Frank De Felitta - For Love of Audrey Rose

“Nor I, Bill,” Janice whispered, leaning closer, squeezing his heavy hand.

Bill fell into a light sleep. When he awoke later, with an embarrassed jerk, he had no memory of reading poetry in the garden. Instead, he, Janice, and Dr. Geddes discussed the terms of his leaving the clinic. Tentatively, they arrived at a figure of about six weeks.

Privately, Dr. Geddes reminded Janice not to nurture false hopes. Bill was infinitely better, but only in spurts. He still needed time to grow a solid foundation for his thoughts.

“By the way,” Janice said, as she was leaving, “Bill said you encourage him to read poetry. Is that true? He asked me to bring him some.”

“Yes, a very good idea,” Dr. Geddes said. “Nothing explicit. Nothing violent. But the subject of death is all right. Lovely thoughts about it. Bit by bit, Bill is coming to terms with his emotions, releasing them, diffusing them.”

“Anything in particular?”

“A little of everything. The more variety, the better.”

Janice returned home on the 5:25 evening train. It was already twilight, though unseasonably warm. She stopped at the library, and without thinking much about what she was picking up, collected a small armful of verse that dealt in elegies, dramas of Shakespeare, and even farces translated from French. Anything that would stimulate Bill’s mind, so long fallow and destitute. Exhausted, she dropped the books in a heap on the couch at home and sat staring at her watercolor layouts.

“She cannot fade,” Janice quoted dreamily, remembering Bill, “though thou hast not her bliss, Forever wilt thou love, Bill, and Ivy be fair!”

She rose, suddenly remembering she had one book left from months ago, from Hoover. She found it in her desk drawer. It was the Bhagavad Gita, a slim blue volume, published in London in 1796. Opening it, Janice smiled. The poetry of Eastern resignation. Like honey, the words flowed, half insensible, often contradictory, in what must assuredly be a ludicrous translation, like Victorian English put through a meat grinder. She recognized a few suitable phrases of comfort.

Hesitating for a long while, Janice held it poised over the fallen pile of books on the couch. At long last, the room grown darker already with the onset of the dry night, the slim blue volume lay with the others, and Janice forgot about it.

On Friday evening, Bill telephoned. He sounded tired at first, then the confidence returned to his voice.

“This clinic has lousy central heating,” he said. “It’s cold all the time.”

“Could I bring you a sweater, darling?”

“I’d appreciate that,” Bill said. “And remember those slipper socks your mother sent me for my birthday? I could use those, too.”

“I will. Oh, Bill, how sweet of you to call.”

Bill’s voice changed, almost imperceptibly. Probably Janice was the only human being on the face of the earth who could have noticed it, or understood what it really meant.

“I’ve been missing you,” he said simply.

“I — Me, too, Bill. It’s been so long.”

“Not having you around is really the worst thing in the world. Dr. Geddes tells me that maybe I could start coming home — for a night, a weekend — something like that.”

“I’d like that, Bill. I can’t tell you how much I would.”

“It sure is good to hear you say that. After all we’ve been through, you know, I wasn’t sure. I mean, it must have been terrible for you — having to put up with all my…” His voice drifted.

Janice reassured him, but he began to repeat himself. His voice grew weaker, and he pulled himself together, only to wish her good-night. Then he hung up. The apartment rang with silence.

It was an apartment waiting for someone. But whether that someone would ever come, whether it could really start all over again, with even half a faith in living, remained to be seen. For the moment, Janice was content that Bill was coming home, and that Ivy had entered his thoughts once more, and that he was overcoming his guilt and fear.

The next time she saw him, he was in a large room converted by the clinic to a kind of gymnasium. He was dressed in woolen pants with a drawstring, white slippers, and a gray sweatshirt, and he was pressing weights upward in rhythmic concentration.

Slowly, he put the long barbell back into the iron slot, ducked under, ran to her and wrapped his arms around her.

“How are you, darling?” he said, kissing her. “I bet I smell real good, don’t I?”

“Just terrific, Bill.”

“Why don’t you keep me company while I shower?”

“Are you sure that’s allowed?”

Bill laughed infectiously, wiping the sweat from his red face.

“You’re probably right about that, Janice.”

Bill disappeared inside, then poked his head out.

“Back in fifteen,” he called.

She waved to him, then stepped slowly across the mats on the floor, over two dumbbells that clanked when she accidentally hit against them. Ropes were suspended from a rafter, and there was a kind of machine to sit in and row simultaneously.

Dr. Geddes came down in his jogging shorts and a blue-striped jacket. He seemed surprised to see her.

“I guess I shouldn’t be here,” Janice said.

“Well, in your case, we’ll bend the rules,” he said, smiling broadly, coming closer. “What do you think? I mean, about Bill?”

“It’s wonderful. You’ve done miracles. I can’t believe the changes.”

“Well, he’s got a tremendous desire to get back together. And this physical exercise improves concentration, promotes self-confidence.”

Janice stepped closer to Dr. Geddes. He caught the changed expression and listened closely.

“Bill telephoned last Friday,” she said. “He wants to come home. For a night or two.”

“I know. Is that all right with you?”

“I would like that,” she said, flushing slightly, “but I wasn’t sure it was a good idea for him to leave.”

Dr. Geddes considered for a moment.

“I think it should be tried,” he said. “Bill wants to leave, and I’d like to promote that. Gradually. He’s still a little dislocated.”

“I just wanted to hear you say that, I guess.”

Bill came from the far end of the makeshift gymnasium carrying his favorite sweater, a thin gray pullover that had holes under both arms and was unraveled in five places at the bottom.

“Are you two conspiring against me?” he asked genially.

Dr. Geddes opened his mouth to answer but Janice cut him off, saying, “We were just saying that you look so fine.”

Bill laughed, but it was a trifle forced, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Come on,” he said, taking Janice’s arm. “Don’t keep staring at me. I’ve got a whole picnic planned.”

“A picnic?” Janice said, surprised and delighted.

Together, Janice and Bill went to his room, where Bill picked up a wicker basket heavy with wrapped sandwiches and a bottle of red wine, plates, and printed napkins. Bill stuffed in his blanket. Janice watched Bill working feverishly, pathetically determined to show her a good time.

He escorted her from the clinic and out to the grounds. They slipped under the wooden fence and walked up the long, hard meadow toward the crest of the hill, holding hands. A bitter wind blew into their faces; Janice wrapped her sweater around her throat, but Bill faced the dark, rolling clouds with only a white shirt, his sweater tucked into his belt, until they crested the hill.

Down below, Ossining was tucked into a series of hollows, dull gray trucks groveling up narrow roads, and a bank of century-old warehouses beyond a clump of nearly denuded trees.

Bill’s hand reached for hers and squeezed slowly, sadly. He smiled — a smile of deep, bitter resignation. He pulled her down slowly onto the blanket he had spread under two intertwined oak trees, shielded from the wind. They looked back down the brittle stalks of dead grass to where the clinic occupied a flat space beyond the fences.