Cambridge, Massachusetts
July 1957

The days when Maria wondered why she had agreed to inflict quite astounding misery upon herself were slowly beginning to disperse. As time moved further and further away from the day she had agreed to have the ligation procedure done and then, with the help of her daughter and son-in-law, moved forward with all the paperwork and planning, it was easier to breathe, and easier to move, and she felt less weak with each passing day. She was permitted to walk again, now, and her dressings and bandages were only a formality against chafing and irritation, for the incision on her abdomen was now mostly healed.

Georg had driven down to Massachusetts after Maria called to inform him of the decision to have the ligation procedure, and they had spent a quiet week together in Brigitta's garden cottage. He signed the required paperwork, including his consent, with a flourish that Brigitta later remarked to her husband would put American founder John Hancock to shame, and they simply spent their time existing together in the same space, each reflecting on the enormous implications that this decision could have.

Maria could see that her husband sorely wanted to ask her if choosing to undergo the procedure would open the floodgates to further consultations regarding her temperamental kidneys. Thus far, her time with Brigitta had seen only two small attacks, easily managed with water, rest, and sustenance. From the outside, it seemed she was thriving for the first time in a long time, but internally, the distress and the turmoil of being invisibly ill and made to live fearfully from it exacted rather a lot of energy. Maria did not have the patience for her husband's eager hopes, and did not wish to wound or anger him, so when he would turn to her with a certain expression on his face, she would turn away. Start talking of something inane. Call up to the house to ask the nanny, Patty, to bring the grandchildren to play in the garden.

This constant maintenance of equilibrium meant that what had sent Maria away was still not a thing discussed. Besides, that old friend, that whispering cackle of pain and loss that had first socked her hard in the gut one cool summer night by the lake in Aigen, and then followed her along in cruel whispers—that was her companion whenever there was no distraction between them.

In truth, she spoke more of hope for the future with Brigitta than she did with Georg. To take all these thoughts and hopes, reflections and fears, and turn them over to her husband at last would be, Maria was sure, the way to make sure the absolute worst of the darkness in her heart and in their marriage came to pass. To put it in the open, in words, before him would be to invite trouble in.

Maria had never struggled to invite trouble, so she did not even try. It was better, this way.

One thing she did allow was that her husband slept beside her. She had promised herself that he would not be relegated to the humiliation of staying in Brigitta and Robert's guest bedroom in the main house. It was a concession, and he seemed to recognize this, so for that mercy she was grateful, and when she did not find herself compressed with the overwhelm of his need, it was gratefulness that reminded her of the love she held for this man.

Nevertheless, the relief she felt when he drove away to return home was strong, though to her immense surprise, there was a massive pull of longing, a tight knot in her chest, that she should be going with him.

Brigitta had walked quietly up behind her, laid a hand on her shoulder, and said as the dust and the rattle of the vehicle faded away, "It won't always be so hard."

"The staying, or the going?" Maria asked, turning her head slightly as she dropped her waving hand.

"Both," Brigitta answered.

With assistance of a letter of strong recommendation from her physicians at Copley Hospital in Vermont and the connections that Robert had, Maria's surgery took place within two weeks of agreeing to do so, at the very best hospital in the heart of Boston. Concern for her kidneys kept her hospital-bound longer than most, but she was there less than a fortnight. The shortest stay in recent memory, she later remarked.

Sent home with strict orders to maintain bedrest and go to a doctor at the slightest sign of trouble, the convalescing began in mid-May and would now soon be drawing to a close.

Brigitta came to visit on one cool, misty day in mid-July, and sat down with her mother at the tiny kitchen table, as had become their habit. She came with no child, no company, no lists; it was time only for them and had no distraction. Patty knew to call the cottage if it was needed, but it never was.

After stirring sugar into her tea, Maria said quietly, with a glance out the window, "I would like to see the renal specialist you and Robert have mentioned."

Brigitta's reaction, however, was not what Maria was expecting. Instead of breaking into an excited smile, she frowned and said, "Mother, you cannot pursue another surgery so close to the last one, especially if it is not urgent. The risk of infection is very high. You need to give yourself time."

Frustrated, Maria said, "That's all I've been doing! Doctors, husband, children, you all nag me to do this for years, and I say yes at last, and you tell me no?"

"I don't only mean that your body must heal," Brigitta said sharply. "I mean that you need to set things right with Father and allow for the rest of you to heal also. You might even consider that you aren't asking for this because it is the next thing to do, good and informed choice though it may be, rather I think you are asking to do it because it means avoiding Father even longer."

Maria stared at her daughter.

Brigitta shrugged. "Robert or I will take you for a consultation, of course. John Merrill is a family friend. It is no matter to me if Father comes here or you go back to Vermont in the interim, but if you do not call Father about this, I will."

"That seems unnecessarily cruel," Maria said, her voice low. It was true, though. She did not call him. He called her. She still hadn't broached plans to go home, and he hadn't tried, true to his promise of trusting her judgment.

At this, Brigitta sighed. "I don't mean it to be. I want you here and we love having you stay, and I am glad and grateful that you were able to get the best possible medical care by staying with us. But there are limits, and the summer is almost over. You can travel again soon, and you must."

Maria sat back in her chair and let the silence engulf her. These summer days in Brigitta and Robert's garden cottage had been restorative, the only reason she had been able to withstand undergoing surgery, and she had even begun to feel slightly more herself again. Things weren't precisely right or better, and something still seemed knocked askew inside her, but she filled her time with words and prayers and hours upon hours with the babies, conversations with Brigitta, and sometimes dinner with the family, too. Every little thing, no matter how small, had seemed to make a difference.

"I miss my husband," Brigitta said. "And he misses me."

Her daughter had shown her so much compassion and understanding. The words about avoidance, those were bewildering. Difficult to grasp. But this? Longing? Maria felt that, and suddenly her chest hurt. In that instant, the pain, so numb and quiet up to now, was back and roaring in her ears.

The shrill ringing of the telephone interrupted the tense moment, and Brigitta got up to answer it. She came back quickly, however, holding it out to Maria, and careful not to trip on the long cord.

"It's Rose," she said urgently. "She says it's serious."

Brow furrowing with confusion, Maria took the phone and its cradle from Brigitta and put it to her ear. "Rosemary, Schatz, what is it? What is wrong?" She had spoken to her daughter just that morning and everything had been just fine.

"It's Papa," she said. "He's forbidden us to tell you, but Mama, I have to. He is ill, he does not sleep in the nights, and this morning he cut himself with a knife and needed stitches. I had to drive him because he almost veered into the ditch at the end of the driveway, he's so tired. We just got home, and he's resting now. Please, please come home. We're so scared for him."

"Oh my God," Maria breathed, and sat forward too quickly, wincing. "Rosemary, I'll be home on the next train in. Can you pick me up in the car?"

"Yes," she said, "but what do I tell Papa?"

"Nothing, unless you must. Make something up. I'll deal with him."

"Okay," she breathed. "I'll see you soon."

"Yes, love, soon."

Maria made to hang up the phone, but then Rosemary's voice stopped her: "Mama? Mama, I love you. I'm sorry about the baby."

How does she know? Choking on the emotion now stuck in her throat, Maria felt that pain that had begun again, at first a tight knot in her chest, start to expand and pulsate through her. Closing her eyes, she held back her tears and placed the phone in its cradle. Looking at Brigitta, she said, clearing her throat, "Your father isn't well. I need to pack."

Brigitta said urgently, "Let me help you, you must still take care. And don't take the train—all those stopovers, are you mad? Robert can drive you in half the time."

Maria bit back a sharp retort that rose to her lips about being an apparent inconvenience to Robert, but the better part of her knew that Robert had made no complaint and that Brigitta had used terms that had once been highly potent and relatable for Maria. It was a frame of reference that held weight, one that Maria could understand, value, and respect.

The two packed quickly and in silence, and when all of Maria's things had been gathered, her medications sorted through, and everything tidied, the women stepped through the door of the cottage and walked through the back garden up to the house.

"Call Rosemary, please, let her know to stay home," Maria said as she kissed her daughter goodbye. Looking down at the little girl she held in her arms, the only one of the four children in residence who was currently awake, she said to Brigitta, "Thank you, for all of this. I'll call when I know more."

"Of course," Brigitta nodded, taking her daughter back from Maria as Robert held open the passenger door of his bright red roadster.

There was precious little left for them to say to each other right now, and embers of anger and hurt still burned, so Maria nodded and climbed into the car, thanking Robert for his proffered hand as he closed the door behind her.

Brigitta had mandated that Maria go home with Robert because the journey was shorter via the roadways than it was by train, but the three hours it took felt like the longest, most torturous slog. Maria desperately wanted to be where her husband and children were, and at the same time, cold dread froze her utterly and she wanted to go anywhere else that was not Stowe, Vermont.

Eventually Robert, who drove in silence for the first half of the journey, cleared his throat and said, "She didn't mean to hurt you."

If Maria had been paying him any mind, instead of staring out the window, she would have noticed that for the past half hour, he had been glancing at her out of the corner of his eye and then hesitating, strengthening his grip on the steering wheel, and then glancing back at the road.

However, she saw none of that, and what she saw now was irritating earnestness not unlike that of what was on her husband's face every time he wanted to talk about something she did not. "Hmmph," she grunted.

Robert did not seem to be deterred by this. He said softly, "She told me what happened. Just… don't hold a grudge, she wants you to be well and is scared for you."

"What have I done," Maria asked bitterly, "that is even remotely frightening, except to be human?"

Robert seemed to consider these words before he chose his answer, then said, "It seems to me you've lost the ability to do something that she has always admired and valued. I don't know if there's any one word for it, really, but it seems to have something to do with speaking your mind."

Maria listened to this, then turned her head to look out the window again. She respected Robert and would give him a bed to sleep in for the night without hesitation, but she was in no way prepared to have any kind of conversation with him over his supposition. As the car jostled over uneven road, an uncomfortable twinge in her abdomen reminded her of why any of this had happened, and she spent the rest of the car ride praying that the twinges weren't coming from her kidneys. She was too stiff and sore still to know for sure, and identifying the beginnings of an attack was more difficult in recovery from abdominal surgery.

Rosemary was standing out in the yard just off the porch wrapped in a shawl of her mother's waiting for them when Robert finally pulled his car around the drive of the von Trapp farmhouse.

Climbing out of the car, Maria waved to Robert in agreement that he could gather her things, and walked to meet her daughter, who came up to her with open arms. When they met, the two women wrapped their arms tight around one another and held each other. Maria stroked Rosemary's hair, and took deep breaths, inhaling her sweet lavender scent.

Rosemary whispered in her mother's ear, "I missed you so, Mama. And I'm so terribly sorry."

Maria squeezed her daughter tighter, feeling her body sway with the weight of this girl, this young woman, and her knowing. And further, her need, and the straining and cracking, that came from carrying the pain of her parents.

"I'm sorry I was away so long," Maria whispered back.

Rosemary pulled away, sniffing, and nodded. "I know you needed to go, Mama. But Papa—I don't know. I think it's nightmares. I hear shouts in the night. He's up at all hours. He's drinking. He hurt himself. I'm scared." Her voice was small, such that Maria hadn't heard since this tall, loud, redheaded daughter of hers was tiny.

"I am here, now," Maria said firmly, and gestured to Robert. "If you help Robert with my things and show him to a room, I will go to your father. Please see what is in the kitchen for Robert. We did not eat before we left and we didn't stop for sandwiches."

Rosemary looked over to her brother-in-law and nodded, then went to greet him. He was waiting by his car, suitcase and valise in hand, patiently watching the exchange.

Maria, assured that Rosemary could see to the details of Robert's overnight lodgings and some food, turned and walked up the steps onto her porch and into her house, wincing when she moved too quickly up the stairs.

Walking out of the darkness and into the warm light that was her front hall, the familiar smell of home gave Maria a brief pause at the foot of the stairs while she stripped off her travelling coat and draped it over the banister railing, then, wrapping one arm around her middle, she took a deep breath and turned to her left, knocking lightly on her own bedroom door before she turned the knob and entered.

"Rose?"

"No," Maria said into darkness. "She called me home."

There was a scuffle and a scrabble, and with a chalky sort of grating sound, the lamp on Georg's bedside table clicked on as he turned its key. He sat up fully in bed and stared at his wife. "Maria…?"

She nodded, then said clearly, "Rosemary says you're ill."

"Are you back?"

She nodded. "As far as I know, I am. Robert drove me. He's staying the night, and Rosemary is taking him up to one of the spare rooms now."

Whatever convincing her husband seemed to need that she was not some sort of premonition, this information seemed to suffice, and he climbed out of bed. Slowly, he stood and walked to her. He looked her up and down, touched gently the arm that still was clutched around her midriff, and studied her face. He cupped her face with two hands, and touched his forehead to hers.

However long they stood there, Maria did not know, but it was she who guided him back to bed, undressed him, and examined the bandages on his left hand. She determined that they could wait until morning to be redressed, and though she was fully clothed and had not yet removed even her shoes, Maria reclined fully on the bed and let him lie against her. They fell asleep this way, and it was Rosemary who turned out their light.

Maria woke to searing pain and shouts, engulfed in total darkness, some hours later. Something had socked her right in the gut, she couldn't breathe, and doubled over in pain. When it eventually abated and she could form a clear thought, Maria realized that her husband wasn't in the bed, and that half the bedclothes also seemed to be gone. Switching on her bedside light, she looked around, and found that he was on the ground on the opposite side of the bed, curled in a ball, tangled in his sheets, and drenched in a cold sweat. He was clutching his head, which seemed to have been hit on the corner of the bedside table when he fell.

Climbing gingerly over the mess of the bed and sliding onto the floor beside him, Maria leaned her head back against the bed and gritted her teeth, aware that all the muscle that had recently been sliced through in her abdomen was now being required to endure force and trauma it hadn't since God only knew when.

Gasping, she reached out to touch her husband's clammy skin and said clearly, "I am here with you, Georg. It is 1957. The war is over. Austria-Hungary lost. You are safe. We are in Stowe, Vermont. There is no fire, there are no torpedoes. The water is far from here. My name is Maria. I am your wife, and you have eleven children. Liesl has three children, and Friedrich four. Louisa has two stepsons. Brigitta has her twins, a daughter, and a beautiful new baby boy. Kurt has two children, Marta one. Gretl isn't married, but she will be soon. Rosemary is finishing school to go to university. Her role models are you and Brigitta. Johannes and Eleanore have their prize pigs and won a singing competition last week. Matthias wants to be a sailor, just like you..."

On and on she went, reciting every dull and mundane fact she could think of about reality, every little thing that was ordinary and grounding, and when she ran out of things to say, she recited the names of their children and grandchildren in full. When that was finished, he shook still, so she recited the books of the Bible, then the American presidents. Just before dawn, they both fell into slumber again, in a tangled heap on the floor beside their bed.

When Georg woke, Maria was watching him, and she asked simply, "When did the episodes begin again?"

He understood that she would book no arguments. Rubbing the knot on his temple where he had hit his head the night before, he admitted, "About a month ago."

"Have you slept at all?" Maria asked sharply.

"No," he said, and quickly added, "it's not as if I could have told you. You were two weeks out of abdominal surgery. Even if it was possible for you to come, it was not wise!"

Looking down at the arm that remained draped over her belly, Maria remembered the pain that had woken her when he lashed out in the night and did not argue with this truth. "You should have told Brigitta, though," she said. "She understands these things. She could have arranged something."

"We were managing," Georg grunted.

"The house is clean, the children fed, their work done, the chores complete—that, yes. But you are seriously ill, Georg."

"As are you!" he retorted.

"I suppose we have a problem," Maria said simply.

Georg was silent at this. After a long pause, he said, "I suppose we have."

For several minutes, they sat in silence, together but very much apart. Then, the pair of them put their bed to rights. They sat down to the breakfast Johannes put out for them, simple bread and butter with slices of meat and a heaping bowl of scrambled eggs, his favourite not because he liked the eggs, but rather because the chickens he raised were his pride and joy.

Maria chatted with her sons and daughters while she drank a pot of tea in the hopes it would soothe her discomfort, and then agreed to drive them to school. When her husband tried to protest, she nearly snapped at him to leave her be, but Robert cut in tactfully and offered to take them so that their parents could rest.

It was just as well, seeing how Johannes' eyes sparkled at the prospect of riding in the front seat of the roadster. Eleanore was peppering Robert with questions about the new baby, whom she had not yet met, and Rosemary was trying to ask questions about the car's engine. Maria herded the lot of them outside, thanked Robert for his kindness, kissed him farewell, and turned back to a house of emptiness. She felt a deep sense of loss. Georg was inside this house, but he wasn't really there. And she didn't feel as if she were, either.

Having left him to his reading before she came outside, Maria pressed a hand to her abdomen and felt around cautiously. She did not seem any worse for last night's impact, nothing was twinging more than an ache, and her flanks were not warm nor causing pain. She thought that if she moved with care, she could manage a walk through their property, as long as she rested afterward.

While she walked, she thought of things she now had to think about: how could she sleep beside her husband and also lessen the danger it posed to her by sustaining unconscious blows? Her incision was nearly healed and the tenderness and soreness seemed to be improving with each day that she did something physical like this, but even bruising her too close to the two fragile organs might bode serious ill. She hadn't been horseback riding in a decade because of it.

The incident which had precipitated this decision had been frightening, to say the least, but more terrifying than the event itself was how harshly Georg had reacted to it, shouting at her after a blasé comment from her was then mistaken for carelessness and was blown far out of proportion.

"Maria, how could you dare to get on that damn horse again? Have you no thought of our children, of me, of yourself?"

In the heat of the moment, Maria had become equally incensed, and shouted back that he hadn't the right to dictate her actions, but it was late that same night after he'd gone to sleep, sitting up in bed by herself and staring into the darkness, that it came to her what he had seen in the comment in light of the situation.

She had seen selfish control, but he had seen her own disregard for herself. And naturally, with four small children, he had a right to see that, and the thing that had nagged at her from the moment the row had erupted finally blossomed: he saw too Agathe, who had disregarded his own begging, and become weak and frail, unable to fight off or recover from scarlet fever.

Georg spoke of this reality little, and the cynic that had come to live in Maria's head could not help but whisper that he played a role in the continued conception of children which weakened his wife, which left little room for him to cast judgment, but with a heavy feeling in her chest, she could see what she must do. Though she did not discuss a word of the decision with him, and only apologized for her role in the confrontation, from that night forth she never mounted a horse again.

And I hate him for it said that little voice now, as Maria walked along, remembering.

But was it hate, really? Was there hate, or resentment and anger instead? Taking into account the entire picture, what they knew then was that her kidneys were weak, and struggling. They had four young children, children who needed their mother, not unlike how the seven von Trapp children had needed their mother and had none. Georg had lost one wife to a string of terrible events and choices made, and seemed to say in his anger that he would not lose another if he could help it.

"But why won't you say it?!" Maria shouted into the morning air, stopping in her tracks and tensing up. "If that's it, if that's all it is, I could understand. But you—you won't say." She let out a ragged breathe that was almost a sob, but swallowed it back in the same moment, unwilling to let emotion overwhelm her, for it made her middle ache.

Why had he begun to say nothing? Why had she? Once, it had not been their way! She asked herself when it had changed, and sitting down upon a log at the edge of the vegetable garden, she sifted through the years, all the way back to a time before the war, a time before the illness, into a time when they had been happy.

At last, it came to her. It had been difficult to see because the change happened so gradually, and the progression of her illness had become by necessity all-consuming, but she knew now when it all changed.

It had changed when she got tired. It had changed when weariness was no longer a daily spin of Russian roulette, but rather the deep-set heaviness in her bones, the kind that made her sleep for days. It had changed when the pain was the only thought, and became the thing around which her entire life, thoughts, and feelings were formed. It had changed, she understood now, when she drew into herself, trying to protect her loved ones from the pain. From herself.

Wrapping her arms around herself, Maria rocked back and forth, heaving sobs that had no tears, and wished she could scream as the full searing, burning pain of this truth tore her open anew. The cruel whispers were back, the pain no longer merely inside, but stuck to her, pulling her back, pushing her forward, longing for her to reach out and touch someone so that they could feel this pain, too.

It is too much for one person to bear, she grieved, rocking. Nobody deserves to take this on. I cannot spread it wider and further.

Primed to hear it, the whisper of pain rang clear as a bell to Maria: And yet, you have.

Her children. Robert. Brigitta. Georg. Georg most of all!

He wouldn't say it because saying it would wound her, but Maria knew why the night terrors were back: because she had abandoned him, and left him vulnerable. How else could Rosemary possibly found out about the lost child? She knew her daughter, and she knew her husband. They were incredibly alike, and shared so much with each other. She, Maria, had left Georg open to questions, no agreement between them about how to approach the situation, and so in a moment of deep need and pain, he must have told Rosemary what had happened.

The guilt burned inside her, and she thought of how that is what anger or sorrow so often became on this mortal plane. It did not clean; it destroyed. It made what was strong weak, and turned what was precious into nothing.

"Maria, love, please come inside."

She looked up and saw Georg standing several feet from her.

"Leave me in peace," she begged, looking away. "God, can't anyone leave me in peace?"

"Who else?" he asked. "Maria, there is no one here."

She refused to answer.

"Maria, I cannot do this anymore. I don't know what is real or unreal, but whatever this is, I cannot do it. You have to talk to me, because I don't know how to stop hurting you, just as you are hurting me."

The words Maria wanted to say in response were scathing words that reeked of mockery, but in her mind she was crying, crying that it was all over at last, and that she would be left standing alone. She had wondered one summer night twenty years ago how something so extraordinary and so wonderful could happen to her, but now here she was, having finally wrecked the last of what stood between them.

"Maria… please say something. Even if it's that you hate me."

"I can't," she cried at last. "I can't!"