Next week, just before Christmas, she will have finished her six months with Dr. Little. Six weeks ago, as she was nearing the end of the six months, she had to lie to him: she said that she thought the pains in her legs had finally left her. That day, she told him that she has inklings before an attack that the pains will come upon her, and that she had not had any such inklings in months. Periodically, since that time, she has mentioned the lack of pain in her legs, being careful not to touch upon the fact that if Dr. Little pronounces her cured, she can go back to the courts and try again for custody. When she does, she will insist that she has had a change of heart about religion and will take Nicky to church every Sunday. She will do her best to persuade the judge that the health and well-being of a child are perhaps more important than the name over the front door of the school he attends. Mr. Hastings, to whom she has also had to lie (about the pains), has been encouraging about her chances in court after the new year.
But privately, Etna is concerned. She worries that the increased frequency of her ailment has something to do with the fact that she is about to end her care with the therapist. She is tired of the pain and frightened of the very possibility the judge alluded to: becoming incapacitated in a dangerous situation. If she had stayed with August, would the pains have gone away by now? Of course, to have remained in London would have meant all this time without her children, which is now unthinkable. They have given her so much joy.
Sometimes Etna wonders if Dr. Little even understands what shell shock is. Or has he all along thought her merely another woman with a case of hysteria? In the beginning of the treatment, he handed her a packet of pills that she knew were for sleeping. What good were sleeping pills to her? She needs insight and clarity. When he asked her at the beginning of the following session if she had taken the pills, she told him no. He seemed neither pleased nor displeased.
“I have thought a great deal about how Stella and I are alike and how we are different,” Etna says.
“Mrs. Van Tassel, our session is now over.”
Etna is always surprised by the abrupt ending of the sessions. It seems unnecessarily rude. She swings her legs over the chaise and sits up. She reaches for her coat and hat and handbag and stares at the older physician. He is taking notes. Maddeningly, he will not look up at her, and he will not say good-bye.
She cannot imagine Dr. Little pronouncing her cured next week. What will he do? Write a letter to the judge? Surely he will not make any pronouncements to her.
There is one other gambit she might try, a ploy she has been thinking about all week. It will cost her another month before she can be a mother to Nicky, but it is time to end this charade for good.
Because it is snowing heavily, Etna holds on to the wrought-iron railing as she descends the steps of the brick mansion. Has psychology bought the house for Dr. Little, or did he inherit it from his family? She cannot imagine him with a family. She has paid a hefty fee for her sessions, though Dr. Gile and the court have helped to subsidize her treatments, which, as far as Etna is concerned, have been no treatment at all.
When she reaches the bottom step, she has a sudden and clear picture of what the town of Boston looked like just a month earlier, when the Armistice was declared. Such joy, such incomparable joy! She went immediately to Clara’s school and asked if her daughter might be allowed to have a late lunch with her mother. Together, they joined the throngs in the streets and ate a meal at a hotel that had a view of the Public Garden, filled with men and women and children giving thanks, in various ways, for the end to the horror to which so many Americans lost their lives. As she sat at the table with Clara, Etna imagined the intense relief in London after four devastating years of war.
Now, at the top of Beacon Hill, Etna thinks it might just be possible to catch a nearly empty troopship returning to England to pick up the thousands of American men and women still trying to get home. Etna will explain to Nicky and to Clara, both of whom will be at school while she is away, what it is she intends to do. Nicky, teasing, will ask if she will be his “aunt” again, but mostly he will be disappointed that the war is over and that he cannot go with her.
She will have to persuade Judge Kornitzer of the worthiness of her plan, and to do that she must have August refer her, in writing, to Dr. Richard Parkhurst, his colleague and a world-renowned specialist on shell shock, whom he has mentioned to her in their correspondence. August will need to persuade Judge Kornitzer that a British psychologist is more qualified than an American physician to work with her, since British physicians have seen so much more of shell shock than Americans have.
What she will not tell the judge is that it is Phillip she must see.
London, January 1919
A glistening white frost, greenish-brown where footprints have been. Etna has come for a walk in the garden on this Saturday morning, only her second day in London, to gather courage before knocking on August’s front door. He is expecting her.
Even the pollarded plane trees glisten in the pale light, and it occurs to Etna that she has never seen them in leaf. She has missed two springs since she was last here, and she will not see the spring of 1919, either. On the docks and in the train stations of England, she encountered troops still returning from wherever they had been—Abyssinia, Russia, the Dardanelles—a vivid reminder of all the soldiers who have not yet been demobilized. Above the reception desk at her hotel stands a discreet sign reminding guests that ration cards still need to be produced. The women in the streets look emaciated, and there are so many more of them than there are men.
Etna spends a pleasant fifteen minutes meandering around the garden with its myriad footpaths, even though she is cold inside her wool coat and leather boots. She would like a fur—what woman would not?—but she is unlikely to purchase such a luxury. She must pay back Dr. Gile the money he has lent her for the treatments and the passage to England; she must save for Clara’s tuition for next year; and she must begin to see to Mr. Hastings’s bill. It could be years, if ever, before she has the money for a fur, and by then she will have other, more important, expenses to see to.
When she can, Etna notices precise shades of color. She has begun to experiment with color in her drawings; she’s purchased thick, porous paper and uses the watercolor paints given to her by the Bridges. She does not want to paint like a watercolorist, using water liberally and painting quickly with pale tints. For her work, she needs saturated colors. Just finding the correct shade of red for blood took her days of trial and error. The particular shade of blue-purple for viscera was even more difficult. Though the task is time-consuming, it involves all her senses and leaves her in a blissfully trancelike state.
Before she left New Hampshire, she and Dr. Gile spoke at length about her proposed trip to England. He consulted with Mr. Hastings, and together they made a request of Judge Kornitzer: would he be able to meet with Mrs. Van Tassel about a matter of importance? The judge replied that he would, but that he wished both children to be present as well. Since the meeting was to take place during the week after Christmas, it would be easy for Clara and Nicky to attend.
They met in the judge’s chambers in the courthouse.
“This young gentleman must be Nicodemus,” the judge said as he rounded his wooden desk to take a seat behind it.
“Yes,” Etna said. “And this is my daughter, Clara.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you,” the judge said, studying the young woman in the gray plaid suit. Nicky, who wore his school uniform, sat up straighter.
“Well, young man, do you hate the Hackett School as much as I did when I was a boy?” the judge asked Nicky.
Nicky colored but answered, “No, sir,” without much hesitation.
The judge smiled. “Do you both understand that your mother intends to go away to England to find a doctor who will help her get better?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Clara responded.
The judge nodded. “You do not need to address me so formally in here,” he said gen
tly to Clara. “Here I am simply Mr. Kornitzer.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, turning to look at her mother.
“And you understand the length of time she will be away.”
“One month,” Nicky said. Observing her son, Etna thought that no back had ever been straighter against a chair.
“Well, I think we will have to give her six weeks. She must get there and back. Mrs. Van Tassel, you do understand that you may not leave before the children have returned to their separate schools and that you must show Mr. Hastings here that you have a return ticket?”
“Yes, I do.”
The judge leaned back in his leather chair and took in Etna and her children. “You are quite an unusual family,” he said and paused. “But not an altogether impossible one.”
As she rounds a corner, mulling over that conversation, Etna sees the man she has not set eyes upon since early February of 1917.
“Etna.”
Once, she heard her name spoken and it brought back her memory. Today, it brings a strong desire to embrace the man in front of her on the path, and she does so.
He holds her for a long time. She has missed his scent: laundry starch and soap.
Awkwardly, they break apart. She studies his face. He is clean-shaven, and his hair has been cut shorter, but the navy eyes behind the silver spectacles are precisely as she has recalled them.
“August,” she says for the first time.
“I thought you might be out here,” he replies. “You, like me, would have arrived early, I reasoned. And I was right. Are you cold?”
“No, no, I’m fine.” She feels as though she knows this man well, and yet really she knows nothing of his life since she last saw him. Except for one fact.
“I am so sorry about Lily.”
He nods. “She was too young.”
“And how is the boy?”
“He’s a handful,” August says with a smile. “A joy, really. You shall see him in a minute. Let’s head toward the house. Streeter is eager to greet you again.”
Iris would have been let go, Stella thinks, since there was no longer a mistress to care for.
August holds out his elbow, and Etna takes his arm. She remembers that his stride is longer than hers. Silently, they compromise so that they can easily walk together.
Streeter, who must have been waiting at the door for them, opens it before they have mounted the first step. The man does not smile, never smiles because of his bad teeth, but she can see his welcome in his eyes. He bows. “Mrs. Van Tassel,” he says.
“I should very much like to be Etna. You’ll forgive me, but I am an American, after all.”
“I am happy to see you again,” Streeter says.
“And I you,” Etna answers.
“Streeter, bring us tea, if you would,” says Dr. Bridge. “And then fetch Sebastian. I know Etna would like to meet him.”
Etna follows August into the morning room, not much changed since she saw it last: the same red tiles of the fireplace surround; the tulip chandelier. She sits on the red silk settee and recalls vividly the first time she entered the room, she in her filthy VAD uniform, Lily in her rose-colored suit.
“I’m remembering Lily,” Etna says when August has taken a chair across from Etna.
“It was a difficult birth, a brutal birth,” he says. “We found out shortly after you left that she had a condition called placenta previa. Perhaps you know of it?”
“With my Latin, I can guess. The placenta blocks the birth canal?”
“Precisely. She had to be put to bed. Knowing Lily, you can imagine how she chafed at this prohibition. I tried to amuse her in any way I could, and I almost always took my meals in her room. At the moment of crisis, I was sleeping in a spare room close to hers. Because of Lily’s condition, the plan was to take the baby by cesarean two weeks before her labor was due to begin. Indeed, she was to be moved to hospital that morning. We had hired a midwife who lived in, but she slept upstairs. I was the first to hear Lily moaning. It was already nine o’clock, and I never oversleep. I see that fact as just one more part of God’s diabolical plan.”
He pauses. Etna wants to cover his hand, but he is too far away.
“By the time I got to the room, it was nearly over. Lily had gone into labor a half hour earlier. When the placenta finally ruptured, she died within minutes.”
“Oh, August. How awful.” Etna briefly closes her eyes. “How did you save the child?”
“I grabbed a knife and performed the cesarean myself. I had to do this while she was still alive, though unconscious. It was…” He shakes his head, as if to throw off the memory.
“Oh, my dear.”
“It was what she wanted,” he says. “I had to do it. I saw no purpose in losing both of them.”
As if to buttress the necessary deeds of that morning, a young woman arrives with a toddler in tow at the same time Streeter comes in with the tea.
August stands. “Etna, may I introduce Lucille, our nanny, and my son, Sebastian Cornelius Bridge.”
“Such a long name for such a little boy,” Etna says, standing and bending to the child. She smiles. He has Lily’s blond hair, but that is all of Lily Etna can see in him. “I am from America,” she says. “Do you know where America is?”
Sebastian nods, pauses, and then shakes his head. “I have a little boy, too,” she adds. “Well, you might think he was a big boy.”
The child runs to his father, who swoops him up and holds him over his head, then gently sets him down. “Well, I’m not going to be able to do that much longer. You’re growing too big,” he says to his son and takes him on his lap. The nanny stands at a distance.
“Has he had his lunch?” August asks.
“Not yet,” Lucille says.
“Oh, too bad, I was going to spoil him with one of these scones.”
“Oh, I think he would not mind a scone, sir.”
Etna thinks how unlucky and lucky this household has been. The boy is a treasure, a gift. She has never seen August so comfortable in his surroundings.
“You look criminally healthy,” August says when they are alone.
“I have been too well fed.”
“Nonsense. Your time in America has allowed you to become the woman you were meant to be. How are your children?”
Etna takes a long breath and lets it out. “It hasn’t been easy, August. I’ve had to fight hard for our current arrangements, which, as you know, are not perfect.” Etna removes from her handbag two photographs, both professionally posed. In one, a young woman with the shape of Etna’s face and her mouth gazes at the viewer, a slight smile on her lips. Nicky, in his, stands ramrod straight in his school uniform and smiles the way boys do when they have been told to—that is, with a rigid, teeth-baring grin. The picture makes August laugh.
“He can smile naturally when no one is paying attention,” Etna says. “But somehow he thinks more is expected of him when his picture is being taken.”
“Your daughter is lovely,” August says. “I see a lot of you in her. The mouth, the chin.”
“Yes, she has begun to look more and more like me, despite the contrast in our coloring.”
“Your son will lose his extra weight when he reaches puberty,” August reassures her.
“I fear he may have inherited his father’s build.”
“He’s your child as well,” August points out. “I expect him to be quite tall. Does he have large feet?”
“Yes,” she says. “Too big for his body.”
“There’s your proof, then. He’ll grow into his feet.”
“What a funny concept.”
“True, nevertheless. You’re very lucky, Etna.”
“Yes, I know. Now that Clara has moved north, it’s much easier to be together. She and I have become quite close. I see her every week.”
Etna describes her useless sessions with Dr. Little.
“I’ve made an appointment for you to visit Richard Parkhurst the day after tomorrow,” August
explains. “When I heard you would be here for such a short stay, he and I agreed that there was no time to lose.”
“I know that the ‘cure’ to my last ailment lies here, not in America. If it did lie there, I am certain I would be done with it. In fact, during the last several months, the pains in my legs have increased in frequency, not decreased.”
“I once learned not to dismiss your hunches.”
Etna laughs.
“You’re the same and not the same,” he says.
“I was someone else. Do you ever think about her?”
“Yes, I do. Often.”
“Tell me about you.”
He sets his teacup down. “Well,” he says, picking off an imaginary piece of lint from his trousers, “I’m in the midst of changing professions. Now that the war is over, there is, happily, less demand for cranial surgery. I’m reading psychiatry, which can’t be a complete surprise to you.”
“I’m pleased for you,” she says.
“Would you like to see the orangery?” he asks. “For old times’ sake?”
“I would love to,” she says.
From the glass dome, Etna peers down into the tall bare trees, wet now with the midday sun. She inspects the rooftops and chimney pots, faintly pink from the low angle of the light this time of year. Inside the glass dome, there are no blossoms on the trees and certainly no fruit. But the life in them is apparent. The soil feels rich to Etna’s touch.
She circumnavigates the dome, touching bark and leaves as she goes. “What did we do here?” she asks.
August, already seated, seems surprised by the question. “Your memories came as small jolts,” he says.