T. Boyle - Riven Rock

It was then that the first rocket went off at the end of the Littlejohn pier, a flash of light against the silhouette of a quick hunched-over skeleton of a man who might have been the gardener or the chauffeur or the rumored Mr. Littlejohn himself. Up it went, trailing sparks, to burst in a bloom of fire over the churning somber waters as everyone rushed to the window and applauded. “You know,” Jane said, catching Katherine by the elbow as the next rocket hurtled straight up into the air with a crash of artificial thunder, “it’s really not as bad as you might think.”

Katherine was puzzled. “What?”

The smirk, the eyes, the beautiful unconquerable snaking tendrils of hair. “Being widowed so young.”

And then another rocket went up, and another.

In December, Katherine returned to California. It had been a busy year — hectic — what with the women’s parade in March, the summer’s rallies, the International Woman Suffrage Alliance meeting in Budapest (which Carrie had asked her to chair), and she hadn’t been to Riven Rock since last year at this time, for Christmas. She felt bad about that, awful really, and there were nights when she awoke in her anonymous hotel room in Washington or Cleveland or San Francisco, not even sure of what city she was in, and she could have sworn she heard Stanley’s voice calling out to her. She wasn’t one to neglect her duties. And as long as Stanley was alive, he was her duty, her first duty, in sickness and in health.

And he’d improved, he had, in this year of 1913, in a way the annual reports Hamilton prepared for the guardians and the court couldn’t begin to do justice to. The reports were always so terse—“There occurred some mental clearness, then delirious excitement, after which he became dull”—no more than a line or two to justify a whole year in a man’s life. But she wrote Stanley once a week, unfailingly, no matter where she was or how pressing the demands on her time, and he’d been able to write back on several occasions — and that alone told her more than any sterile report. Of course, his penmanship was still a bit convoluted, little curlicues and all sorts of baroque decorations adorning his consonants and what appeared to be miniature faces peering out from the confines of his vowels, and his subjects — the weather, the garden, the food — were rather more limited than she’d care to see, but at least he was writing. He was taking his meals at table now too, and though he was restricted to a single spoon, he was eating with some sense of decorum, or so Hamilton had informed her in his most recent letter, and he was taking an interest in the newspaper, sometimes even reading it aloud to his nurses. The sinking of the Titanic the previous year had especially excited his imagination and for some months after the tragedy all he could apparently talk of was the death of John Jacob Astor after he’d so gallantly secured his young wife in the last remaining lifeboat.

On her first day back, she took the car out to Riven Rock as soon as she’d breakfasted. She was alone this time, her mother unable to join her for another two weeks yet (“I’ve got a hundred loose ends to tie up here, Katherine, for heaven’s sake, presents to buy yet for your uncle, the servants, all the Moores and Mrs. Belknap too, and I just don’t know when I’ll ever get my head above water even for a minute—”). She tried to keep her feelings under control as the car came up the long winding drive under the canopy of overarching branches, thinking of Stanley, poor sweet misunderstood Stanley, and knowing there was still no chance at all of getting to see him, even for a minute — it was too disturbing for him, Hamilton said. Far too disturbing. After Stanley’s near-disastrous escape, all women had been banished from the house, even the maids, who’d been replaced by a rotating team of local men, including two Chinese Sam Wah had recruited as sous-chef and dishwasher respectively. Dr. Hamilton felt it too dangerous to have any woman in the house, both for them and Stanley, even if he never saw them. The knowledge that they were there was enough to set him off, the faintest echo of a feminine voice, even a scent — and yes, victims of mental disorders did have extraordinary sensory perceptions, keen as an animal’s in some cases. Or so the doctor claimed.

In any case, Katherine entered that womanless fortress at nine A.M. on a day as soft as a hand on your cheek, the third of December and it might as well have been June. She was met at the door by Torkelson, the new butler, a man who seemed utterly undistinguished, as bland and unprepossessing as a sentient doormat, and then she was in the library with Mr. O‘Kane, the first woman to enter that room since she’d left it a year ago. Dr. Hamilton, she was promised, would arrive shortly from his house on lower Hot Springs Road — she hadn’t been expected quite so early.

“So, Mr. O‘Kane,” she said, glancing round to take inventory of the room with an eye to further improvements, and already she was shuffling through a stack of papers left out on the secretary for her. “And how have you been?”

“Oh, I’ve been well, ma‘am,” he replied, “very well indeed,” and when she glanced up he looked down at his shoes. He was certainly a good-looking man, what with his rugged build and fair hair, the way he held himself, and now that he was into his thirties — or was he twenty-nine? — he had a finish about him that was very pleasing. And he was bright too, for a nurse, but of course that was part of the problem with this whole unfortunate situation — bright and presentable as he might have been, he was no sort of companion for her husband, who was a gentleman and used to the company and stimulus of other gentlemen. Dr. Hamilton was acceptable, to a degree — at least he was educated — but the Thompsons, good-hearted and well-meaning through they were, couldn’t have been Stanley’s mental equals when he was six. And how could he hope to improve if this was the only company he kept?

“I’m very gratified to hear that,” she said, leaning into the corner of the desk now and working through the papers a second time — bills, receipts, a report from Mr. Stribling on the various improvement projects going forward on the grounds. “And how’s your wife?”

A silence. She looked up.

“Still back in Massachusetts, ma‘am — nursing her sick mother. And father. And her brother, poor man, who’s got cancer of the brain.”

Katherine pursed her lips and then couldn’t suppress a cold little smile. “That’s a lot of nursing.”

“It is, yes.”

“Four years’ worth, by my count.”

O‘Kane said nothing. Outside the sun was brightening in gradual increments, like a gas lamp slowly screwed up till the room was filled with light.

“And your son?” Katherine asked.

“I haven’t seen him, devoting all my time to Mr. McCormick, as I’m sure you’re aware, but I’m told he’s doing well, a regular little tiger, he is.”

“Oh?” Katherine was irritated. The man was a womanizer, a Lothario, as insensitive to a woman’s thoughts and feelings as he might have been to a trained seal‘s, thinking of one thing only, as if sexual attraction were the end rather than the beginning of a relationship, and it was shameful the way he’d deserted his wife and child and then had the gall to lie about it. Nursing her mother, indeed.

O‘Kane was standing at the door, waiting to be dismissed. He hadn’t moved an inch since she’d entered the room. “Well, Mrs. McCormick, I’ll tell you,” he said, looking up now to engage her eyes, bold as brass, “to be truthful, sometimes you enter a matrimonial state with the best of intentions all round, and things just don’t seem to work out.” He paused. “You know what I mean?”