It isn't long but she doesn't know how long it is either. She asks Granny if someone telegrammed Mack's parents. She weeps after she asks it because that's when she realizes she truly betrayed Mack; she finally believes what she is told: he is dead. She keeps her stockings in the bed with her. She touches the silk of them. And the book that Tom brings her. They found it in the wreckage. What an ugly word. Wreckage. It makes her think of 1912, the Titanic, Patrick, the first boy they told her to marry. Her mind flits and flutters, unable to focus long on any one thing.
She hears Edith crying that her wedding will be postponed because of "an American's stupid driving." Mary cannot move much but she whispers to Granny with chapped lips: "When I get up, I am going to pull every hair from her head so she is as bald as a baby." Granny wheezes and touches her hand. "We are all very emotional," she says.
"No," Mary rebuts, quietly, adverting her eyes. Just no.
Mama kisses her forehead. "It's just at your hairline. No one can see the scar," she reassures Mary.
It would take too much effort to say what Mary thinks: of course, no one can see the scar. They cannot carve me open and examine my heart, looking at the wreckage, piecing back together what is left. And besides, I have no scars, only wounds. The scars will come later and I cannot think of later. Of healing. I don't want to heal.
She doesn't open the book. She doesn't ask anyone to read to her. She sleeps and she wakes from the pain. Her cast is uncomfortable. Her back hurts from her tender kidney. Sybil explains it all, explains that Matthew was right, they have to be careful with the medicine, that it can't take away the pain, not really.
"I hate him," Mary mutters while Sybil looks surprised. "I hope he and Edith are very happy together."
"Mary," Sybil says slowly and with a great deal of concern. "Edith isn't marrying Matthew–"
"I know that," Mary snaps. "I mean in hell. I hope they are very happy together in hell."
Sybil gasps a bit and suddenly starts to laugh. "Oh, I know Edith is being terrible and I don't know what you and Matthew had a row over, but your face, Mary, when you said it..."
Mary laughs too. Until she weeps.
It isn't long after that Matthew visits and Mary chokes on the water Sybil is helping her to drink. "You," Mary croaks.
He holds flowers in his hands. Yellow, for friendship. They taught her that at least. Yellow roses are for friendship. Here is how you write the thank you note. Here is how you address the envelope. Here is what you do, you perfect doll, you. "These are for you," he offers hesitantly. "I thought they might brighten up the room."
"Mack's mother always said that the sunshine followed him wherever he went," Mary speaks quietly, slowly, measuring her words as she watches him, as if waiting for an attack. "On our wedding day, she told me now it would follow me, too. When she comes, I will have to tell her how wrong she was."
They will put him in the ground. They will close him up and put him in the ground and sunlight will never touch him again. His tanned arms will wither away, the skin with flake and decay. There will be no light to follow him, to breathe life into him. His bones will be lily white. They will glow like the moon, in the dark, without the sun, and his tanned hands, they won't be warm.
Whenever he touched her, his hands were warm.
"Oh, Mary," Sybil murmurs.
"Mary," Matthew sits without thinking in Mary's room. Though it isn't Mary's room anymore. People come and go without her permission all day and all night. There is no privacy offered to her. People do not knock and people, apparently, do not ask permission to sit. "I want to apologize to you, for saying–"
"That we were never friends," Mary supplies.
Sybil lets out a surprised curse, though she tries to turn away and not listen to their conversation. But Sybil can't leave, can she, Mary realizes. Because Mary is no longer married and there is a man in her room and she needs a chaperone.
Mary is a widow.
Matthew looks nervous, Mary sees. But he is alive. He is nervous and he presses his palms to his knees because they are probably sweating and isn't that amazing? Isn't that lovely that he can sweat? Mack will never be nervous, never sweat again.
"Yes," he agrees. "I was completely out of line. I only wanted to respect...I only wanted to do the right thing and instead I did the wrong thing."
"Yes." It hurts when she raises her eyebrow because her stitches have to stretch. "You seem to have a habit of doing that."
"You aren't wrong," he bows his head. "For that too, I am sorry."
Mary surprises herself by crying. "An apology after all these years. My goodness. If only Mack would have died sooner," she says bitterly.
"Please," he implores. She knows she is being impossible. She knows she is being a terror but she does not know how to say: something is broken inside of me and I cannot fix it and you cannot fix it and it may never be fixed and yet here I am, expected to think and talk and act. Would you like to dance? I can decline in french, due to my injuries. But I cannot...I cannot...I am broken in all the other places, all the places they never told me existed. "Please. Let me help in whatever way I can. I'll do anything. I just want to do something to help...you."
"I'll tell you," Mary says softly, wiping the tears from her cheeks. From beneath the covers she hands him the book from the wreckage. "Open that, please. And find something to write with."
A/N: Please let me know what you are thinking/feeling. I very much want to do justice to Mary's *immediate* reaction to her husband's death. This isn't six months later. It's today. And I want to continue to do it justice. Would love to know your thoughts.