A new way

“But Agnes, why did your mother and uncle seem so perturbed by me?”

There was no avoiding it. “I told a little white lie to Uncle Collin to get out of bingo so we could go to dinner. When I go back inside, it’s the Spanish Inquisition for me.”

“What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive! Bu Agnes, I don’t want you lying on my account.”

“Sometimes my uncle scares me. When he wears those black glasses and stares at me like that, I feel like I’m four years old again.”

“My image of you isn’t four years old. When I’m walking home from work, I see your red hair and freckles, your green eyes, the way your fingers are always moving about, so long and graceful.”

He had a dreamy way of looking at her that took her imagination to another place, somewhere unknown with quiet fields of spring flowers and singing birds, and she’d forget the where and when of the moment. Ah, yes – Mama’s house, October 1931.

Just as she came back from her spring fields, he lifted her chin and kissed her on the lips. His mouth lingered, his blue eyes enormous. Then he kissed her a second time, this time longer. The magic returned again and she had to remind herself – Mama’s house, October 1931, awaiting Uncle Collin’s punishment.

“Goodbye for now,” he said, straightening his jacket. “I’m off for my morning run.”

She stood there a long time, reliving his hypnotic kisses, wanting more, wishing he were standing there, his face eclipsing hers. But then she went back inside and tried tiptoeing up the stairs to her bedroom.

“Agnes,” Uncle Collin said, “Come into the kitchen at once.”

Finally

Agnes stared at the red box. Perspiration dripped down her forehead onto her nose and her cotton dress stuck to her sides. She’d been cleaning house for Grace’s birthday party, and even opening the windows couldn’t keep the piercing heat out. But the moment had come. Norman’s boxes – including the red one from England – had to be sorted through.

October would be a year since the London bombing, and the red box had arrived from London just a month afterward. She hadn’t wanted to open it, and Victoria refused – too painful, his mother confessed. But now, she had to see what was inside. Her suspicions would surely be answered in that box. Two years of Norman’s private life were buried inside it.

The red box, largest and heaviest, sat on the bottom under the four she’d packed herself. Norman’s clothing for charitable donation. No one she knew wore his size –too muscular for Brian, too short for Patrick, too fit for Uncle Collin. But when she finally lifted the red box, she felt a sharp pain in her lower back and dropped the box back to the floor. She heard glass breaking inside.

She tore at the heavy packing tape, but it wouldn’t yield and she broke two fingernails. Why’d she forget to trim her nails? She’d never let them get long when practicing for the recital – but she’d lost track of the piano since Norman died. She ripped at the tape and, finally, it came undone – and she looked inside the box.

Heaven knows what she’d find. Her heart stopped in the first moments she saw its contents.

My friend

This luscious afternoon in the courtyard I think about whether I’d like to write about fiction – my heroine Agnes, of course – or reality – my friend Mark, of course. Instead I’ll write about the luscious afternoon.

I lie on a Sunbrella-fabric lounge chair in the courtyard at the Parker Guesthouse. Almost the hour for the wine social – and for the temperature to drop precipitously from a pleasant 68 to a nipple-hardening 54. I remain after three hours in this back yard worshipful of plants, trees, and fresh air. The tension in my skull begins to ebb, the sadness in my heart begins to lift, and the dull pain behind my eyes begins to evaporate.

A mild breeze breathes on by, so unlike the harsh winds of Tropical Storm Isaac that I confronted during my 48 hours in Florida – after the East Hampton trip, before I flew out to San Francisco – and I breathe in the happy air of Northern California. I wonder what air came along for the ride from New York, what came from Fort Lauderdale. Does any of it bring our grieving from the Hamptons, and does any of it bring the hurricane-season anxiety from Florida? I feel little of it here. But it remains in the back of my head, that grief and anxiety.

I’ll remain here until Saturday, under strict orders from myself to decompress from the funeral and recharge myself. No obligations, no plans, no interactions. Just time for myself, by myself, and with myself. The maple above flutters in the wind, its orange-red leaves waving hello to me. The British gentlemen across the way cast flirtatious glances my way – even if I’m almost 50 and have bags under my eyes.

All of this helps me recover from Mark’s death. It will be a long road to recovery.

The tension mounts

“I’ve been fired, Agnes!” Norman fumed, the whites of his eyes, framed by his scarlet red face, boring into her like Galileo’s microscope. Why’d she think of Galileo at a time like this, Agnes asked herself, just lke she’d thought about Socrates drinking hemlock when Mama told her Daddy died. What kind of cup did Socrates use, Sister Mary James, a pewter mug or a ceramic jug?

She stuttered out her reply and forgot what she’d planned to say – “Oh, Norman, I’m very upset –“

“I can’t talk now, Agnes. I have to leave. I have to, I have to watch my father balance the receipts. I can’t talk now.” And he closed the elevator doors and was gone. Probably forever.

It’d been so easy, working in the same architectural firm. But no, the Depression had gotten worse, so instead of your neighbor losing his job, you lost it, too. But Agnes had kept hers – though, of course, she’d never earn more than a dollar a day with her meager pittance of a job.

And then it took Agnes two weeks – before she saw Norman again, before she got up the courage to say to herself, “Enough of pining away for Norman Balmoral. I’m going to find him and kiss him until we both turn blue.”

Everything and everyone

Beyond the bridge and down the hill, people waited on both sides of the street. They must’ve read yesterday’s headline in the Inquirer about the funeral and decided to come. People had long memories. The attack on Wilson’s granddaughter had taken place three years ago, back when Agnes had been happy in her marriage – a long time indeed.

The procession made its way down Chestnut Street. If the people they passed didn’t salute the caisson, they wept. Agnes again felt a lump in her throat. She leaned down to Grace and Harold. “Children, remember how your city paid its respects to your daddy.”

Just before they turned onto 19th Street to make their way to Rittenhouse Square, she turned and saw an endless panorama of Philadelphians behind her as far as the eye could see, perhaps three hundred people. Norman might lay dead in the coffin, but his city had come out in full force. Agnes raised her chin and resumed the march.

Rittenhouse Square’s quiet beauty struck her as they came upon its diagonal sidewalk. The noon sun shone through the trees’ leaves. Agnes closed her eyes and breathed in the city’s air. The majestic oaks along the diagonal enclosed their procession like raised swords at a military wedding. For the first time that day, Agnes smiled. She was glad Rittenhouse Square would bear witness to Norman’s funeral. They crossed the square and turned onto Locust Street.

The caisson stopped just outside St. Mark’s Church, its broad red doors already opened for them. Agnes turned around to face the people who had joined their procession and bowed her head. Many stood with tears in their eyes.

Fallen from the sky

Agnes passed the examination at the War Department, Dr. Aaronson told her. She no longer had to work as a secretary.

“And scored second highest,” the doctor said, wiggling his gray moustache at her. “The first woman I’ve ever seen to do so well on a mathematics examination. A regular Sir Isaac Newton you are.”

Even though she’d left St. Patrick’s school fifteen years earlier, Agnes remembered the calculus – differentials, integrals, and lots of lovely Greek symbols. Uncle Collin had made her feel like a vulgar charlatan for doing well in mathematics. But now the good Doctor Aaronson complimented her.

“Mind you, I still expect the secretarial balabusta to work very hard for me, so don’t let this go to your head. We’ll be working on a project of national importance – but that’s all I can tell you.”

She didn’t care what they were doing – as long as she didn’t have to type memoranda for the thin-lipped, constipated-looking Mr. McIlhenny. Dr. Aaronson with the wild gray hair would be a lot more fun.

A woman and her Dolce and Gabbana bag

I hoped I looked presentable for the center of town. Four errands to run – copies for the new keys, pay the caterer, buy the newspapers and check the obituaries, close the bank account. But I was wearing a tank top and my hair was a frightful bird’s nest, and this was just not done in swanky East Hampton.

Three people stood in front of me at the hardware store. Why was it, when I needed to get keys, someone was outfitting his entire house and servants? He needed twelve copies of one key, six of another. But I got it done – and rushed over to the bank –

I ran into a Cindy Crawford lookalike when I turned the corner onto the sidewalk. Her Dolce and Gabbana bag went flying. A purse hit an elderly Episcopalian woman in the face, scarves scattered on the floor, and a pair shoes shimmied onto the street. Of course it had to happen – a Bentley convertible drove by and squashed them. There went $800 down the drain.

I sat down on the ground and burst into tears. This week had been hard enough.

Under my skin

I lugged the television down the street to the dumpster. Why’d they have to put gravel on this driveway? It made walking in Birkenstocks impossible – with or without the forty extra pounds. But the townhouse board voted for it …

The television made a loud thud when it hit the bottom of the dumpster. Thank goodness that was done – only one more load this morning. When I got back to the house, the phone was ringing. The funeral home called. Mark’s ashes would be ready for pickup at 9:00 this morning. That gave me two hours.

A knock on the door.

Jim Hildredth, this bony wisp of a man, lips more pursed than Queen Victoria’d ever done. I breathed slowly. What would it be this time?

“You’re not allowed to put televisions in the dumpster,” he said. “We’re going into Labor Day weekend. You can’t be filling it up today.”

“No worries,” I paused. “I’ve only got one more load.”

“But you will have to remove the television.”

All week long, all week long – trying to clear Mark’s house of the clutter and dealing with this Wicked Witch of the West at the same time … I pictured myself climbing into the dumpster to retrieve the television from the Jurassic era.

“I’ll get it shortly,” I lied. “Have a good morning, Jim.”

I turned my back to him and walked to the back of the house.

I'm in trouble now

He lifted her chin and kissed her on the lips. Afterward his mouth lingered there, his blue eyes enormous. He kissed her a second time, this time much longer. The magic returned but she reminded herself – Mama’s house, October 1931. Plus Uncle Collin equaled punishment.

“Goodbye for now,” he said, straightening his jacket. “I’m off for my run.”

She stood there a long time, reliving his hypnotic kisses, wanting more, wishing he were standing there, his face eclipsing hers. She’d have to go inside sooner or later, so she opened the door and tip-toed up the front stairs to her own bedroom.

“Agnes,” Uncle Collin said, “come into the kitchen at once.”

She crept down the stairs and back to the kitchen. She sat at the table with the other three and cast her eyes downward.

“You lied to me,” Uncle Collin began. “Tell the truth now, young lady.”

“I didn’t lie, it’s just -- oh, all right, I did. Mr. Balmoral invited me to dinner and I didn’t want to tell you. I’m sorry.”

Mama groaned. “Why would you be lying to your Uncle Collin, who’s done so much for you ever since your father died?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t want Uncle Collin to feel bad that I missed bingo because Mr. Balmoral invited me to dinner.”

Uncle Collin scowled. “I don’t feel bad, as you put it. I’m angry. Until sundown it’s rosaries, novenas, and … my favorite niece has disappointed me, Agnes Mary.”

“Oh, poo.” Granny stood up and came behind Agnes. “You leave her be, Collin Doherty. Can’t you see the lass is smitten?”

A little good news

This morning I finished adhering the last photograph on the poster board. It would make for a nice display at Mark’s memorial. People of his generation didn’t do that sort of thing, but after twenty years of attending HIV memorials, I’d become an expert on death. The advantage of a cremation and memorial over a body and a funeral – more time to put on a show.

Yesterday the cleaning lady told me she’d take Peony. I felt the balm of warmness in my heart – thank goodness, the little stinker would have a home. And Lucretia knew the little brown chihuahua pooped all over the place.

But a cold wind blew out my heart’s warmth. What about Margo? Who would take her? Who would give the sweet, shell-shocked dog a hug and a kiss at night? She’d lost her daddy and now, she’d lose both her little sister and her home, all at once. Her delicate black Chihuahua features needed protection from the evil world. No, I can’t separate them – or take them to the shelter. And I’ve got two days to figure it out.

I looked at the poster board. Pictures as recent as April, the gay wedding Mark attended, his last social occasion before taking ill. And two pictures from 1923, when he was 3 years old. You can tell it’s Mark – same high cheekbones and English mouth. I promised him I’d find homes for the dogs, and find them I will.

In the mood

Sunday I started in the guest bedroom. That Dell PC from the late ‘90s – pitch it. The crusty blankets all wrinkled up in the bottom of the closet – dump. Old socks and underwear, nobody at Goodwill would want them. And then the office on the second floor landing, all those old bills from the cellphone (I discontinued that two weeks ago when he was in the hospital), the Medicare statements from 2010, the checks from the account I’d have to freeze tomorrow … all into the wastebasket and out to the dumpster.

I sat at the desk and turned on the computer, went to bigmuscle.com and found one of my old favorites, CreamyMuscle. Did a quickie right there and went back to my task of the day. Had to get it all done today – I’d have to go to the church to meet with the priest and then to the undertaker. He is weird.

In the bedroom, I look at his clothes and sighed. If only Mark and I had been the same size. He had lovely clothing, all those cashmere sweaters, dressed shirts. He ironed them all … even his shorts before going to swanky Hamptons parties. Nobody in our generation does that, do they? I never iron, not even my good shirts. But if you’re born in 1920, I guess you iron.

Packed up the clothes for donations to charity. Next job – the books, CDs, and DVDs. I don’t want any myself – I’ve got too many already.

Then back to the computer and another J.O. session, this time to another personal favorite, IMassageU. Didn’t even take me two minutes.

I put a load of laundry in the washing machine and went into the living room, took the photos of Mark and John’s trips out of their frames – would occupy less space in a folder. Then I went to change the laundry. Kleenex everywhere. Mark never did remember to take them out of the pockets.

It's spreading

They sat at a table with their sandwiches in the middle of all the hullaballoo. “So here we are, Agnes. Tell me about your father,” Cristina said.

How to start talking about Daddy? Dr. Martin Limerick, ambitious, driven, and passionate, carrying her on his shoulders to a lecture he gave at City Hall: the benefits of personal hygiene and physical fitness in avoiding influenza and consumption. Daddy, playful and engaging, making goofy faces at her during Uncle Collin’s homilies, giggling when Uncle Collin cast reproving glances their way. Her father and greatest advocate, bidding her to be his own good little girl as they walked the dog evenings. Martin Limerick, the man whose funeral after Thanksgiving ‘18 overfilled St. Patrick’s Church with seven hundred mourners. The influenza had spread all the way to the doctor himself.

By the time she finished, they’d eaten their sandwiches and Cristina had smoked her third Pall Mall. Agnes looked beyond her – and saw her former piano teacher at a fish counter.

“Why, there’s Mr. Larney,” Agnes said, grateful for a diversion. She’d been talking about Daddy for an eternity – thirty, forty minutes – and she’d forgotten the noise around her. How odd, seeing him at the precise moment she was talking about her father. It’d been Daddy who’d insisted she take piano lessons from Mr. Larney when she turned six.

In the back yard

Why hadn’t Agnes noticed anything? She’d been walking all over town with the Balmoral man on Saturday, and Racer had been playful the whole time. True, he’d been sleepy all day Sunday and hadn’t eaten much of his kibble, but she’d had no idea something like this would happen. With no warning whatsoever.

With Patrick gone, Mama volunteering at the hospital, and Granny knitting in her bedroom, she couldn’t believe the dead silence at home. She wandered from the kitchen to the parlor to the dining room to the back office and back to the parlor. In an attempt to break the silence, she sat at the piano. But all she could play was the Chopin funeral march, which brought Granny from her comfortable chair, asking her to play something less morose.

She dared not go outside on this terrible day. She thought of Racer covered with blankets in carriage house out back, lying on the workbench in front of their old Ford, the car no one liked. Patrick had locked the garage doors and taken the key, so she couldn’t even see Racer to cry over him.

Back to the piano she went. This time, she played Beethoven’s final E major piano sonata, Opus 109, the Brentano sonata. The last movement made her cry – the introspective main theme, six variations, and a melancholy return to the theme. But after she finished, dead silence.

Mourning flowers

“Jim,” Agnes said, “I think today we need to take a break from the dramatic narrative. You need to take care of yourself for at least one day.”

I scowled at my creation. “I suppose you’re right, Agnes. It’s been a day that could kill flowers.”

I’ll be the first to admit I’m unmotivated by my narrative today, but I’ll be damned if my heroine’s going to point it out to me. Aren’t I the one who’s supposed to put words in her mouth, not the other way around?

But she’s right. They’re all right, my characters. One after the other, they’ve visited me and told me to take a break from writing. I’m committing the Sin of Information Dump in my dialogue, Norman said. I’ve glossed over Point of View Violations, Cristina reminded me. And I let the passive voice be used too much – or so thinks Brian Larney.

I suppose they’re right, but how can I pay attention today? I got two hours of sleep last night before the phone rang. The Southampton hospital calling, I knew, as I woke from a deep sleep in sheer terror. Jack the Ripper standing above me wielding an axe would’ve inspired less fright than the ringing cellphone and the 631 area code displayed in lilac tones.

It was the doctor – Mark had died peacefully in his sleep. Thank goodness the priest had reached him to give Last Rites. I never did understood Catholicism, but I wasn’t born in 1920. And now here I am, flown up from Florida to East Hampton, poking about the rooms in his house, seeing the task in front of me – arrange his memorial mass, clean out the house, putting it on the market, writing checks to the beneficiaries. The reality of death's aftermath.

I think I’ll go back to my narrative in tomorrow’s write.

A bottle of pills

Agnes put on her heavy parka and grabbed Keaton’s leash. She could barely hear her golden’s paws on the hardwood floors as he ambled to the front door, and her sinuses had solidified into a dense blob. It didn’t help, either, that she’d run out of aspirin tablets the previous night, and her head felt like a crevice had formed in the middle of her brain. She hoped the January morning wouldn’t be all that freezing, but a blast of cold air pierced her face when she opened the door.

“Keaton,” she said – the dog’s name coming out Keatot – “you’d best be quick this morning. Mummy doesn’t have the energy for a run around Rittenhouse Square.” She could see Keaton’s normal morning walk, lifting his leg for ten trees before deciding to do his real business.

She’d thought about asking Norman to walk the dog, but didn’t dare. Ever since he’d found out about the piano competition, he’d walked around the house with a cloud over his head. If she’d asked him to do her usual morning chore, he’d have volleyed forth one of his snide remarks.

Another duty you’re failing to perform, Agnes. What’s next, the cooking?

Thank goodness for the piano. The competition was only four days away. She hoped she’d get over her cold by then.

I walked out

“Is there anything wrong?” the nurse said. The no-lipped tyrant stood at the door holding a clipboard and wearing a chastity belt. Or at least so thought Agnes.

Agnes groaned and kicked the chair again. “I’m leaving now. Nurse, he’s all yours.” She fetched her coat and purse from the floor. They’d slid across the floor when she kicked the chair down.

Norman wouldn’t let her go in peace. “Agnes, wait a minute! Please let me explain!”

She didn’t want to hear him explain about Mary Alden – and her presence at the knife attack. She wished the attacker had knifed her as well as Norman.

The damned hospital was too white – she was sick of all this white. She’d have to get rid of the white at home. It was Norman’s favorite color. Oh, and the draperies. She’d nail them shut, so he couldn’t open them at night. And she’d nail the windows shut so he couldn’t open them during winter.

She reached the entrance and the mob attacked her. The reporters. Why’d Norman have to save Woodrow Wilson’s granddaughter? Couldn’t he have rescued someone unknown?

“Mrs. Balmoral, what’s it like being married to a hero?”

“Is it true that Mrs. Wilson is coming to pay her respects?”

“What does Mr. Balmoral have to say about the attack?”

“Where was he dining just before he saved the young woman?”

Paper towels

He had a graceful gait to his walk that late evening along Market Street and into the Broad Street Station. He had not a care in the world, 23 years old, in love with Billy and making his debut at Carnegie Hall with a performance of the Schubert F minor Fantaisie. Brian walked into the train station, bound for Pennsylvania Station, Manhattan, New York City. Even Brian's brightclothes broadcast a happy-go-lucky, not-a-care-in-the-world man to the world.

Two men had other plans for him that evening. They telegraphed their choice to each other. The one started to walk in the same direction as Brian, toward the tracks, from the front. He slowed his gait until Brian reached six feet behind him. The other positioned himself after this, walking in the same direction and also approaching, but with Brian six feet ahead. The man in front turned around and flashed a serrated kitchen knife in front of him.

"Give me what you've got."

Brian turned to run but the man behind assaulted him, pulled his arms behind him, turned him around to face the man in front. He frisked Brian, tore his green overcoat, ripping the seams of his pockets, pulling his wallet out.

"Only fifteen cents. The chintz has no money."

The man behind kneed Brian in the lower back. The man in front kicked him in the groin, punched his face with one hand, stabbed him in the abdomen with the other. The man behind twisted his right elbow out to the right, slammed his tricep into the back of Brian's head. Brian fell to the ground. The man in front kicked him in his left ribs with all his force. The man behind did the same on the right.

Thirty-five minutes later the station's ambulence delivered Brian Larney to the Pennsylvania Hospital. Dr. Martin Limerick, the on-duty resident working the night shift that Friday evening, rinsed blood-soaked towel after blood-soaked towel. Brian gasped for breath and Martin strained to hear what he had to say.

"Billy, it's Billy I want."

Burnt

What should she play? Agnes loved Beethoven’s sonatas but didn’t feel up to the efficient “Waldstein” or the untamed “Appassionata.” Not today, so she settled on the last sonata Mr. Larney taught her, “Les Adieux.” Its lilting tones began to echo off Mama’s dark, paneled walls. It felt so cozy in this living room with the fireplace going, the plush red furniture and blue orientals, chrysanthemums in front of the window, and Thanksgiving decorations scattered all over the room. Agnes could almost forget the Depression, and what a bad girl she'd been --

The sound of crashing crystal and her mother’s scream punctured their way through Beethoven’s lilting melody. The collapse of a Philadelphia greenhouse, the blood-curdling scream in a knife fight – those would've intruded on Agnes less. And then she heard curses from Mama and then from Granny.

“Mary, Mother of God!”

“Horse manure!”

Agnes darted into the kitchen. Once her eyes adjusted to the bright white of the room, she saw what’d happened. Mama stood at the sink, her right hand under the running faucet, a plump mass of distress surrounded by a jagged maze of broken crystal. Granny sat at the corner table, her face as flaming as her hair.

“Oh, poo,” Granny said. “Your mother put her hand on the stove and dropped Grandpa Limerick's Waterford. Go fetch the broom, princess.”

Peace and quiet

On her way in the door, she plunged through the second wave of reporters’ adulations of Norman. The silence inside their house surprised her, but it wasn’t a peaceful silence – Agnes could feel the treachery inside this house.

She wondered what the other woman looked like. Did he want some other woman because her own hips were too fat or her breasts too small? At thirty, was she too old? Had he lost interest in her now that she’d given him two children? She needed to know.

From the kitchen, the telephone’s jingle broke the silence. She ignored it but it wouldn’t stop. “What is it?” she finally answered. “What do you want?”

“CBS Radio from New York, Mrs. Balmoral. We’d like to send a reporter to interview you and your husband about the attack.”

She banged the receiver against the wall and let it dangle – and looked around her. White everywhere. Everything in this kitchen was white.

She stood up and left the room. “It’s time to remodel this kitchen. I’m sick of all this white.”

It's not what I expected

Norman looked toward her, but averted his gaze out the door to the nurses’ station. He began to cry. “I might’ve saved a young woman’s life in the attack, but I’m no hero. I’m so ashamed and it’s because I’ve wronged you so,” he stammered.

What did he mean? Had he stolen money, been unfaithful, embezzled from Howe and Lescaze? Did he have another wife somewhere she’d never known about? No, not the architect husband with the perfect posture, six o’clock morning run, and one-martini limit.

“You’re not making sense, Norman. You’ve been a wonderful husband.”

“I can’t bear to tell you this, Agnes.”

“The way you’re talking,” she said, her voice now tremulous, “it sounds like you attacked that young girl rather than the other man.”

“I lied to you. I wasn’t having dinner with a client last night. I was having dinner at the Richmond Club.” He scrunched his face and broke into tears again, but he continued like a man jumping off an ocean cliff for the first time. “With … with a woman and it wasn’t you. I had an affair.”

A thunderbolt hit her straight in the heart. She jumped out of the chair and kicked it with all her power. It went crashing to the floor. She kicked it a second time, and then a third.

A young nurse knocked on the door. “Is anything wrong in here?”

Young woman and the exhibit (Photo #3)

Agnes escaped to the Art Museum. She wanted to see the Rodin exhibit. It would only be here another few days before heading to Pittsburgh. Norman hadn’t wanted to go when she did, and now he lay in bed recovering from that knife wound. Well, good for the attacker. He’d done what she now wished she’d done herself.

Of all things, Norman refusing to attend a Rodin exhibit. What kind of architect, she’d wondered at the time, wouldn’t want to see an exhibit of the most famous sculptor’s work, right here in Philadelphia, a short walk from home?

She walked up the long, wide steps and turned around. Philadelphia, her city –she could see all the way down the Parkway through Logan Circle and on to City Hall. Rittenhouse Square on the right. To her far right lay West Philadelphia, where the attack had taken place – right after Norman’s dinner with Mary Alden, the blonde flame from his Italy days.

She went into the museum and paid for her ticket and wandered among the works. She passed Rodin’s "Thinker" and scowled.

Nature lesson

At this point of the hike, Patrick droned on about caterpillars.

“The caterpillar, of course, is a larva from the insect order Lepidoptera. They eat mostly vegetables, although some of them eat insects. Now if you look close, you’ll notice …”

She wanted to go back to Philadelphia. Agnes never knew Brandywine Park could be so boring. But Patrick continued.

“I’m not exactly certain where the word ‘caterpillar’ came from, but I do know it has something to do with the Middle English word ‘catirpel.’ What we do definitely know is that the word has nothing to do with ‘butterfly.’”

Agnes wished she were at home, listening politely during one of Mrs. Collins’s numerous calls on Mama, detailing the latest neighborhood gossip. Granny refused to attend – “such nonsense as I’ve never heard, not even from my mother-in-law” – but Mama always made her sit through those ordeals.

The test

Agnes sat at the chair in the metallic classroom and felt shivers run up and down her spine. The old furtiveness rushed back from the wooded classroom of St. Patrick’s. High school algebra in plain view, tutoring from Sister Kathryn James in private.

“Don’t tell your uncle, he wouldn’t like it. You’re smarter than the boys. If they can learn calculus, so can you.”

Uncle Collin did unearth the truth. Why did her own uncle have to be the school principal? Agnes had apologized for her vulgar display of mathematics. She went back to algebra – but Sister Kathryn James kept tutoring her after the lights went out.

Today she sat at the desk in the War Department. It might be ‘42, but she was still the only woman in the room. Twenty young men with thick glasses and thin ties, and she sat there in her calico print dress, her red hair in a single pony tail. Dr. Aaronson came into the room and handed them their booklets. She opened hers and recognized the familiar symbols. She knew exactly what to do.

What I do for him

Norman walked over to the bed, naked and flopping around. “It’s not my job to cook meals, Agnes, it’s yours. And playing the piano doesn't matter as a job."

For once, his body failed to sway her. “Put something on, Norman, it’s January. High time you started helping out. I cook your meals, I clean the house, I do your laundry, I do the shopping, I take care of the children. All you do is go to work, design stupid buildings nobody likes, and play with the children.”

“If I didn’t go to work, Agnes, we’d have no roof over our heads,” he fumed. “We’ll talk about this another time. For now, no piano competition,” He turned from her and headed to the closet.

She looked at his bouncing behind. A little saggy, she noticed, even at thirty-five. He dressed while she giggled to herself. What would Norman look like as he aged? She’d enjoy it when he turned forty-five and began to wrinkle. Then perhaps his ego would come down to Earth.

Done dressing, Norman headed for the door – and stopped. She felt the accusation coming. “By the way, is this why you’ve been playing the same damned music for three months?”

When in doubt

Agnes walked down the stairs to the kitchen. Today, she’d spend six hours practicing on the piano. No ifs, ands, or buts. Housework wouldn’t interfere.

She walked into the kitchen and groaned. An unfolded load of towels and sheets lay in a mound on the table. Dirty dishes – Norman’s martini shaker, his martini glass, three ice cream bowls with crusty chocolate chips on them, spoons – piled up high in the kitchen sink. The trash needed taking out. And Agnes had to make coffee for Norman before he went to work.

“Good morning, darling!” Norman said from behind her. “Can’t wait for you to make coffee, I’m off to the firm for an early morning design meeting. Give your husband a kiss on the cheek.”

I’ll give him a slap on the cheek, Agnes thought. He’s always making my life impossible. But not today – not when I’m going to practice six hours for my recital. That’s my time. His laundry and his dishes can stay where they are.

“Grace ran into the bathroom,” he said, “and was sick to her stomach. She’ll have to stay home today. And Harold wants you to get him ready for school. Oh – and would you call the carpenter about my third-floor studio? Oh – and I’d like to have fish for dinner, honey.”

Agnes glared at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was putting on his jacket. Without a glance, he said, “Bye now! Have a nice day.”

Sure, a nice day filled with doing things for him and taking care of the house and doing everything. Everything except what she wanted to do. It was all Norman’s fault. No doubt about it.

Reckless

He fondled her hands and sucked on her fingers, one at a time, never letting go of her gaze, their bodies pushing into each other. Agnes felt his excitement through the rough corduroy of his slacks – and her own excitement between her legs.

Go ahead, Agnes said to Norman with her eyes – it’s all right. It’s what I want from you. It’s what we’ve wanted since the beginning. But then he broke free and stepped back three feet.

“But Agnes,” Norman said aloud, “we cannot do this.”

Yes we can, she nodded to him. Agnes looked around the pharmacy. Her eyes stopped at the back office, its door temptingly ajar. She looked back at Norman and stepped closer to him. Yes we can, no matter what Mama and Uncle Collin say. Forget about the Depression, forget about my family. Right now, it’s just you and I.

Don't worry

They didn’t know I was behind the tapestry, just like Polonius. But how could they? I hadn’t written that kind of suspicion into their characters. But I bethink they were beginning to formulate that feeling all on their own.

“I want to talk about this Mary Alden subplot,” Cristina said. “It’s not working for me.”

Norman stuck his tongue out at Cristina. “It works perfectly well for me. You know I’m not strong enough to admit the truth to Agnes just yet. That doesn’t come until Chapter 19. And she can’t very well know that you’re the woman I’m sleeping with. That’d completely trash the dramatic arc.”

“It’s always about you,” Cristina said. “What do you think it’s like for me, having an affair with your best friend’s husband? I never thought of myself as that. And if you read page 57, it’s not how my character is defined.”

“Cristina, don’t worry. I know Agnes and she’ll forgive you before the end of the book.”

“Well, I have rights. I’m the sidekick, after all, and I have rights. No more Mary Alden. And you know what that means: no more sex for us.”

Two happy ducks in water

The sound of Norman’s weeping filled the silent kitchen, silent no more. Agnes sat on the stool, looking at her husband’s shaking body above her on the kitchen table. They’d finally come clean to each other, but it all surprised her so. Norman was crying for her, weeping, sobbing, give it whatever name – but she felt this even line of serene calm descend from the sky and into her body. Her pulse ran slow, her breaths shallow. And she felt no urge to tap her fingers, to bite her lips.

At what point in their marriage had the tide turned? What was it she’d done – or he’d done – that had shut down forever that path to intimacy? Maybe when she went to the piano competition against his will, maybe when Mary Alden came back into Norman’s life, maybe when she’d conceived Harold – no, maybe it all went back to the day she’d seduced him. He’d felt obligated to marry her. But, for so many years, she’d felt they were two happy ducks in water – but what did she ever know?

Waiting

“This waiting is driving me crazy.”

“Be patient, Cornelius. The surgery’s taking a long time.”

Agnes looked over at Victoria. She seemed to be managing Norman’s accident well – but then she noticed her hands so tightly wound around the chair arms, the knuckles had turned white.

For herself, Agnes couldn’t sit in the waiting room any longer. Too much white on the walls, and every time she sat down, her legs became restless. She paced the hallway outside the room and pretended to look at the black and white photographs of Philadelphia – mostly the Schuylkill River. A nice city to photograph, but why the Schuylkill River? Why not Fairmount Park, the Delaware, Independence Hall, Rittenhouse Square?

And what was Norman doing in West Philadelphia when the attack occurred? Shouldn’t he have been in Old City, having dinner with his client? They were five miles apart and he had no car.

She went back to pacing the waiting room, and looked at the old photographs of the Schuylkill River again. When she sneezed, a little spray went on the one by Boater’s Row.

Open the box

The empty house taunted her, go ahead and open Norman’s red box. He’s been dead eleven months, it’s time you opened it up and found out what was inside. What do you have to lose? There’s probably nothing in there that isn’t a truth you’ve already realized. And what are you afraid of, Agnes, just what are you afraid of?

Uncle Collin had been right, probably all along. She should never have married Norman. They made a disaster of their marriage, she could feel that in her achy bones. Why did life hurt so much? She was only thirty-four years old, but she felt like an old woman – as old as Gracie Honeywalker, like she’d been a plantation slave in Kentucky and lived eighty years to run her own farm and boss around her grandsons.

But she had no grandsons, no farm, and wouldn’t be eighty for foryt-six years. If God let her live that long, which at this right she didn’t care to do anyway. Norman had had an affair, she barely knew him, and they’d agree to divorce when he came back from the war. But he came back in a box, so at least he’d saved her that trouble. She’d never opened that box – couldn’t bear to see him in a coffin. So Agnes guessed, she owed that much to him now, to open his red box.

A time someone said no

“Jim, please,” Agnes said. “I gotta have ‘im and I gotta have ‘im now!”

“Settle down, Agnes,” I counseled. It wasn’t good letting your characters get ahead of themselves. Before you knew it, the plot would get way out of control and you’d never be able to bring it back in for a landing. I was also worried about Agnes’s dialogue. She was talking way too much like a teenager from Cherry Hill, New Jersey in 1995 than a young woman in the Great Depression.

“Perhaps in two or three chapters I’ll let the two of you get together. But just because you saw Norman Balmoral running in Independence Hall in a tight shirt and shorts and got all hot and bothered by his hairy-muscled arms and legs, that doesn’t mean you can sleep with him right away.”

“It does if you let me! I haven’t gotten laid at all in your book yet.”

“What have I ever done to deserve this? Haven’t I written you well enough? I thought I’d written you to be a good girl, an obedient one, at least until that scene in the back office …”

“You mean I finally get it in some back office? No, I want roses and violins, and I want ‘em now!”

“No, my dear. You’ll have to wait. And if I catch you fondling Norman’s biceps in the next scene, I’ll punish you. Some vagrant attacks poor Mrs. O’Toole on the street and you need to focus on helping her, not on seducing Norman. If you do, I’ll just put off the big sex scene until after you get married. Now how’d you like that?”

“Oh no, I was looking forward to the excitement of pre-marital hanky panky!”

“You’re a proper Irish girl, Agnes. You’re supposed to wait until your wedding night.”

“Then why’d you make me left-handed and sarcastic? And why’d you give me Granny as a role model?”

“I guess I just didn’t write you right.”