* * *
The next morning Agnes walked over to Polly’s and handed her an L.L.Bean bag packed with her notebooks, including the final two she hadn’t shown to Maud. She would, though. She would. It was time to remove her caul.
CHAPTER 36 Agnes, Leeward Cottage, February 1962
Dear Elspeth,
I woke up thinking of Virgil, as I always do, going over conversations, thinking of things we said and things I was too shy to mention. Then I turned onto my back and thought ahead into the day. I’ll write, mainly. When Nan comes over in the afternoon, I’ll mark up the morning’s pages while she draws or naps by the fire. Aside from working on the Nan book, I’m also writing a sketch from childhood, a description of what Thanksgiving was like in our house. It’s so different, El, to carry the pictures and feelings around in memory than it is to seek the words to describe those days so that someone else might feel what it was like for us. It’s hard to make it vivid. It’s also hard after only writing fiction to tell the exact truth. I find myself embellishing, writing descriptions of my ideal version of what our Thanksgivings could have been like with a loving mother. In doing so I call up the tender emotions I wished for—the connection to our ancestors, the boundless affection of kind parents, the security of a warm and fortunate house, a safe haven bursting with cosseted children. I’d like to write about how hungry we were all the time, how little food we were given. Mother wanted us thin.
I’m writing these sketches for Nan, who is curious about our childhood. She believes in the memories more if they are written down. A reader in the making.
Hawkweed landed—thump—on the ground after a leap from his chair. His soar was silent, though surely the molecules of air rattled when he parted them. Next, the second bam of his landing on the mattress, near my feet. Star was under the covers and gave a little growl at Hawkweed’s approach. “There’s room for all,” I said, my first words of the day. He looked at me as though I were stating the obvious. He touched his nose to my leg, a small gesture that magnifies my spirit, as you liked to quote. The lightest touch, the sweetest. Pure trust.
Slowly, in full confidence of a welcoming reception, Hawkweed walked the length of me, the tip of his tail peering around the room like a periscope as he deliberated where exactly to step up onto my chest. He stood for a moment on my breastbone looking into my face, and I closed and opened my eyes, a greeting he returned. Then he lay down, lowering his front legs first. He is as careful as if I were a raft on which he has to find his balance. This is a delicate operation that has developed with an eye to Star, designed so that he doesn’t register the cat’s movements as the usurpation they actually are. Hawkweed would be the perfect Queen’s advisor who pulls all the strings during a reign while going unnoticed by everyone. His aggression is utterly masked, yet within a couple of minutes of my first waking I am covered neck to waist in cat. He’s so sure of himself that one orange foot slips past my waist and dangles.
Then we stare into each other’s eyes, taking care to look away at regular intervals, respecting each other’s need of privacy. I begin my ritual massaging of his face, head, neck, back. If I have a thought that goes beyond the communion of the moment, he reaches forward and presses his paw at the base of my throat. I envy the assurance that demands so much, so directly. I picture him sitting in a slender chair in the Piazza Navona, an arm slung over to another chair, nonchalantly demanding the attention of not only his companion but of all Rome.
Hold on—I’m not sure now I even mentioned Hawkweed before. He came in the late fall, walked right up to me outside the market. He’d had enough of the outdoor life.
Just now I had the thought that he is a bit like Karen. She, too, is focused, her quiet manners obscuring her good mind. A great professor should take her on as a protégée. A brisk bluestocking type who will guide her into a solid mental discipline and a reliable career. I wouldn’t count on a man to help a young woman start a career. El, did you once tell me that passivity contains a power as great as an atom that, when opened, explodes the world? Or am I thinking this now myself? Sometimes I don’t know the difference between us. But—we did speak of it—you were in your extremis of pain, and perversely ecstatic. You read me a Bible verse—
—I just looked it up. I have your old Bible on my bookshelf. No, dear El, don’t get your hopes up for me, I don’t plan to make a habit of it. I’m a sinner through and through.
The verse:
“The Lord said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
The world through the looking glass, the parallel universe where life is as it should be, so close to us yet impenetrable except when we accept the graces and the love offered to us. What I have learned is that grace and love are offered all the time, in every new moment, at every glimpse of the sky, or dawn of a day that has never before existed, or squirrel skittering along a branch, or conversation with a sister or a friend, or the sense of time suspended when reading a good book. We are free, always, to accept what is offered; it is we who don’t recognize this. That is our free will. The result is what we call our experience, which in turn forms our beliefs. There are a lot of bad ideas in the world. I have less and less patience with any ideas at all. Animals, flowers, the sea. Friends. Children. Art. The end.
I lifted Hawkweed off me and went downstairs to discuss the food for the day. Mrs. C.’s children were sick with colds and she was keeping them home, except Robert who was going to school and would escort Nan to the bus stop as usual. Mrs. C. had already made me oatmeal and had started a soup for the lunch, far more work than she needed to do for me, but I’ve stopped fighting her about her command of the kitchen. My pens sit above my paper. The pencils are sharpened and the eraser is close by. I have copied the last two sentences of what I’ve written on a new clean sheet.
I want to write to you a little longer, before I begin.
The morning sleet has become fat flakes. The sky’s mostly white, but every so often a shaft of sun pushes through, and there’s a sudden glistening in the air. I just walked across the hall into Edmund’s old bedroom and saw chimney smoke pulsing from the Chalet. Robert appeared in the scene and headed up Point Path, to fetch Nan. I crossed my fingers for a glimpse of Virgil, but he was out of sight. I watched the children head for the top of the road where the bus would pick them up.
All right. Goodbye for now, I’m going to write, with a capital W!
A little later. I wrote as planned, but every half hour or so I got up to stretch and found myself looking out the library window toward the Chalet. It spurs me on to know that Virgil is also writing—it feels fantastically companionable, after so many years alone. I want to—hold on a sec. A car is coming down Point Path and turning into my driveway. Karen’s car. How odd. Why didn’t she call ahead? She always calls before she comes now that Nan’s at school. Why isn’t she at work? Still, I’m glad she’s here to get me away from this desk!
She steps into the snowy driveway and looks up at the sky, smiling. She’s wearing the old wool cape of yours I gave her, and the sheepskin-lined snow boots she found at the church thrift shop. Her hair stops at her scarf, red against green, like a Christmas ornanment. She’s marching to the door. Later, gator! I’m going down.