Frank De Felitta - For Love of Audrey Rose

The books hung together on a shelf in the kitchen, casting a small, gloomy shadow when the light was on. When the light was off, they melded into the general darkness.

When she saw him next, Bill was dressed in his robe; a tray of orange juice, several small bottles of capsules, and several discarded magazines were at his side. He looked impatient when she came into the room.

“Did you bring the books?” he asked, his eyes slightly bright, as though the fever which had wracked his body for several days had not entirely dissipated.

“Right here,” Janice said, drawing them from her purse. “Aren’t you even going to say hello?”

“I’m sorry,” Bill said, grinning. “You look just fabulous, Janice. I just ran out of reading material, lying here like King Tut. A guy could scream from boredom.”

He took the books from her, casually flipped through them, and put them on the night table next to his pillow. He pulled her down and let her kiss him.

“I’m all right,” he said. “Really, I am. They thought it had blossomed into a walking pneumonia, which is why they kept me here. But it was really a kind of bronchitis. That’s all.”

“Are you sure?” Janice asked. “I was so worried when you called.”

“Positive. Could you open the window a half inch? A little fresh air would do wonders.”

Janice went to the window. She heard him stretch over, and when she turned back, he was paging through the top book, his back to her.

“Thanks a lot, honey,” he murmured. “These look just fine.”

“If you really have to read them now…”

Bill turned and smiled guiltily.

“Poor Janice,” he said. “You come all this way to watch your addled husband reading in bed. Come on. Let’s mosey out of here.”

Bill slipped from bed, modestly turned from her, and dressed. Janice was shocked to see how much weight he had lost. His hip bones almost protruded from his flat stomach. Even his legs looked thin. When he was dressed fully, he turned and escorted her from his room. First, however, he slipped the topmost book into his jacket pocket.

“Depressing little place, isn’t it?” he confessed as they walked up the corridor. “I just can’t wait to get out of here. Dr. Geddes means well, but— Here, let’s duck into the library. At least it’s comfortable in there.”

Bill opened a door and they entered a large room containing long shelves of books, globes on stands, a few antique brass lamps, some geographer’s maps on the walls, and tall, clean windows with maroon curtains.

“Pretty fancy, isn’t it?” Bill said. “The clinic buys this stuff from auctions. All the one-room schoolhouses that are disappearing. Well, this is where they disappear to.”

Bill turned away slightly from her, looking out the window, peering into the mist that rolled inward from the rain, blotting out the hill where he had caught his fever. There was a long silence. A horse, more silhouette than substance, walked slowly out of the mist, like a harbinger from a mysterious landscape.

Turning back to Janice, Bill studied her curiously.

“What have you got in your handbag?”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on. I see something with ribbon on it.”

Janice smiled, then reached down to her purse and pulled out a glass jar. Inside were round, milky-white balls. Janice held out the jar to him, enjoying his puzzled expression.

“Go on, coward,” she insisted. “Try one.”

“They look like marbles.”

Frowning, Bill unscrewed the lid, reached in, and popped a candy into his mouth. Nothing happened, so he bit into it. Suddenly, his expression changed.

“Holy shit,” he marveled.

“They’re filled with Calvados cognac,” Janice said. “Aren’t they great?”

Bill helped himself to another.

“Crazy. Where’d you find them?”

“From Elaine Romine.”

“Yeah? Well, thank her for me. Jesus, I haven’t had strong stuff since… since… since the trial. No, in New York…I don’t remember.”

Bill bit into another candy, savoring the hot, stinging sensation of delicate apple cognac. Janice guessed now that he remembered everything that had ever happened, and it broke some barrier between them. Possibly the last barrier, she thought hopefully.

As they calmly ate, two more horses came out of the mist, rubbing shoulders, gazing quizzically into the library windows.

Janice leaned back into the extraordinary comfort of the dark red chair, watching the horses, absorbing the tranquility of the ceaselessly moving yet ever-unchanging mist out over the meadow. There was really no sense of time at all, like the rainy days on Sunday afternoons when all motion at Des Artistes stopped, and the floor was littered with the New York Times , and the breakfast dishes were still on the dining room table. Bill caught her looking fondly at him, wistfully.

“Do you remember how it was at home? Sunday afternoons? We’d just all sort of lounge around, listening to the rain? Sometimes Ivy would go play with Bettina. And we’d make love… before a crackling fire. God, how beautiful it was.”

Janice nodded, startled by the coincidence of their thoughts.

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Bill asked reflectively. “But she’s gone. Our Ivy.”

Janice watched him. There were no signs of agitation on his face, only a tired and bittersweet resignation. Bill reached out to the window and traced a heart with his finger. He put an arrow through the heart and then the initials I.T. and B.T. He winked at Janice.

“Remember?” he whispered. “She used to put those on the windows. Ivy Templeton loves Bill Templeton. I’ll never forget.”

Janice squeezed his hand warmly as they sat in the two heavy chairs, listening to the calm, steady drizzle outside. Janice felt the drowsy atmosphere taking hold of her. She sighed and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Bill was browsing through the book on Jainism.

“It says here that a seal was found dating back to at least fifteen hundred B.C.,” Bill said. “On it is a cross-legged figure wearing a horned headdress, three faces, and surrounded by jungle animals. It’s a proto-Yoga figure.”

“Bill,” Janice said, trying to smile and keep her voice calm, “what is this sudden interest in all this?”

“No sudden interest. It just seems weird.”

Janice turned away to look out the window. The heart with the initials had melted downward into a grotesque, slumped form. Janice wiped out the lines with the palm of her hand.

“Listen to this, Janice,” Bill insisted. “Jainism goes back before the Hindus. To a non-Aryan antiquity, that predated the sacred writings.”

“Bill, please. I’m really not interested.”

“All right. Sorry. Let’s just look out the window and count raindrops.”

“Why are you angry? I just said—”

“Right. You did say that. Well, maybe you’re right. Why should you care? All this garbage.”

For an instant, Janice could only watch the strange expression on his flushed face, a mixture of determination and confusion. He put the book under his right thigh, as if to guard against anyone’s taking it away.

“I don’t feel too well,” Bill said softly. “I think it’s the fever.”

“You look a bit flushed. Maybe we should get you back in bed.”

Together they walked out of the library, down to Bill’s room, which had been made up in their absence, and Bill undressed and slipped under the covers, clutching his book. Janice knew by the warmth of his forehead that he was running a high fever again. His cheeks were flushed.

Bill took her hand and kissed it.

“Was I sharp with you?” he asked softly. “I didn’t mean to be.”

“No. No, Bill, you weren’t. But I think you’d better close your eyes now. You don’t look at all well.”