He stopped going out to parties or doing anything but his job at a nearby café and writing. Ro got pregnant, which was a surprise but not an unhappy one. Baby Nan was born without complication, Ro fitted her on a hip, and life went on. She was able to take her to the gallery a lot of the time, and her friends helped her out, delighted to play with a baby. Ro afforded Virgil the freedom to work as much as he wanted to, which he took as his due. He loved her and the baby, but he was preoccupied, much to his present regret. He finished The Flashing Sea and it was accepted by a publisher. He did what he could to promote it, but it was bad timing. He wanted to be the new big thing, but Truman Capote and Jack Kerouac beat him out. He moped around on the periphery and tried to write a new book, but nothing really kept him in the chair as the first book had. He went out with Otto and drank too much. It was a crummy period, full of frustration and a sense of failure. Everything he did was halfhearted at best.
One day Ro came in from work without Nan, who was still with one of her friends. She’d gotten knocked down by a car sideswiping her and had hit her head and scraped her knees. She wanted to lie down for a little while—would Virgil go get Nan? She settled on the sofa and he lay a blanket over her. The afternoon was cold and glittery, the sun setting after a bright New York January day. Nan was surprised to see him rather than Ro. He stayed for a drink with Ro’s friend and they gossiped about the neighborhood. When Nan got cranky, he took his leave, and walked home holding her hand. She pointed in windows and at dogs and he thought about his work. When he got home, Ro was still asleep. Nan pulled at her arm to wake her, but she showed no response. Virgil asked what he should feed Nan for dinner; still no response. He walked over to look at her, and he was seized with a terror he’d never before known. He knew immediately that she was dead, but he shook her anyway, helplessly.
Eventually he thought to call an ambulance. He was told that when she’d hit her head her brain began to bleed and it had bled so much that she had a fatal stroke. He asked if she’d have lived if he’d taken her to the hospital. I winced when I read that, even before I got to the answer, which was—maybe. It was the kind of question that makes for a future of guilt. No wonder he’d seemed like a madman from a distance. He wrote as much—he lost his mind with regret and grief. He knew he wasn’t paying attention to Nan, but he simply couldn’t. He hated being in the apartment and even in New York without Ro. He remembered about Fellowship Point and asked his uncle if he could stay there. The rest I knew. He wrote about how terrified he was after Nan’s accident that he was going to lose her, too. He’s grateful to me for so much. I honestly feel that gratitude isn’t necessary or called for, but I suppose among the choices of emotion under the circumstances it fits the bill.
I’m copying the end of the letter here.
The other night when I thought Nan was already asleep, she called to me.
“Fur, will you read to me?”
I went over to the bed and sat by her. I read a line. She nodded solemnly, touched a word, and said, “Tooth.”
She pointed to another. “Boat.”
And another. “Sal.”
“Are you reading?” I asked.
She shrugged. I believe she honestly didn’t know.
I read another page and stopped. “Your turn,” I said casually.
She put her head forward and peered at the page with great concentration. I pointed to a word. “Clams,” she said. Now I was certain she recognized it. I taught her the word “the.” You can go far in life if you know about “the.” I don’t know how Karen is teaching her and I don’t want to interfere with that, but maybe it doesn’t hurt to take several approaches to the same place. I read for as long as she wanted me to, and accepted the pleasure of having her pressed against my arm, leaning on me, trusting me.
How was is it possible that I didn’t understand how to be with her? What I owe her?
How was it possible that I believed I needed to conserve my words to the degree that I withheld myself from her?
And you, Agnes. How can it be that I have held myself back and apart, as if the greatest privilege in life might not be to speak to you?
I hear the sheets clanging against the masts. The buoy bells, the foghorn, the waves lapping. I want to know you, Agnes. May I?
I sat with the letter in my lap for a while and let it sink in. No wonder he seemed like such a wild man, so out of sorts, so antisocial and irresponsible. He was bereft and grieving. What happened to Ro was awful, a shock like Edmund’s car accident. I pictured her coming home and talking to him, saying she just wanted to lie down, and that was the last time they spoke. How could he have known to take her to the hospital? They were young and death wasn’t yet real—not their own, at least.
I thought about his request. Why is it that when a person moves toward you in a real and considered way the gesture creates an expanse of time unlike any other? His question gave me leeway to dally with my feelings. If I wanted, I could weigh the pros and cons and drag the whole process out for weeks. I could flick him looks without speaking and leave him to guess what I’m thinking.
But I see no point in that. And as we know about me, Elspeth, I like things that have a point to them.
CHAPTER 26 Agnes, Leeward Cottage, March 1961
Dear El,
Honestly I do not have a moment to sit down, except when I am drawing with Nan or making lists of things that need to be done. We have her up on her feet every day now, and she is as determined a person as you were—in her case, to be a regular girl who runs down the road after the school bus drops her off. We all clap when she takes steps and she preens at the attention.
She is so natural, Elspeth. In ways we never were. Our mother’s anxiety that we not be the object of anyone’s disapproval influenced our actions and even our thoughts. We were trained so early about how to fit in. Nan is almost feral in this regard. She has seen and knows so few people. Her world is expanding through the books Karen reads to her, but I can’t know exactly what she takes from what she hears. Children are both imaginative and literal, and it’s hard to know at any moment which prevails.
I count on her to tell me how she thinks and feels, and to that end I tell her how I think and feel. We are playing games such as opening our fists as slowly as possible and describing the sensations as our fingers unfurl. Then we scrunch up a leaf or a piece of paper and watch it make a similar effort to expand. I don’t know exactly what this is, science or affection, but we are opening, too.
Virgil and Karen and I are eating dinner together nearly every night now, and our conversations are relaxed and lively. Virgil has completely let go of his reticence and formality. He laughs freely and interposes wit among our remarks. I think he is helping Karen to loosen up. She often comes to the table holding a book—my private discussions are not enough to satisfy her appetite for book talk—and she reads a passage aloud to us and asks us what we see in it. Though Virgil and I have never said so, we have a conceit that she is our little sister, and we are preparing her for life. For Radcliffe. Now I am convinced she could do it. Her insights are untutored and reveal the parameters of my own education, as she often says things that wouldn’t have come up in a course.