“Nay, girl,” came her other voice from out the mirror. “You will have to bury him at sea.”

“Is he dying, then?”

“The ship leaves. Go now.”

“Is he dying, then?”

“Go.”

“Mother! Is he dying?”

“Go.”

Mother kissed the glass again and again, her eyes frantic, her hands grabbing the oval frame. “Mother!” she cried, sobbing out against the picture she saw cast into the glass. “Mother!”

I turned and ran.

4 January

I entered the woods as usual to collect kindling. The day rose drear, what light there was tentative below the insistence of a cloud-heavy sky. From the east, the soft tips of morning stretched across the whitened horizon as though groping their way in the dark, an old woman shuffling down a passageway. The tops of white pines swayed in the low wind gravely as church elders—I felt a sudden pang of fear in me, made vaguely uneasy by such chill silence—and the wind played tricks, shifting so as to erase what we would ordinarily hear—ice fishermen on the harbor, or a gull’s cry. It is the waiting for a dread to occur that most provokes me—I can run straight into the arms of terror if I see it, but beforehand, the chill premonition weaving its lithe fingers in my hair strikes me impotent and restless.

5 January

It is well Mother is so ill, else my mind would turn and stare down the long tracks to Brooklyn, where he sits—silent.

6 January

Last night, she called for me once more, and this time I did not go gladly, but, heavy-limbed, I dragged from off the bed to wander down that lonely passage to her room. But she wore an entirely different aspect then, and she had stirred up the fire, so the room was snug and cozy. She smiled at me as I came in, and that unexpected sight arrested me on the threshold.

“Come in, Nell. Why do you stop?” Her voice was clear.

I crossed into the room and drew up the chair by her bedside. “How do you tonight, Mother?”

She turned her head on the pillows, so the light of the fire fell full across her face. “I am lonely, Nell.”

I did not know what to reply.

“Read to me a little.”

“What shall I read?”

“What you will.” I cast about for the stack of books Ludlow had left behind, and seeing them on the chaise lounge by the fire, I quick chose the top one and sat back down with it, opening it in the middle—an old habit.

Lord Tennyson’s poem lay there. I began to read, and Mother gave a tiny nod in approval. I read on, my voice a basket into which I gathered all this fineness. For a long while, I read, not quite lost as usual in the words, but not fully attentive to my ailing mother, either. After a bit, I looked up from reading by her bedside, to find her eyes on me—a look that sought me as if a shore. She smiled when I met her gaze, and I smiled back gently, not wishing to loose this hold. But she closed her eyes.