Page 120 of The Dravenhearst Brides
“You’re like us now,” Eleanor cooed, petting Margot’s hair. “We’re the same, you and me.”
Babette snorted in displeasure.
“I only ever wanted you girls,bothof you,” Eleanor continued, reaching out to grip Babette, the same as Margot, “to understand.”
Oh, Margot understood. She didn’t even blame Eleanor, especially not now they shared the same pain. The same loss.
No, Margot only blamed herself.
A wounded whimper escaped her, that of a kicked dog.
“Oh, dearie,” Eleanor murmured, rubbing her back. “It’ll be okay, you’ll see. It’s still the best thing you’ve ever done.” Wet splotches appeared on the veil where her eyes should be. Tears, thick ones, streamed down her face.
Margot’s lids drifted shut. She didn’t want to talk. “What is?”
“Becoming a mother.”
Margot stayed in bed for a week. Sleeping was so much easier than being awake; being with the dead was easier than the living. Merrick was aching, needing things from her…things she couldn’t give to him, things he couldn’t give to her in return.
Her husband visited dutifully every morning and every evening. He was distant and businesslike every time. Asked how she was sleeping, if her pain was getting better.
Which pain?
She didn’t say that. He might understand, but he certainly didn’t want to hear it. He could barely shoulder his own; she couldn’t possibly ask him to carry her load too.
It became their own choreographed waltz. They skated across the surface, determined not to crack the ice.
Yes, I’m sleeping well.
Yes, the pain is improving.
Yes, I’m okay.
No, I don’t need anything.
Exit.
Return.
Repeat.
Everything they didn’t say hung so heavily in the air, it choked them both. But Margot clung to the steps of the dance nonetheless. She tiptoed around him, because to look into Merrick’s eyes, to see his pain…it would be like surrendering herself to the undertow. She was just barely afloat. One single look, and he would drown her.
Her buoy in the storm was her bottle of laudanum. She clung foolishly to it instead of her husband, his distance a growing thorn in her side. An anchor tied to her feet. She wanted Merrick desperately, wanted him to crawl into the bed and justbewith her.
And yet, she couldn’t get rid of him fast enough when he arrived.
She didn’t know how to ask for what she needed. She simply wanted him to know how to give it to her. He’d always known before, and it was the loss of her husband, more so than the baby, that hit like a freight train.
She was tied to the railroad tracks, being run over again and again. Every time the door closed behind him. Every night when he failed to come into bed with her.
Margot cried quietly into her pillow every evening, not wanting him to hear through the bedroom wall. She tossed and turned all night, imagining him doing the same ten feet away. She was a prisoner to her grief, and he to his.
41
November 27, 1933
My dearest Margaret,
