I couldn’t look at him. I mumbled into my teacup, “It’s all right.”
Gene laughed loudly.
“Moody, like the rest of us,” he said.
“Did you ever mention this to anyone? Your mother?” Henry asked.
“No,” I said, “I never did.”
I had wanted to. I didn’t want to keep it to myself, but when I thought about it, I knew I couldn’t tell anyone. If I told Mam, she would, naturally, tell Daddy. And I knew what Daddy would do. He would be furious, and he would confront Gene. What kind of man hits his wife? And I was very sure that Agnes wouldn’t want me to tell. She would be exposed, then. I didn’t know much about these things, but I understood somehow how important it was to Agnes that everything looked to be all rosy with her and Gene. If I told what I saw, it would be hell for her, it would cause problems in the family, and she would never forgive me.
pamela
Henry helped me with so many things. He even helped me with my letter-writing.
In the middle of February, I sat at my desk in my hospital room, pen and paper set out. It was snowing again. White sky, white land, white trees. The firs were heavy, their lowest branches collapsing sorrowfully to the ground under their weight of snow.
It was the third straight day of snow. And the third day I’d tried to write a letter to Diccon. Each time I wrote, the lines slanted down severely from left to right. I’d write a while then look at the page, surprised by the hill of lines. It wasn’t right. Why were the words coming out that way?
There was a brisk knock on the door and the now familiar “Hal-ooo Miss Bianco!” in Henry’s jovial bass voice.
Oh good, maybe he can help with this letter-writing business.
And he did, just like that. He took one look at my writing and said, I’ll be right back. When he came back he had a notepad in his hand.
“This ought to set you straight!” he said. It was a pad of squared paper.
I had no trouble after that.
After Henry left, I picked up my pen with renewed energy.
Dear Diccon,
At last I am well enough to write to you. I couldn’t write any sooner because my handwriting went slopewise down the page, untidily like a steep hill and you would have wanted to hitch it up straight on a crane with hooks. This will be the first real letter I have written for two months. I can keep my lines straight now because Henry taught me to by means of squared paper. I’ve had a most exciting time. It started by my getting measles towards the end of November then about a month ago I had only been up for a few days and I went to have supper with my friend Sara and I hadn’t eaten any food for two days and I would burst into tears if the telephone rang—to make a long story short they gave me two glasses of port for supper and I guess you know how wine affects me—but I didn’t want anyone to know I was drunk so I walked very rapidly round and round all the chairs as though nothing were the matter just silently weeping and giggling—then I told Sara I wanted to wash the dishes for her, so I shut myself in the kitchen, and drank some more wine, and then really I don’t remember what happened except that I was shrieking and yelling and I was put to bed, and I lost an entire week, just blank, and then I talked cuckoo talk incessantly for days, and threw glasses of water at people, and there were lumber shirts, and boxes of powder floating around the room and I shrieked because I couldn’t catch them—and one day I talked for nine hours without stopping. And now I go on writing in the same way and can’t stop, but don’t read it if it bores you. I tore up three pillowcases and two sheets. I tore a pillowcase into one inch squares one night and explained to the nurse that I was making book jackets! And when Henry asked me what my symptoms were I insisted on telling him the life history of Buddha from beginning to end. I am quite sane now though you may not think so—and only go funny for a few minutes every two or three days. Now I have no interest in life and I’m about sick of everything most of the time—but thank goodness I did get ill—I’ve felt so nervous and demented for years, and always wished I’d go crazy and get rid of everything. The trouble Henry says is that I’ve always kept things to myself, everything—and that is bad—it’s the worst thing to do, never do it—if anything worries you talk it right out with someone, anybody it doesn’t matter who, just talking about it puts it right somehow. That’s what I shall do in future, only I would much rather there wasn’t any future. There were millions and millions of things I could have talked to you about last summer, but I preferred to forget everything annoying and talk nonsense and joke. O bother, I believe I’m beginning to blither again, I must put a stop to it and write more sensibly if I can. Thank you ever and ever so much for the poem you sent me, and the beads. The beads are so beautiful and they made me awfully happy, and as soon as I’m well I can wear them. They are about the loveliest beads I ever saw, like little moons, and they are satiny when you hold them to the light. I am so glad to hear you have set the date and send you my very best wishes. I hear that your fiancée is very beautiful and I should love to meet her. Why don’t you come to America for your honeymoon? Do please write me a letter someday soon and tell me all about it. I like to get letters but nobody much writes to me. This is a stupid letter. I’m now quite sure that I’m not absolutely sane yet, but as soon as I can I shall write to you again—to counteract the dullness of what I’ve written so far. Really, this is a funny world. And do you know that the last few years of my life don’t worry me anymore, but continually my mind goes back to my early childhood in Italy, and I worry amazingly over all sorts of little things that happened then, and cry and fret about them. It is probably inconceivable to you that I should be so demented. Really I must stop now. I never wrote so fast in half an hour before, and I think I’m slightly delirious. But I think I will have this letter mailed nevertheless as madness is nothing to be ashamed of. Only please destroy this letter—there is enough blither in it to have me sent to an asylum for life should anybody else read it.