This Is How I'd Love You (20 page)

When Teresa sees Hensley’s eyes upon her, she smiles tenderly but says nothing. Hensley turns her own head toward the window, its curtains pulled tight. This single fact tells her that it is true. All the details of her loss rush at her. The boat that carried her through an ocean of murky sadness is suddenly gone and she is on the shore, alone, unprotected, searching the horizon for the people she loves. The words and images that suddenly overwhelm her mind are what she feared most. The truth of the accident.

The bells that started ringing just before dawn, the horses’ hooves that seemed to never stop, the chaos in town as she walked Mr. Reid’s letter to the post, the miners solemnity along the side of the road, their heads bowed, nobody’s eyes meeting hers. The whole thing had seemed like a stage play; an elaborate show designed to test her. So she did what she thought she should. She busied herself composing a telegram to Harold, writing a letter to Mr. Reid, and brewing the morning coffee. She’d thought that once she completed all the tasks required of a grieving daughter he might reappear. She would pass the test and be rewarded with his approving nod, his gentle smile.

But instead, even after the simple burial at the top of the hill, the house remained hers alone. The days were empty and without rhythm. She washed his clothes and hung them out to dry, taking special care with the shirt collars. When she couldn’t sleep, she read and reread the letters from Mr. Reid. She stared at the chessboard, wondering if she should dare to make the next move; if this act might finally complete this excruciating charade. She held a pawn, then a bishop in her hand, straining for some insight, but soon replaced it. She pulled the curtains and took to her bed, where she’s been now for a week.

Both cats are stretched out long on the bed beside her. “What time is it?” she asks.

Teresa tells her just after dinner. “There is soup. Just broth. Shall we give it a try?”

Hensley nods. She’d agree to nearly anything just to have the room to herself, to be rid of Teresa’s sympathetic gaze. It only confirms her worst fear—there is no one else.

Alone, she shoves the cats onto the floor.

Her grief is like an impossibly heavy blanket, smothering every inch of her. She wants to destroy it—to push against this weight, set fire to it, escape its iron hold. The only way this seems possible is if she wreaks some damage of her own, takes a piece of this blanket and throws it over someone else. Watches it suffocate them, stifling their movement, choke their breath.

The cats land on their feet, as cats do, undamaged and unfazed. They saunter away from her slowly.

Hensley stands on her bed and places her hands against the ceiling. Pushing as hard as she can, Hensley hopes to break through. Climb up and out, stand on the roof, survey the new, ravaged world. But the mattress beneath her bare feet sags, preventing her from achieving her desired effect—destruction. She turns her hands to fists and bangs until a piece of the plaster buckles, disintigrates, and falls into her eyes.

She crouches on the bed, her eyes blinded, momentarily, by the debris. Behind her closed eyes she once again sees the horse-drawn coach that brought her father’s body back to the house. She gasps. She’d almost forgotten. Those dreadful, innocent horses, so useful and large. In vain, she tries to push the image away, tries not to see its arrival in front of this house. Though he must have died hours earlier, it is this bleak, irrefutable evidence that haunts her and that she wishes to undo.

If only he’d gone on a train to Chicago or Los Angeles or anywhere instead of into that mine shaft. She could accept the abandonment, the truth of his absence, if only she didn’t have this image in her mind. The stubborn, vile memory of him with his bloodied shirt still tucked into his dungarees; the wide metal wedge awkwardly cradled in his neck, like a child’s prank, a circus stunt; his mouth agape, utterly abandoned by the vibrancy of a working jaw; his fingers on both hands stretched long, as though with a yearning, a profoundly hidden desire. She wants to eradicate the piece of her brain that has stored this, that will undoubtedly torture her by replaying it every time she isn’t entirely fortified. But the plaster in her eyes has only shut her in with this memory and she is unable to escape it, trapped in the darkness.

From the doorway, Teresa’s voice intrudes and rescues her. “Have you plans to destroy the whole house or just the ceiling?”

Hensley tries to open her eyes. She blinks away the lingering dust. The first thing she sees is Teresa’s bare feet, so brown and alive on the wooden floorboards.

“Either,” she says, noticing the tray in Teresa’s hands. “Any scrap of this horrid place.”

There is a long silence between them. Hensley looks at the welt on her knuckle that is beginning to show itself. This pain snaps her to life. She scrambles from the bed in a shock of movement and drags all the bedclothes off. Throwing them to the floor, she howls at the insult of this comfort. This suggestion that life could go on. As though the bed and its covers are mocking her. She rages at them, beating at the mattress that remains, at the dreaded pillows. Her face reddened and wet, she finally throws herself back on the bed, defeated.

Teresa is not moved. “I once saw someone go up in flames fueled by grief. As if her very soul was a box of dry timber. There were ashes dancing in the breeze even as her flesh charred and melted.”

“God.” Hensley’s heart races with the possibilities. Destruction frolicking around her like a harlot with lifeless eyes.

Teresa nods.

“God,” Hensley says again. Might that happen to her? Might she simply ignite?

Teresa places the tray on the cane chair beside the bed. Without invitation or hesitation, she climbs onto the bare bed beside Hensley. The two girls hold each other, trying desperately to affirm some community, some solidarity that neither feels in her heart. But each girl’s tears dry on the other’s skin in thin, salty tracks of protest.

 • • • 

I
mmediately after hearing her father was dead, Hensley sat in front of the typewriter, still in her nightclothes, her hands streaked black with ink. She imagined Mr. Reid, living in that time warp of their letters, innocent of the events in the mine. He would exist there, with her father still alive, still a solid opponent, for a few more weeks.

I’ve woken early, the room still dark. I wonder, in fact, if I actually slept at all. Only the occasional birdcall breaks the silence—an eager finch or mourning dove. And I must confess that even now I am contemplating an act of forgery. Mostly to spare you, but also, perhaps, to spare myself. I think I could surely mimic his terse, rational prose—his voice will always be in my head—but I would be a hopeless failure when it came time to determining the next move in your chess game. You would wonder and worry what fate had befallen your partner and I would eventually have to confess to my crime. So, as the sunlight shed its rays onto my pillow, I knew the terrible truth of the day. I would have to form these detestable words and send them across an ocean to you: My father, Mr. Sacha Dench, has died.

Next, she went into town to send the telegram to Harold.

Dear Brother. With immense regret I must inform you of our father’s death. I am heartbroken.

She maintained her composure while she threw a handful of New Mexico dirt onto the coffin that held her father’s body, walked down the dusty road back toward town, toward the trunk of her father’s clothes and the untouched chessboard in the living room. But when nothing changed, when the awfulness of his death only seem to amplify instead of recede, she took to bed.

It was Teresa who told her they would eat lunch because it was time. It was Teresa who tied on an apron and cleaned the stack of plates and bowls that littered the sink, bought a slab of bacon from the butcher, and knew that the house needed the smell of garlic and onions browning in oil.

Now, Teresa has left her alone to check on Berto. She glances at the damaged ceiling above her bed and hates it. Pulling Isaac onto her lap, she wonders what animals know about death. She scratches the stiff fur between his eyes and marvels at the strength of his purring. There is a knock at the front door and Isaac leaps from her lap and beneath the chair.

Henry, the foreman, stands outside the screen door, his hat in his hand.

“Ma’am,” he begins, his eyes dodging around Hensley’s. “I’ve got a couple telegrams for you here. They came to the mine.”

Hensley takes the yellow envelopes from his hand. “Thank you,” she says.

“I sure hope that you know how sorry we all are. Especially Amador and me. Really sorry for what happened. Your father was decent to all of us.”

Hensley can only nod.

“What happened—it will be with us the rest of our days. It will haunt us,” he says with conviction.

Hensley bows her head. “Me, too,” she says quietly. With this agreement between them, she watches him walk away from the house, returning the hat to his head.

She goes to the kitchen, places the envelopes on the table, and stands in front of the stove. She holds the wooden spoon in her hand, poking at the beans as they simmer. She watches the golden oil gather on the surface.

Finally, she sits at the table, the telegrams beckoning her. The first is from Harold.

Dear Hennie. Heartbroken here too. Together we will remember him. I am prevented from travel due to the necessity of my presence here. I have spoken to Lowe. Your return to New York will be a great relief to both of us. Your loving brother

His words seem to exist somewhere far away from her. She can hardly absorb them. She moves quickly on to the next.

Dear Hensley. I am sorry for your recent loss. It is my understanding that you will be returning to New York. I would be remiss if I did not extend the offer of a marriage when you do. Whatever our disagreements have been we can surely agree to leave them in the past. Awaiting your reply. Lowell Teagan

Hensley closes her eyes. She is short of breath. Her heart bangs recklessly in her chest. Finally, she stands and walks to the stove. She lifts the pot of beans from the flame momentarily and replaces it with Lowe’s telegram. She watches it ignite. Then she replaces the beans and lets his words wilt in her hand as the flame turns them into graceful black ashes. Finally, just as the heat singes her knuckle, she lets it go—watching it cascade to the floor, weakened without its fuel. Hensley steps on the small remaining flame, buoyed by the sound of its sigh as it is extinguished.

“You are intent on destruction, aren’t you?”

Hensley shrugs her shoulders with disbelief. “I’ve just burned up my one and only proposal, Teresa. My one and only chance to salvage a life of respectability.”

“Pity,” Teresa says, with absolutely none.

Hensley smiles for the first time in days.

“Well, you
do
wear boots and suspenders most days. What would you know about a woman’s respectability?”

“Precisely. The moment you wear a skirt and blouse is the moment you’ve given the world license to decide for you about things like respectability. In dungarees and a hat, I have it so long as I am standing up straight.”

Here she pulls her skirt tight between her legs, throws her shoulders back, and puffs out her chest.

Hensley mimics her and the two of them walk the floor of the small kitchen, imagining what it might be like to have their own place in the world. They bite through apples like abandoned love affairs, stir the beans with the carelessness of a vote cast for war, swing their arms about with the ease of dismissing unwanted children.

But they soon tire of the charade and Teresa spoons them each a bowl of beans, while Hensley pulls off two chunks of bread, and they walk through the ashes left by Lowell’s telegram, smudging the soot across the floorboards that will have to be cleaned later.

Later that night, unable to sleep, Hensley walks through the house, looking at all the things that are so familiar to her. All the things that used to comfort her. The things that she’s lived among for as long as she can remember. Her father’s desk set: the sterling inkwell shaped like an acorn, his fountain pen and luscious paper, waiting, expectantly; the chunky brass candlesticks that stand guard in the front window, their white candles awaiting a match; the gray linen pillows that adorn the sofa, perfectly finished by her mother with lavender silk stitching; the three porcelain angels that once belonged to her grandmother Wright, each with a slight golden halo hovering above its head.

The night brings with it all the fear that it did when she was a child. Afraid of some unknown danger lurking, waiting for her around nearly every corner, she finds herself imagining that even Lowell’s presence might be better than none. These beautiful things, these pieces of her previous life, cannot console her the way a familiar voice might. They have no warm arms, no temperament, no capacity for tenderness, or even brutality.

Timidly returning to her room, she goes straight to the small wooden box on her vanity that holds Mr. Reid’s letters. They are the closest thing to solace she can find. But in their solace is also the enormous chasm between here and there.

In the deep middle of the night, Hensley yearns for something more. Some way to bring him closer. From her father’s desk she takes the ink and pen. Cradling the inkwell in one palm, she fixes her eyes on the wall. In its blankness is the abyss that breaks her solace. Its expanse mirrors the distance between their two selves. She stretches out on the bed, feeling the rhythm of her heart’s singular beat—at once miraculous and disappointing. The weight of the inkwell could be his hand in hers.

She imagines lying beside him on some battlefield, the ground beneath them trembling with the impact of nearby shells. It wouldn’t matter—the proximity of death. All that would matter is that they could each finally see and touch the body from which their words emanated. His eyes, lips, hands, neck, elbows, fingers, hair. There would be no end to her desire to hear him speak—the voice in her head becoming his, his words unfurling themselves directly into her ear, the heat of his breath all the warmth she’d ever need. And as the violence nears, as the sky fills with smoke and they have to close their eyes, as he wraps his arms more tightly around her, she would place her hand across her own belly, hoping that however little the child can sense, it senses this. Curled into his side like this, she would let the bullets drag through her flesh, opening up her skin, revealing her insides to the dirt and the sky of a foreign land. Shredding her to minuscule bits that will sink into the mud, fortify the countryside, feed the rats, haunt the future. But each bit will have in it the whisper of his voice, the feel of his hand in hers.