As she dressed, sorting through her closet, drying her hair before the courageous little heater, braiding the long plaits and pinning them up into a crown, her heart fluttered like a bird caught at a window, yearning at a freedom it could see beyond the glass. It was something between them, she and Ted, something inextinguishable—it was blood and more, not so simple as love—through the children (coming awake now, needing their own baths, needing breakfast and entertainment), through the intuitive, alchemical blending of their imaginations, of their lives. It’s what has burned her down, burned through her, alembic to her heart.

What she does not know is how to say it. What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent. How to say that whatever had combined them, really married them, had revealed her to herself. That the manuscript on her desk shows her progress in solving her problem—the problem of herself, a lifetime’s work. That there must be something left for them, for each of them, that only the two of them could learn. We two alone will sing like birds i’ th’ cage: / When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down / And ask of thee forgiveness. That there is honey still, insulated and deep.

She knows she’s grown thin, and she’s shaky; not feeling heedless anymore, but admittedly vulnerable and resolved. Maybe that means brave. She pulls out blocks and children’s books while the oatmeal burps on the stove, scribbles a list of emergency numbers for Millie. She was never good at being patient, at moving with grace through the seasons, at waiting. But she’s going to try, to have patience for the cycling back. She’s got her honey to get her through: this manuscript finished, The Bell Jar coming out in two weeks, the BBC still holding fire, news of a nursery school only a couple of blocks away.

Was it honey’s immoderate sweetness, coming at such a bitter time, that made it so precious? Of the six jars that were her legacy, one she’d already used; Ted, if he’s remembered it, should have one in his custody this minute at Montagu Square. The last four are in the wine cellar: the tangible promise of her return to springtime. Four more jars—four months left until she plans to go home. A jar for each of them: herself, Ted, Frieda, Nicholas. Her honey is waiting for her, for all of them, at Court Green. Her hive would make it through winter’s dumb chill, enough honey to last until spring, hoarded, secreted away. A hope she can cling to, shimmering in the dark of the cellar.