The child was puny but had good lungs for wailing and a strong desire to suck. Fanny was in every way his opposite, so reduced and worn out her recovery would be almost a resurrection. She held her child, said loving words, tried to suckle him, but every vain attempt ended in a coughing fit. It was no use at all. I wondered how there could possibly be milk in her breasts, but found myself praying there would be; even a few drops would be a sign that her body could sustain and provide—that she might regain her strength. Skeys wasn’t in his right mind. I tried to console him, but he was so sure of Fanny’s imminent demise, he wouldn’t listen when I suggested a wet nurse. It would be as if we were giving up on her, he said.

Wednesday night. Friday morning. Monday noon. Pounding rain and a dead stillness in the house. Time meant nothing anymore, the days all being one. Fanny continued exceedingly ill, without the strength even to lift a spoon. I tried to feed her myself, but she couldn’t hold her head up, could barely muster words to speak. I began to think it was almost wrong of me to hang on to her, but if I gave up it would be as good as signing her death warrant. When she finally had a comfortable night, her symptoms seemed a bit better in the morning. There was something almost sanguine in her mood.

She consented, at last, to bringing in a wet nurse, and Skeys at once sent for one, but Fanny’s little boy contracted a sudden fever that night and died in my arms. Skeys didn’t want to tell Fanny. He wanted to say that the child had been sent to a wet nurse and was doing well, in hopes the subterfuge would be enough to revive her.

“He’s gone, isn’t he, Mary, my little boy?”

I took her hand in mine, as she so often did for me. “Yes, darling Fanny. But I held him to the last.”

“Do you think he could have known that I loved him?”

“I think all the world, and everything you’ve ever touched knows your love, Fanny. You shine with it, and all of us feel its rays.”

“I’m so very tired,” she said. “I think perhaps I’ll go and live with my little boy, wherever he is.”

“Must you, Fanny?”

“Will you forgive me if I do?”

“Forgive you?” I pressed my lips to her palm; even its lines seemed to be fading, as if she was being erased before my eyes. I studied both sides of her hand, trying to commit her to memory. The carnelian ring was the only color about her, burning, as it always did, like a warm fire. With tremulous fingers she slipped the ring off and pressed it into my palm, closed my fingers around it.