The House of Hawthorne by Robuck Erika

Author:Robuck, Erika [Robuck, Erika]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-04-07T07:00:00+00:00

I have become feral and inaccessible since the accident that took our unborn child.

I slink around Nathaniel’s study like our cat, aimless, distracting, unable to settle down to work or conversation. It was my fault. If I had never indulged in silly impulses—if I had not put our baby in harm’s way—this never would have happened. Nathaniel grieves, but not as I do. He never felt the ripening, the quickening from the inside. The witness of an event has no access to the true emotion of the one who lives it, though he thinks himself capable of imagining all feeling. He scribbles in our common journal now, giving voice to our sufferings in a way he cannot compel his throat to do.

I am curled up in his study at the window, leaning my head on the frigid glass, twirling my ring on my cold, shrunken finger. Tears slide from my eyes as I silently accuse and question the river.

How could you, after all I have done for you? My blessings and benedictions. My defense of you against my husband. Is this your revenge? Or is this the consequence of the witch’s condemnation? Nathaniel’s ancestor, the Salem judge who ordered the women hanged, was cursed by one of the accused before her death. Are we suffering from her dark magic?

I shake the ridiculous thoughts from my head, and glance at my husband. He sits not three feet away, but it might as well be an ocean. Why does he not touch me? Why does he still work when he sees my pain? To lose my husband to writing after losing the baby to the icy river compounds my anguish. Day and night, I rise from our bed to wander the house, and the only thing I may count on is finding him bent over the desk he has installed in the corner, facing away from the window, scribbling in his notebooks, oblivious to any human or specter who wishes to haunt him.

He is not the only writer. I will put down my own words.

In a savage motion I use my diamond ring to scrape the window that looks over the Concord, but my hand does not obey my mood. As if mesmerized by a spirit outside of myself, I write:

Man’s accidents are God’s purposes.

Sophia A. Hawthorne, 1843

Nathaniel is at my side now. When I finish, he takes my hands and wraps them around his neck, and leans into me in the embrace I have been longing for. Tears fall and I feel his wordless sympathy, his frustration over his inadequacy and inability to change the situation. With what must be great effort he speaks. “He or she will come back to us.”

I am confused. Does he mean when we dwell in heaven? He sees the wrinkle in my brow and continues.

“Our child meant for us will come back. I am convinced we did not lose this babe. He or she is just . . . postponed. I do not know how I know it, but I do.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.