Whitefern (Audrina 2)

“Time? How much more time? I pretended for weeks not to notice, hoping that you would do just as you say, deal with it yourself, but you haven’t, and I fear you never will. I’m afraid to invite anyone to dinner or take you out like this,” he insisted, raising his voice. “A man with a growing business like mine can’t have an emotional invalid for a wife.”

I started to cry.

“All right, all right,” he said more calmly. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll see about it for you.”

“I don’t think I’d like—”

“Stop worrying about it, I said. I’ll look after you. I made promises to your father, too, you know, and one of them was to always be concerned about your welfare. Please let me fulfill that promise I made to him.”

What more could I say once he invoked my father? The next day, he came home with a prescription for me. It didn’t have my name on it, but he said that was because the doctor didn’t actually examine me.

“It’s a common one,” he said. “Harmless. Try it for a while. As you see, it’s best to take it in the evening, after dinner.”

I turned the pill bottle around in my fingers and shook my head. “I’m not fond of pills, Arden. You know that.”

“This is not anything terrible. It’s just to help you manage. It’s time to do something. Sylvia is becoming affected by your dark moods, too, Audrina. She’s even starting to eat poorly, and I fear she’s losing interest in her art. She might be blaming herself or thinking we’re both blaming her now. She’ll get sickly and return to the half vegetable she was. Is that what you want?”

“No, I don’t want that, of course not.”

“Well, she may be slow about many things, but she’s not blind. Anyone, even Sylvia, can see that you’re not looking after yourself as well as you usually do. Sometimes you look like a hag, a bag lady wandering aimlessly.”

“I do?”

“Yes, you do. I didn’t want to say anything, but someone who saw you at the supermarket commented to me about you.”

“Who? What was said? When?”

“It doesn’t matter who. They were concerned because of how you looked, how void of energy you seemed. They thought you were seriously ill. Why do you think I’ve avoided bringing anyone here? Half the time now, you don’t even put on lipstick, and I don’t know if you realized it, but you wore the same dress three days

in a row this week.”

“I did? Why didn’t you say something?”

“I didn’t want to bring it up. I wasn’t sure if it would do good or add to the bad, but how can we go forward and do wonderful things for Sylvia and for ourselves if you are so depressed all the time?” He pushed the pills back at me. “Take them for a week or so, and let’s see how you do. Okay?”

I looked at the pill bottle again and nodded. He was right. I couldn’t go on the way I was. That night, I took the first one. I felt a little dizzy and even a little silly. We had wine at dinner and an after-dinner drink, too. He said the doctor had said I could drink a little with the pills.

Arden put on music, and for the first time I could remember, he made Sylvia dance with him. She was bashful and afraid, but he showed her some steps, and then she started to do it. They both looked clumsy to me, and I laughed again. Sylvia beamed, believing she was doing something I wanted her to do and that she was bringing smiles back to my dreary face.

Arden got me up to dance, too, but I didn’t have the energy to go on and on. Finally, I collapsed onto the sofa while they went back at it. I closed my eyes, my face frozen in a silly smile, and fell asleep. I had no idea how long I slept. I woke with a start and looked around. There was only a small lamp lit, and both Arden and Sylvia were gone.

When I stood up, the room started to spin, and I fell back onto the sofa.

“Arden?” I called. I looked at the nearest clock. It was two in the morning. “Arden?”

I struggled to my feet, made my way to the stairs, and started up. It seemed to take me ten times as long as usual. Every once in a while, I paused, listened, and took a deep breath before continuing. When I turned to head toward our bedroom, I felt the hallway spin and pressed my palm against the wall to steady myself. In the room, there was a nightlight on, but Arden was in bed, facedown, asleep. I stood there looking at him and desperately tried to remember what had happened. Everything was so vague.

I went to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. My hair was wild, and my eyes looked terribly bloodshot. I washed my face and struggled to get undressed and into bed. Arden moaned and turned over with his back to me. I wondered about Sylvia, but I was just too tired to go check on her. In moments, I was asleep again.

The dream I had that night was so vivid that when I awoke, I questioned whether it was really a dream. In it, I had sat up in bed because I was sure I heard whispering in the hallway. I had turned to wake up Arden and realized he wasn’t there. So I’d risen and slowly made my way to the doorway to listen. There was definitely someone whispering. Confused and intrigued, I’d stepped out and made my way down the hallway toward the rocking-chair room. I’d stopped when I saw Arden outside the doorway, the door half open, talking.

What was he saying?

To whom?

I’d drawn close enough to look through the doorway and had seen Sylvia in the rocking chair, half naked the way she had been in the cupola, her head back, her eyes closed, rocking.

“What are you doing?” I’d cried out.