Michael said, “Beatrice will watch him for me tonight.”
“Beatrice is a housekeeper, not your nanny. I can watch him until Levina arrives, Michael.”
“Touch wood, we shall get this all sorted out and I won’t be long, but Alexander would wear you out. You already look as tired as he is,” he said, rubbing his palm over the sleepy child’s blonde wisps of hair. “You spread yourself too thin, Poppy.”
“As did you. And, Michael, I am concerned about you, too. About your health.”
I paused a moment. I knew what grief was like. Hideous to experience and impossible to escape. I did not want to nag him about his drinking, but given the saturnine state of Michael’s world, the melancholia was spiraling into ever-decreasing concentric circles, and I could not allow him to get trapped like a rat in a maze. “You must be strong and healthy to look after your son,” I added.
“I know,” he mumbled. “It’s just sometimes... I miss her so, Poppy.”
“So do I.”
I looked out the window as we headed north toward Camden Town. I forced a smile. “Remember how happy we were not so long ago, Michael?”
“You mean when you had time to read Dickens and Eliot and Hardy and sail the Broads and still manage to study medicine? When Effie was about to open her millinery shop and planning our wedding?”
“Yes, all of that. I miss it.”
I looked out again as we passed the British Museum and headed toward Marylebone Road. “We’re almost home, Alexander,” I said, cuddling him. “Will you give Aunt Poppy a kiss?”
He smiled and said, “Rats!”
Michael and I laughed. “You see? Happier times shall come again, Poppy.”
I stared at him a moment and thought, Will they, Michael?
31
Michael immediately left for the Yard. I bathed and fed Alexander, then sat by his bed for a long time, watching him sleep. I could not stop thinking about the young poet I’d met at the museum. He seemed so certain of his faith, so confident that we would meet those we love again and again, that love would endure. I did not like to believe that losing a loved one meant losing a part of yourself forever. I knew that there was no way to inoculate oneself from the devastation of such a loss - unless you were Sherlock Holmes - but I did not like to think that Effie’s parents, Michael and I to be so consumed by memories and the pain they induced that we could find no joy in living. I pondered the illusion, the hallucination I’d seen in the restaurant when I’d lunched with Oscar... the translucent figure with golden hair. I recalled Rabi’s beautiful poem about unending love. If that were true, did that mean I would see Effie again? That she would see her son? And if I had that to hold on to, perhaps I could force the rawness of grief to subside. Perhaps I could let go if I found a very real reason to go on.
Pulled from my thoughts by the sound of Levina opening the front door, I ran to greet her, told her that Michael had been called into the hospital and that Alexander had been fed and bathed. Then, I hurried home.
It was almost dinner time when I got back to Uncle’s house. I wondered if Aunt Susan had returned with any good news. I called to Martha and Genabee and when neither answered, I assumed they were below in the kitchen, preparing the evening meal.
It appeared that Sappho and my dog were the only ones present to greet me, which they did - Sappho with her loud ‘meow’ and Little Elihu with his happy whine. After I petted them, I released Little Elihu from the little cubbyhole beneath the servant’s staircase, where he was kept when no one was about. We took a brief, brisk walk; then I gave him food and water and returned to the foyer. As I placed my cape on the coat stand, I lingered a moment and touched the stand tenderly. It was made of oak, in which Uncle’s initials O. R. S. - the R. stood for Remington, his mother’s maiden name - carved into it. The hooks were cattle horns from his grandfather’s farm in Herefordshire, and the rail had been fashioned from parts of an old haywain. Uncle rarely spoke of his father; he had no use for him. But he’d exhibited fond memories of time spent on his grandparents’ farm.
I went to Uncle’s library, poured myself a glass of red wine, and took from a shelf one of his books on Buddhism. I flipped through the pages. Many were earmarked and most had Uncle’s scribblings in the margins. In a section about love, the author talked about the Four Immeasurables known as the Brahma Viharas. It was like a prayer:
May all sentient beings have happiness and its causes,
May all sentient beings be free of suffering and its causes,
May all sentient beings never be separated from bliss without suffering,
May all sentient beings be in equanimity, free of bias, attachment and anger.
Below this were words allegedly imparted from the Buddha to his son. “Practice loving kindness to overcome anger,” he had said. “Loving kindness has the capacity to bring happiness to others without demanding anything in return. Practice compassion to overcome cruelty. Compassion has the capacity to remove the suffering of others without expecting anything in return. Practice sympathetic joy to overcome hatred. Sympathetic joy arises when one rejoices over the happiness of others and wishes others well-being and success. Practice non-attachment to overcome prejudice. Non-attachment is the way of looking at all things openly and equally. This is because that is. Myself and others are not separate. Do not reject one thing only to chase after another.”
I realized that I had much to learn about love. I
