Under the Wide and Starry Sky

CHAPTER 83

In the weeks that followed, the household held its breath as it watched and waited.
“She’s better, she really is,” Louis said one day. “She was so sweet last evening. We talked about real things, about her sister Nellie. She’s perfectly sensible again.”
“Louis, she’s not,” Belle insisted. “She didn’t eat breakfast or lunch today. Doesn’t even smoke. Just sits and stares.”

“I’m going to take her out for a walk in the garden. Where is she now?” “Sitting on the verandah with Lloyd.”

Louis collected Fanny and walked with her out into her vegetable plots. The sun blazed on him as he followed behind the small barefoot ?gure who carried an umbrella over her head.  He  watched her  examine  the  rows  of  plants  as  if  she  were  Napoleon  inspecting troops.

“I think you are much better,” he said.

“The eggplants are looking poorly. But see Lafaele’s cabbages? They’re getting nice and fat.”

“Fanny. Love. Stop for a moment, talk to me. Help me understand.” She looked up at him and shaded her eyes with her hand. “Did you have hallucinations before?” he asked. “A couple of times.”

“Why did you never tell me?”

“Those visions came after terrible events. I never expected they would happen again.” “Do you remember the story you told me about when you were a little girl?” he asked.
“You used to swing on the screen door, holding tight to the doorknob. You thought the reason people died was that they let go of their hold on things, and the trick to staying alive was hanging on to something. You thought you could fend o? death through pure force of will. I think you have pushed your way through hard times with your amazing will. But there are things in life that can’t be brought to heel.”

She pressed her lips together and turned her face toward the field. “You blame yourself for Hervey, don’t you? Even now.”

Her features collapsed.  “I wasn’t paying enough attention. I relaxed, and then he was gone. If I had—”

He took her hand and held it. “You did the best you could, Fan. Lay it down now.” They walked on through the rows until she stopped and turned to him once more. “What
am I to do?” she said, her eyes over?owing with tears. “I see bad things coming, and I want to warn off people.”

“Everyone must make mistakes. It’s how we learn.”

“I never felt I was allowed them. For so long, with your health, there was no room for a mistake.”

“Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson,” he said,  “you’ve kept me breathing against the odds, and I owe you my life. Look at me. Am I not the very picture of health? Now it’s time to rest and make yourself well.”

She dropped the umbrella and put her arms around his waist.

“Fanny, Fanny,” he murmured, patting her back. “How is it you can be so fearless in the face of real danger, and yet at other times be afraid of mere possibilities?”
During the next few days, Fanny turned further inward, staying in her room, getting up from her chair or bed only to look through the window. He knew then that she could not be quickly pulled from the dark place she had entered. But he had seen her eyes brighten a few times in response to his little attentions.

He hadn’t any idea how one was supposed to help a loved one ?nd her way out of such darkness. What have I to ?ght against so unpitying an enemy? Only kindness. Perhaps with unbridled, importunate, violent kindness, he could woo Fanny back from this hell.
He stayed with her each afternoon and read what he had written during the morning. Some days he pinned a poem to her bed curtain, where she would discover it upon waking. Once when he found her standing at the window, head bent in concentration, he knew she was reading his latest offering.

I will make you brooches and toys for your delight Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night. I will make a palace fit for you and me, Of green days in forest and blue days at sea … And this shall be for music when no one else is near, The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear, That only I remember, that only you admire, Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.

Louis watched from the doorway as Fanny read the lines slowly, then lifted her mattress

and slipped the poem under it.