A/N: This chapter's dedication is split in three ways. First to Evaray (on tumblr), for the beautiful art that always inspires me. She totally surprised me and it is some of the best work I think she has ever done. Second to Kavan for the best breakdowns of the chapters (Kavan30013 on tumblr). Her investment and love for the story is why there are three updates this week. Seriously. No doubt. Last but not least, for the help and love and support of LaLa-Kate. This chapter was really hard for me for some reason. Finally, this poem is also an Edna St. Vincent Millay. It is one of my favorites. And from the edition Mack and Mary last read together. And very soon, I will be able to unzip my lips and answer all of your responses. In the meantime, please let me know your thoughts on the chapter.
Chapter Twenty Five
Matthew supposes this version of Mary is better than the quiet, seething bitter Mary that came before her. Still, she appears hollowed out, with tired eyes, even as she refuses her dose of medicine from Sybil when the time comes.
"No," Mary says simply and folds her hands awkwardly in her lap with her cast. She winces as she shifts; her side aches–he can tell by her face. "I don't want the fuzziness that comes with it."
"Mary," Sybil sighs, looking at Matthew for support. His face remains neutral–the paper, the pen, and the book of poetry in his hands.
"Don't look at him," Mary insists, closing her eyes, whether in pain or in annoyance, Matthew cannot tell. "I am trying to plan my husband's funeral. And Matthew here seems to be the only one who is able to help me to do that."
"It's because there is nothing to plan," Sybil tells her gently and brushes Mary back from her face. Mary closes her eyes. "We, I, am more worried about your recovery. We have to be...the kidney can be serious. And you know that Travers and Granny and Mama will take care of all that for you."
Mary squeezes her eyes shut, as if she would like to disappear. When she opens them, there are tears, but they do not fall and again, Matthew is not sure if it is from the physical pain or the loss of Mack. Or the simple frustration of communicating in a language grief that no one in this room, in this house, in this world can understand. The loss of Mackenzie. "He is my husband," Mary says through her teeth. "He was, I mean. And I know what he would–"
"You need your medicine," Sybil tells her. Matthew understands. Sybil only wants Mary better. There is nothing that can be done for Mack. And yet, Matthew understands Mary as well. Mary is bedridden, her husband dead; she only wants to do something, anything to distract her from the reality of...her life now. "It does you no good to be in pain. In fact, it will only prolong your recovery–"
"Oh, do stop with the nurse talk," Mary snaps. She turns slightly towards Matthew and does wince. So it is the pain. All of it. All kinds. He wants so badly to soothe... "Nothing in the church, do you have that down? He wouldn't like that. And no beatitudes either."
"I have that down," Matthew tells her, glancing at the paper.
"I'm serious," she tells him, closing her eyes again, shifting. The kidney, her side, must truly be bothering her. "If I hear: blessed are the poor in spirit or blessed are those who mourn, it will be your head."
He tries to smile. "All right."
"And I want Travers to speak as little as possible."
"Mary," Sybil sighs. "How do you expect him to articulate that to Travers or to Granny?"
"I expect him," Mary seethes, "to determine how to articulate it, because he asked me what he could do to help, even though we aren't friends."
Matthew shakes his head. He does not know which to address: her pushing at him or the simple fact that she wishes someone besides Sybil and Matthew would care. So cowardly, he addresses which is easiest: "I apologized, Mary. I don't know what else to do."
"This," she says loudly. "And for the flowers...Only lilies and laurel. Only."
"Mary," Sybil entreats. "You need to take your medicine."
Mary rolls her eyes, but there is a weariness to the gesture before she turns her head swiftly, taking the spoon into her mouth and swallowing. It is then that Matthew realizes how badly she must feel. "We can go over the rest tomorrow," he tells her gently.
"Don't speak to me like that," she insists. "Like I am broken, like you know what is best for me. You don't." She closes her eyes and turns her head to the pillow, away from him. He is dismissed, he thinks. Sybil puts another pillow beneath her cast to prop it up. But Mary surprises him: "She left you. She didn't die."
Matthew is silent. He knows he deserves it and, yet he knows he doesn't deserve it. Poor Mary. Poor Lavinia. There is no poor Matthew in this equation. His losses are his own fault, his own doing, his own foolishness. Yes, of course. But there is control in that. There is no one to blame but himself. But for Mary, who is there to blame? What control did she have over what happened? Whose fault is it?
He knows she is punishing him because there is little else she can do from the bed but he is surprised at how much it hurts. And yet, she is right: he is the only one who will do as she asks because he is the only one willing to listen to her to when she is like this, the only one who loves her like this, the only one who doesn't expect anything from her, but lets her be. But he is not her keeper, not her brother, not her husband. He is only her cousin, at best. They aren't even friends and he thinks wryly that he cannot take the words back because he spoke them with such a passionate, well thought out argument. If only he could always be so well spoken with her all the time, perhaps she would believe other things he says.
I love you. I've always loved you. And now, when I can't help but love you, I cannot love you.
"I'm sorry," Mary whispers with closed eyes. The medicine makes her drowsy but her contrition is real, because she reaches forward and brushes a hand over Matthew's. Her hand against his lasts less than a second, less than a breath, a blink of the eye. Her touch is as light as his own eyelashes against his own skin. "Lilies. Laurel. None of Travers' nonsense. Mack wouldn't want that. And I will–I will do the reading as we discussed."
"All right," Matthew murmurs as he watches her begin to fall asleep. "I will do my best."
"I trust you," she murmurs and he sighs in relief. This is a beginning. It could be a beginning to a friendship, to something new, to something healthy, something without the rot at its core. But she isn't finished and he finds that he doesn't like the ending so much as the beginning: "I trust you to do your best, Matthew."
He thinks she is asleep and starts to rise. Her hand reaches for him again to stop him, but instead of her skin, he feels silk. "Will you put these back in his pocket?" Her voice is so small. He never heard it so small. Mary is not small. She is Andromeda. She is moving across the Atlantic. She is dancing in his arms. "I–I can't. But...Would you, please," and she grows smaller yet, "put these back where you found them? In his jacket. The right side. Please. He should have them."
He leans down without thinking to press a kiss to her forehead. She looks like a child who needs to be soothed. He would like to take her in his arms and just hold her, nothing but comfort on his mind. But Sybil's hand, on his shoulder, stops him. Her face is a mixture of horror and sympathy at his actions. "Matthew," she mouths. "You can't. She is...He is..." She shakes her head in despair for him or for Mary or for the pair of them. Who can really say? Maybe for Mack. He turns away from Sybil and takes the stockings from Mary's limp hand.
"He should have them," he repeats to the sleeping Mary before he leaves the room. He doesn't glance at Sybil. He cannot.
He didn't pay much attention to Mack's parents in America and he finds he cannot pay attention to them now because it hurts. It hurt in America because Mary would marry Mackenzie and she would spend her holidays with them, sneaking lemon drops into her mouth from Mack's grandpop. Then there would be those dark haired babies gathered around the American Christmas tree.
Now, he cannot look at them because their son is dead, their only son. Mack's sister is a limp doll, pale; her eyes are lonely. And still, through the weeping (even Grandpop weeps), Matthew cannot comfort them. All the comfort he has inside of him has to go to Mary.
When they go up to see Mary, he finds a seed, a sliver of something unexpected. He almost says, "You shouldn't trouble her. She was sleeping when I left," but he doesn't. He does not want to acknowledge the part of him that still can only picture her as his own.
I never wanted your son near Mary. I wanted Mary for myself. Did you know? Did he tell you? And now you'll mourn together. Your family and Mary. Mourning together. Mourning in a way that I cannot mourn because I never loved her husband, your son. I've only ever loved her.
His awareness of this fact makes him uneasy and he can see they don't understand his awkward posture, hands in his pockets, where he can feel the silk that does not belong to him, that he still must return to Mackenzie. What did she say? Champagne. Dancing. The beach. I threw them. Her adventures with Mack. So his voice stutters when he offers his condolences, as his fingers touch the silk in his pockets. He wonders if Mack's family remember his disappearance the day after the wedding, if Mack ever really heard what Mary told him that day by lake, if she meant it. He wonders all types of unworthy thoughts.
What am I always telling you? You must pay no attention to the things I say.
His mother's concern is for Mary, of course. But she is too quick, too aware of her son's unsettled emotions. "I hope you know your role in this situation, Matthew," she says solemnly when they return home.
"I have to go to the morgue," he replies, "for Mary."
"Be careful there," his mother tells him without looking at him. He realizes she is afraid to look at him, afraid at what she will see on his face. Just as he is afraid to try and fall asleep tonight, afraid at what he might feel, afraid of what kind of man he truly is. "She only just lost her husband. And her child."
"No one's told her. About the baby that is." He fists his hands. "I–I...it makes me feel so useless."
"Her family made the decision, my boy." Now she does walk to him and presses her palm to his cheek. "It isn't for you to decide. Whatever you may think. And however, you may feel, you cannot begin to know what her family is feeling or what Mary is feeling, most especially."
"Aren't we a part of her family?" he replies, though it sounds chalky in his mouth.
"It isn't the same and you know it." His mother turns from him. "I'm only warning you to be careful."
"What do you take me for?" Matthew asks, raising his voice. "What do you expect me to do? Ask her to run away with me in the middle of her funeral? As if she would! As if I would do such a thing! I'm trying to be her–"
"What?" his mother asks, interrupting him. "Her what? Who are you trying to be? What role do you plan on playing as she recovers the pieces of her life?"
He does not answer. He does not want to hear. He rushes out of the house to go to the morgue to return Mary's stockings to their rightful owner. He thinks of the words: champagne, dancing, the beach. I threw them.
Then: lilies and laurel.
He makes his way to the morgue and replaces the stockings in the man's jacket, on the right side, as Mary asked.
Finally, it is not Mary's words that come back to him but his own. I was stupid; I was a fool. But now you belong to someone else. He makes you happy in ways that I could not, that I cannot. So by not talking to you, Mary, by not looking at you, I'm trying to love you the only way I have left!
Now, what does he have left?
The dress bags on her and he wonders where she even found a black dress in the summer heat. Surely, she did not pack one. Then, he decides it is better not to think at all about what Mary wears. There are more arguments over whether she can walk herself. Sybil, usually a formidable opponent, finds herself distracted by Declan, the baby boy who has not seen much of his mother in the past several days. Matthew also senses something else, something he can relate to: she is sick of being the one to tell Mary what to do, sick of being the one to say no. It makes him angry to see the way they hoist Mary off on the affable Sybil and Matthew, the man she once loved.
"Here, my dear," Mack's grandfather says, ceasing the bickering. "You can lean on me. We can lean on one another."
Sybil bites her lip and Tom puts an arm around her waist. Mary looks away from them–the husband, the wife, the baby, a family whole. Matthew's eyes meet Mary's and she glares, daring him to offer her any sympathy.
In the end, the funeral is as close to her specifications as he could make it, even his diplomacy with Travers followed suit. The coffin is covered with lilies and laurel and there is only Mary's reading left now.
The sun is shining and he thinks this is only fitting. People squint and it is difficult to catch tears. There is no wind to carry away the scent of flowers, the scent of grief.
Mary stands, her spine so straight, it would hurt even without her injuries. "I want–I want to read something for Mackenzie. We, Mack, love...loved this poet." She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. The book shakes in her hands. For a moment, her lips slide into an odd smile. "I fell in love with him over her poems."
But then her eyes go to the paper. She clears her throat. She is pale. "I–I'm sorry...I–" The book drops to the grass and still her hands go on shaking. "P-Pardon me."
He wants to rescue her. He wants to comfort her. He wants to take her away from this place of tears.
It is Tom who steps forward. "May I, Mary?"
She looks Tom in the face and then as if giving her approval, she nods before she walks as quickly as she can, away from the middle of the group. Sybil moves to follow her but one look from Mary–the brow, the tilted chin–and Sybil stops. No, Mary walks to the edge of the party of mourners, all sweating in black beneath the sun, alone.
She turns her back on them, on the grave, but Matthew knows that she can hear Tom's words all the same. Tom clears his throat and his melodious voice begins, carrying through the air, strong and alive:
Dirge without Music
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, phrase remains,–the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,–
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
The words of the poem, Mary draped in black with her back to the grave, her shoulders so stiff, warn Matthew more than Sybil or his mother ever could.
Before, he wondered what he had left, to give, to offer to Mary. Now, it could not be more obvious–nothing.
She knows Mack is gone; she knows and she does not approve. And no matter how Matthew's heart may break for her, she does not want it, broken or not. Though he knows such things intellectually, watching the stillness of her back, he is more aware than ever that one heart cannot replace another. She stands completely alone, solitary, apart from the rest of the group. And there is no one to go to her and stand beside her. Not Sybil. Certainly not Matthew. No one.
She wants her husband. More than anything, she wants Mack.
And he is gone to feed the roses.
A/N: This chapter and the last chapter were really difficult to write. I would so appreciate your feedback and thoughts and I suppose even your speculations of where they shall go from here. It's going to start to become very M/M...only, obviously, extremely complicated. I am tired just thinking about it.