Frank De Felitta: For Love of Audrey Rose

Janice worked long hours to make up for her lack of experience. It probably averaged out to less than the minimum wage. But on the last night of her first project, at 1:30 in the morning, with the floor littered with scraps of paper, and her fingers black with ink, she knew that she had passed the test. Elaine asked her to stay for a second project.

Now, with the first few months out of the way, there was a little time. Time to observe the energy and direction of Elaine’s changing creations. She was working on midwinter designs, and the pressure on her was intense.

Elaine was not married, and her views on men were not what Janice would have called conventional. For the first time, she felt a twinge of jealousy at Elaine’s free-wheeling ease with more than one male friend at a time, for her own evenings were long and lonely. She was often too tired to go out to a movie, and reading — mainly popular fiction— began to wear thin. Sometimes loneliness just mounted up. But for an occasional dinner with the Federicos, or a call from Dr. Geddes, her life was one long siege of ennui.

One particular evening, Dr. Geddes called with a bit of good news for a change.

“Bill is responding to words,” he chortled over the telephone.

“Really? Why, that’s marvelous.”

“Some words, anyway. Even a concept or two. Of course, it’s all still rudimentary. But quite frankly I’m very pleased.”

Janice heard his pleasant laughter on the other end of the line.

“Should I do anything different?” she asked. “Should I bring anything?”

“No, just come at the usual time,” he said. “I just wanted to share the good news with you.”

“I can’t tell you how pleased I am to hear this, Dr. Geddes.”

“We both could use some encouragement,” he chuckled musically. “It’s going to be a long haul, but there are signs. Damned good signs.”

After she put down the receiver, Janice felt peculiarly light-headed. Could it be that things were going to return to normal? At least, as normal as Des Artistes could be without Ivy. A new reality would be formed, around the two of them. Bill would return to work — if not at Simmons, then somewhere else. Maybe in time there could even be another child. As she looked around the apartment, a bit of the old magic, that happy combination of light, space, and sheer exuberance overflowed once again, filling the walls, and the ceilings danced as they had danced years before, with secretive lovers among the flower-draped arbors.

The summer was over, and the autumn had come with changes. But changes were not to be feared. They were to be welcomed. They were to be welcomed because they meant the end of fear, and the end of that sucking darkness, and together she and Bill would start again, sad but deeper, ever deeper in love, and cognizant of its most profound responsibilities.

Autumn came as an azure tribute to the fading summer, the deep blue sky warm and endless over the Eilenberg clinic. The low, cream-colored walls of the institution were dappled by the moving shadows of low-bending oak trees.

Janice was long familiar with the grounds. She nodded briefly to a nurse as she made her way to the clinic gardens. Bees still hovered around the faded flowers but there was a sensation of aridity, even sterility, and the dust rose upward, chalk white, as she walked into the garden.

Bill sat on an iron bench, a book on his lap. He had lost weight. His white shirt fluttered in the breeze. He was still very pale, and his red bedroom slippers looked like symbols of illness against the white dusty path. He looked up as he sensed her coming. As always, the direct contact of his eyes made her uneasy. He had become someone else, a broken-hearted, altered image of the man she had known and loved.

He smiled. The lips quivered.

“Hello, Bill,” Janice said gently, and kissed him on the forehead.

She sat down next to him and looked at the book in his lap. The type was small and she could not make out the words. It looked like stanzas of poetry. Bill fidgeted with the pages, as though he were very nervous.

“I feel much better,” he said, his voice husky. “But sometimes I get dizzy.”

Janice put her hand on his and smiled. She was gratified that he did not withdraw it.

“Oh, Bill,” she whispered. “It’s so wonderful to hear your voice!”

Bill’s hands trembled, like an old man’s. Janice wondered what powerful emotions surged through the thin frame. He looked up at the oak trees beyond the pink gravel driveway.

“Birds,” he said gruffly. “Like music.”

“Yes, Bill, I can hear them; oh, my, but it’s good to hear you speak.”

Suddenly embarrassed, he stood awkwardly, grasping his book. He looked as though he did not know whether to sit down or to walk down the garden path. Janice looked at the cover.

“John Keats,” she marveled. “Why, Bill, you never read poetry.”

Bill smiled. He had lost so much weight that his cheekbones were unnaturally prominent.

“Dr. Geddes makes me read,” he said hesitantly. “It feels good to read about some things.”

“Yes. Read to me, Bill. Let me hear your voice some more.”

Awkward, Bill licked his lips, and read:

“We are such forest trees that our fair boughs Have bred forth, not pale solitary doves But eagles golden-feathered, who do tower Above us in their beauty….”

Overcome, Bill closed the book, but kept his finger in it to mark the place.

“We did give birth to an eagle,” he said slowly. “You and I. Ivy was the most beautiful, the most courageous…”

He stopped. She tried to brush away the moisture from his eyes, but he pushed her hand aside. They rose, walked in silence, into the bright heat of the afternoon.

Janice felt his gait grow confused, like an old man’s. She led him as quickly as she could toward the entrance to the garden and signaled to a passing nurse. The nurse came quickly, put Bill’s left arm over her own shoulder, and assisted him to a bench in the shade of the clinic roof.

“I don’t know what happened,” Janice said, suddenly frightened. “All of a sudden, his knees began buckling.”

“He’s still in a kind of postshock syndrome,” the nurse said matter-of-factly. “Conversation actually takes a lot out of him.”

They set Bill down in front of the window to the lobby. He apologized weakly, coughed once, then blew his nose into a clean handkerchief. Janice suddenly realized that he looked like an old man, too.

“It’s quite normal,” the nurse assured her. “Every day he gains a bit more strength.”

“Right now I couldn’t lift a finger,” Bill whispered hoarsely. “Christ, I feel all sucked out.”

Janice sat down next to him. “Don’t speak, darling,” she said gently. “Would you like me to read to you?”

He nodded, then closed his eyes, settling his head against the window behind him. The nurse, who had picked up the book from the driveway, handed it to her. Janice nodded her thanks, then opened up to a well-worn passage:

“Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal — yet do not grieve.”

Janice looked up at a strange sound. Bill’s lips were moving, and in a feathery whisper he completed the stanza with deep sorrow, tinged with a delicacy she had never seen in him before.

“She cannot fade,” Bill whispered, “though thou hast not thy bliss; Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!”

Bill sighed deeply. The nurse and Janice watched him, for he smiled without opening his eyes.

“Do you believe that, Janice?” he asked softly. “That Ivy will be forever loved, and forever beautiful? I do. I’ll never forget the color of her eyes… the way she ran… never…”