Frank De Felitta: For Love of Audrey Rose

“No. I won’t do it. I can’t.”

“What’s best for Bill, Mrs. Templeton? To be left here where Ivy grew up? To be accused night and day by everything he sees, by everything he hears, by a thousand memories of her? You must see that you have no choice at all.”

Bill’s head turned away, against the pillows on the couch. He seemed to be trying to talk in his sleep. Janice leaned her ear close to his lips. She heard his thick, husky voice, sounding now like a death rattle.

“…Ivy… the glass…Ivy… the glass…”

In the morning, Dr. Gleicher telephoned the Eilenberg Clinic in Ossining and prepared Bill’s admission. Janice packed a small valise. At noon the clinic’s limousine arrived at Des Artistes. Heavily sedated, Bill rode beside Janice. His eyes blinked as though unused to the sunlight. Janice held his hand.

The clinic was a long, low building shaded by oak trees. Bill was taken to his room and then Dr. Geddes, the chief psychiatrist, introduced himself. He was slender, not much older than Janice, and combed his sandy brown hair sideways to cover a balding area.

Dr. Geddes explained the clinic. No drugs were used. No hypnosis. There were no guards, no hidden cameras. The only thing they requested was that Janice’s visits be on a regular schedule. Janice readily agreed. After the financial arrangements were concluded, Janice went into Bill’s room to say good-bye.

An impenetrable wall of silence surrounded him. Beyond his window, the shimmering meadow grass fluttered in brilliant, sun-rich waves. Janice adjusted his collar and pulled the shade to keep the sinking sun from his eyes.

She stepped to the door. Bill had made no response.

“I love you, Bill,” she whispered. “Remember that always.”

Dr. Geddes had business in town and drove Janice and Dr. Gleicher back to New York. They kept up a casual conversation, about Bill, about the changes in the city, about the changes in the country. Dr. Geddes had a youthful, intuitive manner, rather than Dr. Gleicher’s studied formality. There was a long, slow sunset, an air of tranquility, as they glided over the ramparts into the city. The purple twilight enclosed them in a misty, dreamlike atmosphere.

She thanked both doctors and stepped out at Des Artistes. For an instant, she felt the rising tide of panic, but then turned and resolutely stepped alone into the lobby.

The apartment loomed, dark and massive, around her. With Bill and Ivy gone, the living area seemed vast as a tomb.

She drank a long, cold glass of rum in limeade. Now that she was alone, the rumbles of distant plumbing, elevators, and electric appliances made a soothing symphony through the walls. The rum agreeably relaxed her. Gradually, her panic died.

There was nothing to fear, she thought. The past would die of its own momentum. What wouldn’t die could not harm her. She would move, alone, into the mysterious future and learn what she had to learn. That was how Ivy would have wanted it. And Bill, were he himself.

Janice opened the window in Ivy’s room. A warm night air wafted in, redolent with the smell of the distant river, and the summer dust. In her bed, which now had one pillow, Janice, for the first time in months, slipped into an untroubled sleep.

Breakfast alone, and the sunshine poured into Des Artistes. Janice drank Colombian coffee and ate muffins with jam beside an open window. It was a curious feeling, secure and quiet in the kitchen.

Time slowed to a crawl now that people stopped paying calls on account of Ivy. The mail decreased. The telephone rarely rang except for Carole Federico.

Carole and Janice walked together toward the Marina off Riverside Drive. It had been Ivy’s favorite place. With bittersweet memories, they watched yelling children crawl over the jungle gym.

“It seems so long ago,” Janice said quietly. “As though Ivy were here in a dream.”

Carole smiled sadly, took Janice’s arm, and they found an outdoor buffet where a fat man dispensed lemonade, pretzels and socialism at no extra cost. They leaned back against a picnic table, and they watched the glittering wakes of small pleasure craft on the Hudson River.

“I thought I would be crushed,” Janice said thoughtfully. “Being alone, I mean. But I’m not. I feel—”

“Independent is the word,” Carole said, with a suggestion of jealousy.

“Exactly,” Janice agreed. “I feel like I want a place in the world now. For me. Not as Ivy’s mother. Not as Bill’s wife. For me. Because I feel I have something to offer, even though I’m not sure exactly what.”

“You mean a job?”

“Well, yes. A job. I can’t just sit around the apartment all day. Besides, our money won’t last forever.”

Janice knew that her friend’s mind was already clicking through any leads, connections, or even wild rumors that might help. But Carole only shook her head regretfully.

“What about going back to school?” Carole asked. “Have you thought of that?”

“Lots of times. I’m too old for that. Besides, what would I do for money while I was in school?”

“You draw, don’t you?” Carole said. “You used to make the most beautiful decorations. And Christmas cards. And didn’t you design some theater programs for that Armenian church?”

Janice laughed again and crooked her arm in Carole’s elbow.

“You’re sweet, Carole, but that was years ago. Besides, being an art major in college and being a professional artist are two different propositions.”

“Nonsense. You’ve got a natural talent that could be parlayed into real success.”

Janice smiled, then rejected the idea.

“Well, how many Armenian churches can there be?” she said.

“The trouble with you is, you have no confidence. Let me ask Russ. A lot of people from the design trade come through his shop. They always hire extra staff.”

Janice was grateful for the support that Carole gave her. She began drawing again. She enrolled in an art class, was advanced to a higher level, and studied the figure with a famous designer from Italy. She worked hard. She needed to feel the pressure of schedules, pressure to execute assignments, to meet deadlines. To feel that vast, rumbling force that throbbed through the heart of the densest city in the world.

Janice felt on the edge of a teeming life, tantalizingly close, hungering for it. She began to feel, more and more, as her figure studies improved, that she really did have something to offer. An eye for color, an instinct for gesture. She knew how to work hard, to please the most exacting of tastes, and she wanted a chance.

Every Monday at 1:45, a train dropped her at Ossining. From there she took a short bus ride to the edge of the clinic grounds. Bill remained absolutely, heartbreakingly the same. She told him about looking for work, about the plays she had seen, about Shakespeare in the Park with the Federicos and their cousins from Miami.

Bill paid no attention. He seemed to be deep in thought, as though trying to figure what in the trial had gone wrong. Janice fought back the tears. He had sunk into a torpor far deeper than Dr. Geddes had at first realized.

Bill brought the past back to her, a past that she was determined to escape. She went to the heart of the city now, in earnest, with her portfolio. Everywhere she was told that her collections of sketches and pastels — which went back to her college days in Berkeley — were out-of-date, or not professional enough, or “simply wouldn’t do.” This last was usually accompanied by a crushing smile of condescension.

After four weeks of looking, Russ Federico invited her down for a late brandy.

“I don’t know why you want to work,” he said. “Frankly, I’d just as soon take long walks all day on the river.”