She rattled the tray down onto the nearest table. “I’ve got to get to work,” she said with a sigh, though she felt no actual regret. Her work steadied her. The speech for Josiah Story was still not finished, but that would sort itself out. The point was to drag herself back to her room, sit in the chair, and try. When she had woken on July Fourth in the sludgy wake of her wailing the night before, and Emma’s aseptic green eyes, and her exit, the door’s heavy thud, even the door knowing its place better than Bea, all she could think to do was dress as Beatrice Haven Cohn, walk to her desk, phone the chapter as if they might convince her of her credibility—it was closed for the holiday, the operator reminded her—and get to work.
Before that, though, she had burned the Radcliffe Quarterly that had given her such trouble the night before and now mocked her from the trash bin, its pages spread obscenely. In retrospect, burning the Quarterly had been a mistake. The ashes in the waste bin made her look truly crazy. But that morning, it had seemed reasonable: if she couldn’t make herself throw it away, she would destroy it.
“You can’t work now,” Albert said. “We need you on the frame.”
This was a relief. Bea didn’t actually want to work. Albert carried one end, Bea and Emma the other. It was a heavy bed, made of oak for Vera and Ira’s wedding. Bea had suggested having a new one delivered to the parlor, where Ira would be set up, but Ira had said he wouldn’t sleep in another bed and Emma had told him not to worry, they would make it work. Incredibly, when Emma said that, Ira stopped worrying.
“Let’s take a break,” Albert said. He looked at Bea, whose corner was sagging.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“You’re fine, I’m fine, let’s take a break.”
They rested halfway down the stairs.
“Ira!” Albert called. “Could you bring us some water?”
“You’ll excuse me, Mr. Cohn,” said Emma, “but that’s not a funny joke.”
“I disagree!”
They began again. Bea, who got little regular physical exercise apart from walking, was astonished by her weakness. That she could lift the bed at all seemed due merely to structural facts: her arm bones hung from her shoulder bones; her finger bones locked under the frame. When they finally set it down, she sat on top of it, watching her legs shake under her skirt. Her eyes swam with sweat. Emma brought more water and Bea drank—still, it took some time before she felt she could stand again. She propped up the headboard, then the footboard, as Albert and Emma put everything back together. Assembled, the bed made the parlor feel small, the seven-foot posts carved with pineapples and vines a sudden woods. They stood, regarding it.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was so diminished?” asked Albert.
It took Bea a moment to realize that he was speaking to her. In her mouth, her sweat tasted bitter. “I didn’t know,” she said.
“Excuse me,” Emma said, starting to leave the room. “I’ll go get Mr. Hirsch.”
“I’ll get him,” Bea said.
“I don’t mind.”
“But I do.”
Bea went, leaving their wary looks. Upstairs, Ira was in his chair. Bea sat next to him, on the chest that held quilts, which would also be moved. She followed his gaze out the window, trying to guess what he was looking at. The harbor in the distance? The gray sycamores? The pear trees down in the orchard, heavy now with fruit, their leaves whiffling and steaming in the hot breeze? The pears would be ready for picking soon, still hard but green, ready to soften off the stem. She would have to leave before that, go to Boston for her usual week, return only after they were sure to be gone.
“Your bed’s ready,” she said.
“I won’t have the view.”
“I know.”
“Do you remember, when you were small, I took you to see a rock, around the other side of the lighthouse? If you get in just the right position, she comes into view, a Puritan woman, reclining?”
“Of course I remember. Mother Rock.”
Bea nearly went on. Mother Rock was where she’d been going on her frequent breaks from writing the speech. She took Ira’s binoculars as she had earlier in the summer but now, instead of the whistle buoy to stare at, there was the woman’s sharp nose, her tall forehead, her square, grimly set chin. There was nothing particularly motherly about her, but neither had there been, apparently, about the king of Denmark’s mother, Ann, for whom the rock—and the whole cape—had been named. Bea liked the challenge of finding her. She liked climbing down from the thicket of beach rose, settling herself on a rock, adjusting her eyes until the woman rose out of the rock. Sometimes she was plainly there, waiting. Other days Bea had to will and pry her into focus. The binoculars weren’t necessary—the problem of Mother wasn’t one of distance but perspective—but Bea wore them anyway, out of habit, and sometimes, once she’d been staring successfully at the profile for a while, she would lift them to her eyes and watch as the woman, magnified, was again obscured.
“I would like to see that rock again,” said Ira.
Bea touched his forearm, the hard tendons she’d allowed to pass for strength. “You can’t see it from the house,” she said. “Even if we let you live up on the roof, you wouldn’t be able to see it.”
“I mean I want to go down there. In my chair. Albert could do the final lift.”
Bea looked at him. “You said you never wanted to go anywhere in your chair. You said, ‘All I’ll ever do in this undignified piece of crap is stay right here.’”