The Evening Spider by Emily Arsenault

to say Could we set up a time to talk, but a moment later my phone was beeping gently. The screen said, “Call ended.”
    I tried calling Stephanie back but got her voice mail.
    â€œShit,” I muttered, and scowled at the phone.
    Lucy slapped my chin and laughed.

 
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    Chapter 21
    Northampton Lunatic Hospital
    Northampton, Massachusetts
    December 20, 1885
    T he day Clara brought Martha back home to me was a hot and muggy one. I recall mopping my face with cold water as I waited by the window, struggling to appear cool and natural. Despite the obvious intensity of the heat, I feared looking anxious.
    When Clara finally arrived—clutching the bonneted Martha—I sprang up from my chair. I wasn’t sure, though, if I should run outside to greet her. Again, would that be natural? Would that be correct?
    I do not know why I worried so, as Martha’s and my separation had been so unnatural that surely nothing I did could top it. Still, I worried how carefully my behavior was being watched and analyzed. Matthew was not present, but my tedious nurse was, and I knew she reported the details of my behavior (that is, the ones that didn’t make her look incompetent) directly to Dr. Stayer.
    Dear Clara thankfully took things in hand.
    â€œFrances and her girl should have a chance to reunite in private, don’t you think?” she asked the nurse in a manner thatclearly communicated that she wasn’t really asking at all. “I’m parched. Let’s have a drink out back under that beautiful maple tree.”
    â€œI will bring some water right out to you ladies,” Tessa added.
    Clara thrust Martha into my arms, hustling the nurse out before she could protest.
    The nurse was to leave on the following day—unless she and Dr. Stayer dreamt up some reason for her to stay and keep drawing a wage from Matthew.
    The ladies’ voices faded from me as Clara drew the nurse toward the maple tree. For a glorious moment, Harry, it was all Martha’s eyes again. They’d fluttered open from Clara’s sudden movement, and there they were—like two secret gems kept from me the entire time I’d been “resting.” As familiar now as ever. And as beautiful.
    I’d have stared into them all that afternoon had Martha not begun to fuss just then. I panicked, wondering if she’d forgotten my face. And as I lifted her to my shoulder, whispering my love to her, her weight felt unfamiliar to me. I stretched out my arms to look at her again. I panicked. Her face seemed wider than my Martha’s—her ears slightly pointier. I could not remember—had Martha’s ears really been this pointy?
    â€œMy girl,” I said, perhaps trying to convince myself. “My sweet girl.”
    She quieted more quickly than I expected, and I was relieved to think she had not forgotten me after all. I feared, however, that I’d forgotten something fundamental about her. What that was precisely, I couldn’t determine.
    I carried Martha up the stairs and looked at her and myself in the mirror. The sight of us together strengthened me andpushed back the doubt. There were her eyes again, confirming a truth larger than that doubt: We belonged together, Martha and I. She’d still been in this world a shorter time than she’d been inside of me. This felt significant to me, even if the people and circumstances around us did not acknowledge its significance.
    I whispered to our reflection, “I shall try again, my dear girl.”
    I felt every word of that phrase, and feel it even now. My dear girl.
    Forward and backward.
    My. Dear. Girl.
    Girl. Dear. Mine.
    For I felt in that moment the sad importance of her being female. And she was indeed dear to me. More dear than anything had ever been before. And she was mine. That everyone seemed to have forgotten in the month that had separated us. She was my daughter. Mine.

 
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