“Boys, come back inside! Frank, have you lost your mind? The children will catch their death!”
Matilda was already back in the house, but Maud had to scoop up the boys’ coats and toss one to each of them. Frank was holding a lantern and telling them to scout for reindeer tracks in the snow.
“Daddy!” Kenneth called out. “Quick. Over here!”
“What have you got there, son?”
“Look, it’s a bell! I think it fell off Santa’s sleigh.”
Kenneth held up a cheap penny bell. He shook it, making a muffled, tinny sound.
“Why, by golly!” Frank exclaimed. “I think you’re right.”
“Santa!” Kenneth cried out. “Come back! You lost your bell!”
Kenneth’s teeth were chattering. Maud took his cold hand in hers and called to the rest of them: “Let’s go in now. I’ve got hot chocolate warming on the stove for all of you!”
She shoveled more coal into the iron stove until it roared hot, then placed a cup of steaming cocoa in each boy’s hands. Before bed, the children opened their packages, but none of their gifts—new woolen socks, and pencils and paper for school—could ever equal the special magic that Frank’s imagination brought to the holiday.
That night, after the boys were all tucked into bed and Maud was resting in the rocking chair in front of the fire, Matilda placed her hand on her daughter’s shoulder.
“You know, Maud, I was wrong about Frank in the beginning. I worried about you marrying an actor. But now I see it. He’s been a good father and a good husband to you. You chose well.”
Frank burst out from behind the giant fir tree, tinkling the glass ornaments and causing the candles to sway.
“Finally!” he crowed. “I’ve gotten the great Matilda Gage to admit she made a mistake!”
Matilda’s eyes flew open in mock horror, and then all three of them dissolved into laughter.
* * *
—
MATILDA WAS SCHEDULED TO return home to Fayetteville just after Kenneth’s birthday, in March. With Maud’s nurturing, her mother had rallied and seemed much better, but then in late February, she came down with influenza. She had a high fever and a racking cough that persisted in spite of Maud’s best efforts. Matilda protested, but at last she allowed Maud to call in the doctor. After examining her, he pronounced her to be weak and in need of fortification.
The doctor took out a small pad of paper and wrote down a prescription.
“There is a brand-new medicine that is working wonders for coughs. Please administer one injection daily.”
Maud read the words on the piece of paper he handed her: BAYER HEROIN. 4 CCS Q.D.
* * *
—
FOR THE FIRST FEW DAYS, Maud was relieved that the heroin injections seemed to be working. The doctor had promised that Matilda would sleep easier and cough less, and indeed, that was the case. One day, Maud came into the bedroom to check on her mother and found her awake, propped up on her pillows, writing a letter.
“I’m so pleased to see you looking better,” Maud said, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“There is something I need to tell you,” Matilda said. “We need to have a private discussion. For when the time comes.”
“Nothing is going to happen to you! You are doing much better with the new medicine.”
“I am feeling better, but I can’t live forever. I just want everything clear, in case something happens to me.”
“All right,” said Maud, settling on the rocker near the window. “What is it that I need to know?”
“My will divides my remaining fortune equally among my children,” Matilda said. “It’s not as much as I would have wished. You know that my book Woman, Church and State has been banned from libraries. Even with acclaim from all over the world, from Victoria Woodhull of London and Mr. Tolstoy in Russia, I still have not earned as much as I should have.”
“You should have earned more,” Maud said soothingly, “but your contribution to the world of ideas is more significant than money.”
Matilda, mollified, continued: “Now, listen to me. I realize that your life is difficult. I see that your husband works hard but spins his wheels. You know the golden path?” Matilda was referring to her theosophical beliefs. Maud nodded.
“I have meditated upon this, and I feel that your journey is not yet over. So I ask you this. The money that I bequeath you is yours. Frank will think of uses for it. He will want to spend the money along the journey: newspapers, inventions—I don’t know what it will be. Don’t listen to him. A woman must never be without a home. You will know when the time is right. Use the money to buy a home for your family. But make that decision alone.”
“But, Mother!”
“Do you promise?”
“But, Mother…”
“I shall not rest until you promise.”
Maud promised.
* * *
—
MATILDA LAY ON A black leather couch, dressed in a dark blue tea gown. Her repose was restful, her hands crossed over her heart, left over right. Her shiny white hair was coiled behind her head, in death, as in life. Julia and T.C., along with Frank and Maud, were seated in Frank and Maud’s parlor, along one side of the open casket. All day long, the post had brought letters and telegrams of condolence for the great woman.
T.C. read the will, which indicated that Matilda wished to be cremated, as she believed it was more salutary for the earth. Her casket and the entire parlor were filled with her favorite flower: the American Beauty rose. Frank had made the rounds of six different florists and bought out all of them.
When the undertakers placed Matilda in the coffin, she lay upon a thick bed of roses. Their delicate scent filled the room even after the coffin was closed.
Matilda’s will specified that her ashes be scattered in the garden in Fayetteville. Frank was scheduled for a sales trip and, understanding that Maud wanted to make the journey, Julia kindly offered to stay in Chicago to look after the children, so Maud boarded a train for Syracuse alone.
It was late March, and the town was still locked tight in the grip of late winter. The trees were barren, and patches of old sooty snow remained on the ground. The train arrived late on a Thursday afternoon, and Maud rode in a hired hack, her mother’s ashes in an urn, inside a box, on the seat beside her.
She had held herself together through her mother’s illness and death and all of the obligatory ceremonies, but arriving at the family home, Maud could no longer contain her tears. She paused at the end of the front walk. The bare winter branches of the big dogwood tree she had once climbed to save a kitten still spread expansively over the front lawn. The house’s exterior looked the same as ever, square and stately, its four white columns lined up across the front porch. But as she pushed the door open, she was greeted by chilly, stale air, and a strange stillness seemed to vibrate in her ears as she strained to hear the whispers of the pattering footsteps, swishing skirts, and excited conversation that had filled the home of her youth.
She made her way to her mother’s parlor. A half-finished watercolor still sat on the easel. On the wall, in the place of pride, was a framed sampler embroidered with the words to “The Golden Stairs”; Maud had made it for her mother one Christmas. She had worked on it all winter, the year after they left South Dakota. Maud had copied the famous lines from her mother’s favorite theosophist, H. P. Blavatsky.
Scanning the words now, she realized that she still had them memorized. The verse had grown so familiar to her as she’d slowly stitched the letters in golden thread. A clean life, an open mind, / A pure heart, an eager intellect. This was her mother. An unveiled spiritual perception. Mother had always been able to imagine the better future, a better world, as if she could divine things that others could not. These are the golden stairs, / Up the steps of which the learner may climb / To the Temple of Divine Wisdom.
She could remember hearing Frank and Matilda talking about this—the golden path—in those dark days in Dakota, the two of them sitting immersed in discussion about their theosophical theories while she busily went about her daily chores, a nugget of resentment in her breast. Yet now those times seemed dear to her, woven into the fabric of her life just as surely as her own nimble fingers had threaded the words of Helena Blavatsky into cloth. And wasn’t there a golden path, after all? Looking back, she could see its traces, leading her out into the great big world and, wiser now, back to her old home.