“Were you well received?” she asked.
“He was certainly alert. He listened to me closely. When I finished he said not a word. It was strange. He simply patted me on the side. Like I was a boy, really…He then told me that we all must carry on. That he wished me well.”
“Strange indeed,” she said, considering the humor in her husband’s attempt to show this man a little compassion, figuring George ached to be rid of him. Yet it appeared to have worked for Glass, and all the better. “I hope you keep those words close to your heart during your travels west, then.”
Glass gazed into the kitchen as though it might offer access to a greater truth, then nodded and headed for the front door.
“Good luck, General,” she said.
He turned and put his hand upon his breast.
“I wish the same to you and yours.”
*
The dark was total by the time the general was mounting his horse. Isabelle returned to the kitchen, finished preparing the stew, and brought the food tray upstairs. When she opened the bedroom door she was met with the smell of rotten meat, and the room grew dense in the thick air. She pulled a chair up next to George. The dew of sweat glistened on his forehead again and his hand trembled. All she wanted was another lucid hour with him, or even a moment, before she lost him to the fever once more.
“Where have you gone?” he asked.
“I was only making your dinner.”
His brow arched but when he saw the food tray he nodded encouragingly. “What finer way to end the night than with a stew.”
She was trembling herself now. Her only wish was for him to enjoy her creation, and her nerves clouded the tranquility brought on by the open window, by the dark mass of the trees in the distance. She scooped a dollop onto the spoon and he opened his lips to it, and she looked on, spellbound, as he swallowed.
He said nothing. She refused the idea that the stew wasn’t to his taste and simply dipped the spoon into it once more. But when she invited him to open his mouth again, he turned his face away.
“George, you should eat.”
He shook his head petulantly. “My stomach cannot manage.”
“You asked for it.”
“And now I am saying I don’t want it!” He slammed the side of the bed. “It’s no good!”
She could not look at him. Every few moments he whimpered in agony, the sweat pooling on his pillow now. There was no means to distinguish her sadness from her anger, for she was enraged that he’d given the last reserves of his energy to guests and left nothing for her but this undying bitterness; and yet, she also knew the pain that had racked him and desired only a moment of peace for her beloved. A resolution to his pain.
By the time she spoke, the steam had floated off into the night and the stew sat cold on her lap.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry I cannot cook to your satisfaction. I’m sorry I was so cruel at times. That I grew so frustrated by your behavior when you were only acting naturally. I raged at you in a fever when you were too cold to understand my pain and I ran from you when you needed nothing more than my touch. And I blamed you. My God. I blamed you for so many things that weren’t of your doing. Only someone like you could tolerate me, and perhaps you’re an angel in that way. I am so grateful to have you. And I am sorry.”
His face, hauntingly pale, had emptied itself of color altogether, and he lay still. Without warning he reached his hand out and took the stew from the tray. He gripped the spoon and took a sip. Then another.
“George, you don’t need to—”
“It’s excellent,” he said.
He struggled with each swallow, his throat quivering as the food passed down.
“It is so excellent. All of it. Exquisite. Divine.”
His eyelids began to twitch. The spoon slipped from his hand and fell to the ground. The bowl capsized on his chest. He was lost to convulsions, his leg skittering about as though it had acquired agency and wished to escape him; his fists clenched, his arms locked up at odd angles before his whole body abruptly went limp.
Isabelle ran for towels and returned to him; cleaning him carefully, slowly, returning to the parts that were already washed, selfish ministrations, for even though his pulse still beat, she knew, then, that her husband was gone to her.
*
He lasted through the night. It was Silas who pulled the sheet over his face come morning. He put his hands gently upon her shoulders, telling her it would be all right—that he would stay with her however long her mourning might last.