This Is How I'd Love You (11 page)

When her father and brother were sorting through the large piles of condolences, Hensley gathered as many bundles of flowers as she could carry and made her way through the halls of their building, knocking on doors and handing back the white, pink, and yellow blossoms to the startled, pale-faced people who had sent them. One woman, the Irish wife of a doctor, had put her hand on Hensley’s shoulder.

“My dear. Your mum would want to hold you tight right now, if she could. Won’t you let me do that for her?”

Hensley nodded. She placed her head against the woman’s skirts and wrapped her arms around her hips, the last bouquet still clasped in one hand. Her mother would like this—hadn’t she told Hensley that she should be careful about refusing love? Hadn’t she told her, even as her voice caught and her eyes closed, that Hensley would always be able to find her, that she’d always be close by?

This soft woman’s embrace might, in fact, be what she’d meant. That if she closed her eyes and tried hard enough, she might find her mother here in this neighbor’s arms, hiding, hoping Hensley would reach for her.

She breathed deeply, her eyes shut tight, waiting. But the woman’s embrace was too gentle, ghostly, not like her mother’s keen, forceful one at all. And the only thing she found there was the smell of kitchen grease and talcum powder.

The stems were damp and Hensley knew they would leave marks on the woman’s skirt. Her own little hands were flecked with pricks from the flowers’ thorns. She ended the embrace and peeked around at the place where her hands had been, but there was no sign of her. No water marks, no blood spots. The woman patted her head and smiled.

“What is it, love? What are you looking for?”

Hensley didn’t answer. Instead, she pushed the last bouquet into this woman’s arms, the petals crumpling beneath the weight of Hensley’s hand. They were magenta roses and Hennie hoped some of their scarlet hue would stain the woman’s blouse. She should be marked, too. Hennie’s mother’s death should not be just another happening; a piece of neighborhood gossip. This woman’s small kindness cannot erase the tragedy. She cannot close her door and go back to her kitchen and forget. She, too, should be stained. All of them.

This was what she thought as she ran down the hallway in her black patent shoes, taking the corners quickly, daring herself to slip and fall. Wishing for her knees to be bloodied, her dress ripped. Instead, she entered the apartment with a ruckus and immediately confessed to her father that she had taken all of those pretty flowers back to the senders and even thrown the last bunch at the nice Irish lady. Not once during that afternoon did she cry. It was only when her father collected her on his lap and rocked her gently, spoke kind words into her hairline, and told her that today there would be no consequences for her misbehavior, that her tears began.

But now, sitting across from her father, in this time and place so far away from her mother’s death, there is no escaping from the consequences. He will not be able to forgive her, to soothe her, to fix this.

Regardless, she continues to speak, to tell him everything. To explain how she fooled herself, gave herself, lost herself. How an act of delightful rebellion has left her stranded, irreversibly stuck in the unpleasant world of adulthood. She tells him that Lowell claimed he’d seen his own death and couldn’t bear the thought of his life ending before he’d loved her completely.

Her father clears his throat, as if to speak, but says nothing. Hensley continues, relaying the conversation she had with Harold. She confesses that she is not the first girl to be fooled by Mr. Lowell Teagan, that his mastery of acting is a fierce, practiced weapon used countless times against the human heart.

He blinks slowly. When he finally speaks, his voice is firm and distant. “If I understand, you have been taken advantage of, Hennie. This Mr. Teagan abused his position and your innocence in order to obtain a selfish desire.” He is silent, waiting for her to confirm his understanding. Hensley nods.

Her father continues. “Despicable. But in order to prevent this offense from creating yet another victim, perhaps we should consider that you return to New York. Surely, once he knows of your condition, this will elicit a proposal. This could be arranged quietly, easily.”

Hensley shudders. She imagines her life married to a man who is ever after another woman. A man who would stand erect in front of group after group of schoolgirls or actresses or war widows, begging each of them to abandon her principles, to inhabit another role completely. A man whose hands would never be clean, whose eyes were never to be trusted. “Daddy,” she begins, but she knows that all of her objections are petty compared with the injustice of depriving a child of legitimacy. “I know that you’re right. But isn’t there another way? Couldn’t we invent another man? Give me a husband who really did sign up?”

Her father stands, knocking some milk from the pitcher. “For God’s sake, Hensley! Be reasonable. This is not a game. I’m afraid life is not ours to invent. This is a very real situation, with real consequences that will not be helped by telling childish stories.”

Hensley is angered by his patronizing tone.

“I know it is not a game.
You
are not the one who has been nauseous and terrified and ashamed.
I
am, Daddy. I am the one who boarded that train foolishly, silently, heartbroken, who followed you here, to this forsaken place, because I have absolutely no other place to go.” Unable to speak any further, she retreats out the back door.

With shaking hands, she covers her mouth. The afternoon’s heat has settled solidly against the land. Stifling a scream, she stomps her feet, sending spasms of fury up through her legs. She does not want to be here, nor anywhere. She does not want this afternoon to be what it’s become. She hates her father for his calm acceptance, his staid reason, and hates herself for hating him.

Did she not entertain her father’s exact suggestion on the train coming to this lonely place? Did she not sit above the ever-moving wheels and imagine what it might take to forgive Lowell? To place their beginning into a hole deep within her and never look down into it again? Has she not imagined that being his wife would immediately reform him? Turn his opportunism into a failing she would be duty bound to overlook? Hasn’t she also wondered how she could possibly carry a child that was doomed to suffer an orphan’s life?

But, now, coming from her father’s mouth—so practical and concrete—the suggestion that she hope to become Mrs. Lowell Teagan suddenly seems contemptible.

With her brother’s telegram in hand, Hensley had cajoled Marie into joining her on one last errand before she left New York; they took the train uptown to the address she’d written on a piece of paper from her father’s desk.

It was a faded stone building near Columbia with an interior courtyard. The doors with brass handles were heavy but unlocked.

“I am giving him back this scarf that Sara Coe wore in Act Two. I’ll just be a minute. Do you mind waiting here?” Hensley asked, motioning to the blue velvet couches facing one another in the lobby’s alcove.

Marie furrowed her brow. “Which scarf? I don’t remember a scarf . . .”

Hensley smiled. “It’s in my bag. I’ll be right back,” she said, climbing the marble stairs.

When she reached his apartment, she pressed her ear against his door, straining to hear any private moments. She realized she knew almost nothing about his life or habits. She knocked.

Lowe stood in front of her, his hands in his pockets, and stared. She’d come with the notion that she could shame him, make him despise himself. But when he opened the door and stood before her with his black hair slicked away from his face with care and his posture ever-perfect, she knew her mission was impossible.

He leaned in close to her cheek and planted a kiss. “Hensley,” he said, his voice still deeply seductive, “whatever has brought you all the way up here? Alone?”

“I thought you might like to see me,” she said, stepping into the apartment. His feet were bare and the black hairs curled on the tops of his toes looked obscene. “Before you go, I mean.” His apartment was spare, with just a sofa and a wooden table.

“Of course. It’s just, I’ve been so busy. You understand. I was absolutely exhausted after the show. I think I slept an entire twenty-four hours.” He shrugged his shoulders. “And now I’ve got to get my affairs in order. Honestly”—his eyes pulled at her with some unspoken pain—“I thought it might be easier this way . . .”

Hensley smiled. “But you were going to tell me a proper good-bye. I was going to get that performance, once you worked it up?”

“There is no proper good-bye for the two of us, Hensley.” Here, he took her hand, gazing at her fingers as he kissed each one.

“I think there is, Mr. Teagan,” she said as she pulled her hand away. “The proper good-bye begins with a confession. A sliver of honesty that may feel like a dagger for each of us. Will you do me the honor?”

“What in heaven’s name are you talking about? Are you feverish?” He placed a hand on her forehead.

Hensley pulled away. “You haven’t signed up at all. You will be sitting here, drinking your coffee, cultivating new fans, the whole time I’m away. The whole time the others are dying, really and truly dying, before they’ve had the chance to love their girl the way they long to. You never had any intention to protect or defend anyone but yourself.”

Lowe closed the space between them in one large step. He was sweating across his top lip. His hands, too, were damp, as he held her face between them. Breathing heavily, he squeezed her cheeks hard. “If you’re finished with the dramatics, I would remind you that lies are the currency of human society. They are written in every newspaper and spoken on every corner.”

Hensley could not believe how easily and swiftly he moved from guilt to self-righteousness. There would be no apology. Hensley shuddered with remorse and shame and a new understanding. His hands still held her cheeks firmly and just as he was about to utter some other justification, the subtle beginning of the kettle’s whistle interrupted him. He let go of her face and moved across the room, his head held high.

She followed him. “You are a filthy coward,” she said, surprised by her own voice. “What could be worse than lying about your service in order to seduce me? It’s rotten and horrid. I hate you and your stupid rotten baby teeth.”

He smiled as he unscrewed the sugar tin. This gesture was as vile as anything he’d done. “Seduction,” he began, but Hensley couldn’t stand it. She picked up the hot kettle, still screaming, and dumped its contents on top of his bare feet. The water steamed, nearly hissed, as it hit the tender tops of his toes. Then she threw it back on the stove and ran out, his cursing and shrieking making her at once glad and terrified.

Downstairs she grabbed Marie’s hand and the two girls ran out onto the street together. Through their huffing and puffing, she told Marie that Mr. Teagan had suddenly tried to kiss her when she handed him the scarf, that he was crude and untrustworthy. Marie listened, quietly nodding. As they walked arm in arm past the huddles of pigeons, fluttering in the gutters, vying for scraps, Marie said only, “But it’s over?”

Hensley had nodded, certain that it was.

 • • • 

N
ow, she stands and watches two black birds crest and dive on the blue horizon. They could be bits of trash carried by a fickle current. As they recede from view, chasing some unknown desire, Hensley imagines that she can hear their wings, flapping, moving against the thin air, pushing away all of their options but the one that says,
Fly
.

Once again, she is reminded of the letter from Mr. Reid.
What scraps of her life will she send to him? What will be left of her if she returns to a life of humiliation—becoming Lowe’s wife, knowing that even from the very beginning, it was all false?

Will she send that piece of herself to Mr. Reid? Tell him to hold on, to stay alive, to fight for his sanity and dignity because if he does, if he survives, he can return home for—what? Just the ashes from a different fire, the remains of another kind of warfare?

C
harles drives the King George, full of casualties with injuries so serious they’ve not yet been fully addressed at the CCS, to the nearest train station where an ambulance train is to arrive, ready to transport the men to proper hospitals and eventually home, if they make it. Rogerson sits in the passenger seat, whistling a tune Charles doesn’t know. They’ve been together nearly four months, but it feels like forever.

The terrain between the CCS and the train station is flat and muddy from the previous evening’s rainstorm. As they drive, the mud splatters up and into the open windows, pocking their arms and cheeks.

“A year without cigarettes or booze?”

“We might be headed toward both if you don’t quit smoking mine, too.”

Rogerson inhales deeply and then passes the cigarette to Charles. “Sorry, Reid. I guess that’s my answer, then.”

Charles takes a long drag, so that only the butt is left. He tosses it out the window. “I’d give up both if we were driving along a little country road without any bloody bandages or drip bags. If we could have a decent bath and a clean set of sheets without lice mating inside the pillow. If we could walk beside her as she points out vegetation and wildlife on the way to the creek.”