feel its weight in my hand and ask myself if I would drink the bottle that day, and every day the answer was no. Then I’d put the bottle back in the secret compartment and slide the secret door shut. Some days I thought harder about the bottle than others, and once, I took the stopper out, but I had always put it away.
I knew it was there, though. I knew every day I could die, and this helped me. It was not the reminder of death that I desired. Everything around me was a reminder of death, every room, every length of wallpaper, every window. I needed no more reminders of that. What I wanted was to know what my dying children knew in their greatest moments, which were their moments of bravery and strength as they struggled to live. I had never seen my children so powerful as they were then, choking and shaking and whispering their apologies to me. Their
apologies
. They were at their best in the hours before death. I thought that if I could know it as they had known it, we would all share something that would not fade from my memory or disintegrate like the stones on their graves.
Dear Mother,
I must amend my earlier letter to you regarding Martha. It has weighed heavily on me, and though I meant to pay her a proper tribute, I feel I must correct a few misrepresentations. Martha did not go to her Maker quietly. She was frightened and she cried out to me, and I could not help her though I wished to. I am not sure what she saw when the light dimmed in her eyes, but I will always remember the terror. I pray that she was welcomed into the arms of our Savior, and if anyone is welcomed thus it would be Martha, but I cannot be sure. I hope that I will never see such a thing again before I am myself taken away to my blessed rest. I tell you this now only because I do not want to mingle the memory of my Martha with certain untruths, however kindly meant. Please forgive me.
— Your Loving Daughter,
Carrie
I stood in my garden and let the cold creep up my legs. I had let the delicate roses die of thirst, and in their place had come the weeds and the other invasives—living things that looked like death to the undiscerning eye. The decline of the garden was a sad thing, people said, but I knew differently. Decline was natural. I was embarrassed to remember the times when I tended the plots, weeding and hoeing, beating back the inevitable. I was not saddened by my garden, nor by my house, nor by the little family cemetery and its fresh gravestones.
Death had been with me from the beginning, and now my house would be a hospital. I was not a morbid woman, but if death wanted to confront me, well, I would not turn my head
. Say what you have to say to me or leave me alone
. I did not look away. I
saw.
The garden, the cemetery, Martha’s room—I had power. I had a power others did not. No, I would not have another child. No, I would not sow new seeds. I would not leave my house or change its decor. Nor would I sink into days of soft, drifting, opiated conversation with the ladies in town, fondling their laudanum. I did not have to run. I did not have to forget, I did not have to soothe myself, I did not have to ignore the most obvious fact of my life: that the things I loved had died and that I had failed them
. Let that wound stay open.
I understood that I could stand that pain and that I could even crave it sometimes. Dr. Cliffe advised John that I was spiraling down through the dark circles of melancholy, but it only felt like strength to me. Death could not make me afraid anymore.
If the price of that was seeming crazed and ignoring the doings of the living, it was a price I could pay. It was a price I was happy to pay, because it felt like vengeance. I took another look around my garden, and with a brief sweeping stroke I knocked down the brown stalks of two old sunflowers and watched them settle to the dark ground among the rotting leaves. Then I went inside.
12
L IEUTENANT N ATHAN S TILES, 104 TH O HIO
I watched a little
I knew it was there, though. I knew every day I could die, and this helped me. It was not the reminder of death that I desired. Everything around me was a reminder of death, every room, every length of wallpaper, every window. I needed no more reminders of that. What I wanted was to know what my dying children knew in their greatest moments, which were their moments of bravery and strength as they struggled to live. I had never seen my children so powerful as they were then, choking and shaking and whispering their apologies to me. Their
apologies
. They were at their best in the hours before death. I thought that if I could know it as they had known it, we would all share something that would not fade from my memory or disintegrate like the stones on their graves.
Dear Mother,
I must amend my earlier letter to you regarding Martha. It has weighed heavily on me, and though I meant to pay her a proper tribute, I feel I must correct a few misrepresentations. Martha did not go to her Maker quietly. She was frightened and she cried out to me, and I could not help her though I wished to. I am not sure what she saw when the light dimmed in her eyes, but I will always remember the terror. I pray that she was welcomed into the arms of our Savior, and if anyone is welcomed thus it would be Martha, but I cannot be sure. I hope that I will never see such a thing again before I am myself taken away to my blessed rest. I tell you this now only because I do not want to mingle the memory of my Martha with certain untruths, however kindly meant. Please forgive me.
— Your Loving Daughter,
Carrie
I stood in my garden and let the cold creep up my legs. I had let the delicate roses die of thirst, and in their place had come the weeds and the other invasives—living things that looked like death to the undiscerning eye. The decline of the garden was a sad thing, people said, but I knew differently. Decline was natural. I was embarrassed to remember the times when I tended the plots, weeding and hoeing, beating back the inevitable. I was not saddened by my garden, nor by my house, nor by the little family cemetery and its fresh gravestones.
Death had been with me from the beginning, and now my house would be a hospital. I was not a morbid woman, but if death wanted to confront me, well, I would not turn my head
. Say what you have to say to me or leave me alone
. I did not look away. I
saw.
The garden, the cemetery, Martha’s room—I had power. I had a power others did not. No, I would not have another child. No, I would not sow new seeds. I would not leave my house or change its decor. Nor would I sink into days of soft, drifting, opiated conversation with the ladies in town, fondling their laudanum. I did not have to run. I did not have to forget, I did not have to soothe myself, I did not have to ignore the most obvious fact of my life: that the things I loved had died and that I had failed them
. Let that wound stay open.
I understood that I could stand that pain and that I could even crave it sometimes. Dr. Cliffe advised John that I was spiraling down through the dark circles of melancholy, but it only felt like strength to me. Death could not make me afraid anymore.
If the price of that was seeming crazed and ignoring the doings of the living, it was a price I could pay. It was a price I was happy to pay, because it felt like vengeance. I took another look around my garden, and with a brief sweeping stroke I knocked down the brown stalks of two old sunflowers and watched them settle to the dark ground among the rotting leaves. Then I went inside.
12
L IEUTENANT N ATHAN S TILES, 104 TH O HIO
I watched a little
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