I worked my way through a tray of Christmas cards, answering and posting, and over the next few days made the rounds, including Christmas Eve with Uncle William et co. and Christmas Day at Polly’s. Archie Lee was the most amusing of everyone, a very free laugh and a dry wit. I think he’s headed for Lee & Sons, as he seems too sybaritic to claw his way up in another business. He pays lots of attention to me, which I’m not against, and is adored by both his parents. When I tried to tell him about FP in the fall, though, he glazed over. He saw me notice and took my hands in his. “It’s too quiet for me, Cousin, and too dry. You understand, don’t you?” I don’t, but I was charmed, as he knew I would be, in spite of my being against charm in principle. Polly’s group was fine, too. I hoped to have a moment alone with her, which I haven’t yet. I want to tell her about what happened to me, and I must find a moment for a private visit during this short trip. Or she must. Her house is mayhem. Anyway, I have been wanting to tell you first—to write it all down—but I have been too busy and too preoccupied. Now here I am, wide awake from days of sugar and in a heightened state of mind because of all the ghosts of Christmases past thronging the streets of this old city. It is time.
The cataclysm began six weeks ago, one afternoon when I was working at my desk in my bedroom and got up for a stretch. I walked to the window. That day, as was often the case, Nan was walking across the frosted meadow, moving purposefully, pursuing a plan. My heart filled from watching her. Such a free creature, so game. I vowed to paint in the same spirit, yet my heady resolve was interrupted by a more practical consideration. Was Nan dressed warmly enough for such a chilly day? I had been judicious in my warnings and instructions, phrasing them so as not to scare her or inhibit her. I’m determined not to teach her to fear everything, as we were taught, or that manners are preferable to feelings. I honestly don’t yet know what free is, but I know what it isn’t. I decided to trust that if she were cold, she’d seek warmth.
I took Star downstairs and let him out to join Nan. She squealed as he ran to her, and they fell immediately into a game of chase in the graveyard. Then Nan walked among the stones, sometimes banging on them with a stick as if they were drums, sometimes lying on the ground with her head by a stone in the exact position she’d be if she were beneath the earth. Eerie and natural, both. She sang, too. I couldn’t hear her, but I saw her sway as she does when she sings. I thought I must teach her more songs—her voice is sweet.
“Bring Star back in when you get cold,” I called out. She waved, and I climbed up to the third floor to fiddle with my painting. I’d graduated from practicing on paper or cardboard to a wall. I was painting a mural of a shoreline, pines, water. It wasn’t very good—not good at all—but I was pleased by it anyway. One section, perhaps two square feet, came out well; that was encouraging. No one would ever see it but me and Nan and Mrs. Circumstance. Nan criticized my work quite fairly in her limited but growing vocabulary. She suggested adding a dog—a good idea.
I’d absorbed a great deal from the borrowed library books, and was on the way to inventing a style of my own to depict the local landscapes, the flora and fauna of the island. I wasn’t interested—luckily!—in making realistic reproductions. I only hoped to capture my feeling for all I love here. This first fall on my own.
Twenty minutes passed, and I felt every one of them tick by. I left the room and went to the window on the landing to check on Nan. She’d climbed up on one of the graves and was waving her arms, pretending to be a bird. Star looked up attentively, a good audience. Nan jumped to the ground, and Star put his paws on Nan’s pants and waited for a pat or a kiss. Nan, predictably, offered neither but climbed up again. This was a game that would tire her out. Mrs. Circumstance had a stew on the stove, and Nan would certainly be ready for it by lunchtime.
Satisfied that child and dog were safely within range and well occupied, I went back to my wall and tried to paint a fir tree. I’d worked for perhaps ten minutes when I heard Star barking. The tone instantly terrified me, and I began to run, dropping my paintbrush somewhere and grabbing at the finials on the bannister to swing from one floor down the stairs to the next, skipping steps recklessly, pounding against the risers at such a gallop I sounded like more than one person. I only slowed once, at one window, to look for the trouble. I had no doubt there was trouble, my flesh had risen into a hard carapace, and blood rushed past my ears. A glance showed Nan on the ground and I kept going, running, registering as I ran what else I’d seen in that brief second—a stone lying across her torso. I huffed the harsh grunts that come only from the worst fear.
Mrs. Circumstance came out of the kitchen. “Get Hiram!” I shouted, and we ran out of the house in opposite directions, she to find her husband, I straight to the child. Robert appeared at my side and our footfalls landed out of rhythm, a herd in panic. We arrived in the graveyard and got on either side of the stone—it was Daddy’s stone that I’d yet to have Hiram put into the ground, it had been leaning against a rock in the field—and tried to lift it. “Get it off!” My voice came out in a gruff rasp. I summoned all my strength, but the shock of the stone’s weight circumvented it, and my fingers were useless as pencils to perform the feat. We groaned. My muscles tore and shredded. After a few seconds we lifted the stone a little, reducing the full pressure on her but no more. Then—we were stuck. If we admitted defeat and let the stone back down onto her, it would crush her further. We stared at each other. The stone was freezing, and because I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore I imagined I felt the stone sliding incrementally out of my grasp. I’d planted my feet wrongly to begin with and now couldn’t alter my posture. There was nothing to do but wait. Wait and hold on, hold on. I didn’t pray—why would I? Instead Robert and I held fast to each other’s gaze, sending telepathic messages that we could do this. Not wasting our breath.
I don’t know how long that aspect of the ordeal went on—probably not much more than a minute. My hands were dumb, numb stubs. Time stretched long and wide until Hiram appeared and he and Mrs. Circumstance lifted, too, and we got the stone off Nan and lay it flat on the grass. Nan looked intact at first glance, and I very nearly smiled, but when Robert tried to put his arms under her blood rushed from her mouth and nose, and I saw her legs had broken.
“Go call the ambulance!” Hiram told Mrs. Circumstance.
“Bring a blanket and water back,” I said. “Please.”
Mrs. Circumstance windmilled her arms, pounding across the meadow. Robert’s hand hovered over Nan’s forehead, but he didn’t touch her, only whispered. Oh, the long minutes! We wanted to take her to the hospital ourselves, but decided we must wait, we didn’t know how to lift her safely. My legs dampened from the chilly ground. Star licked Nan’s hand. Every moment extended into ages. I began to think more clearly about the hours ahead, whom to call, what to do. Mrs. Circumstance prayed. Robert whispered to Nan words I couldn’t hear.
All of us had forgotten about Virgil. None of us even thought to go fetch him; he really wasn’t a part of our world. So when he loomed over us casting a shadow, he startled and confused us. “No!” he cried out, and the word went through me like a knife. He knelt next to her, his legs bent like clothespins beneath him, and took her hand. I felt a stab of hatred. He was the one meant to be watching her, he was the parent! Good Lord, I finally had my own life and though I loved her and wanted to do everything for her, I couldn’t be her babysitter! I had the mad thought that he shouldn’t even be among us, worrying about her—he’d lost his privileges for doing so. But that meant I was responsible, which I wasn’t. This was his fault.