This Is How I'd Love You Read online

  “What do you believe in, then?”

  “Bullets, heaven, and pretty girls,” Rogerson says, offering Charles the last drag of his cigarette.

  Charles smiles, letting the smoke linger at the back of his throat. Exhaling finally in one long breath, he says, “Get to Rome and tell it to the pope. A finer edict has never been spoken.” Laughing, they unload the first stretcher from the back of the King George.

  For a reason he cannot explain, Charles once again thinks of the girl. He will not say it aloud, he can barely articulate the thought, but in this moment he has stumbled upon the idea that perhaps her few simple sentences have cracked the code. Perhaps everything he’s done, everything he’s doing, has all been meant only to lead him to Miss H. Dench.

  Today as she looks up the hill, Hensley is still thinking about Mr. Reid’s latest letter to her father. There is something different about this one. It strikes a tone of intimacy and wonder that Hennie does not recognize. It is written in fading pencil, the gray words looking more and more ephemeral as the letter progresses.

  My next move is my king’s knight to KB3. I’ve spent parts of entire days imagining which vowels and consonants might govern the plans for the pieces with which you entice me. How strange that I can almost hear one of your gentle pawn’s voice in my head, unsure of everything but its pale coloring. Your words, however, have created a self that has kept me occupied through the days and nights that masquerade here as dark, endless caves full of horrors. An English regiment took cover in the cellar of an abandoned farmhouse nearby and Rogerson and I had to meet them there to retrieve their injured, whom they’d already carried an unfathomable distance. As I stood there in the dim room, English soldiers all around me, clamoring for cigarettes and canteens, I found myself worrying about this pawn—faceless and nameless, but familiar all the same—hoping it will never recede into any past that might be left behind. How foolish of me, you may think. Get ahold of yourself, it’s just a chess game, man. But since your last letter, this gentle figure is a creature that lives in my mind, though I am sometimes sure I will die before I can see the endgame.

  By the way, how is your new address? When I read that you were relocating such a great distance I was concerned. I hope everything is well with you and your family. I remember reading about the indigenous owls of New Mexico. Have you seen any? I’ve always admired the daring and wisdom of those birds, their round, echoing hoots making even the darkest night less lonely.

  In thanks,

  Charles Reid

  By the end, the lead had become so dull that his signature is hardly more than a thick looping smudge. Even so, Hennie moves her index finger across the page, mimicking his script, slowing especially over his name, until she can trace his signature perfectly. Inhabiting his body, exiting her own, she crouches down under the table, imagining the cramped feel of the cellar, the roughness of chapped lips, the stale smell of urine on her clothes, the sound of artillery just outside.

  She also knows exactly how she will respond, for it is clear the letter is meant for her. He has found her notes in the margin and he is intrigued. More than a chess game, he longs for her words. My dear Mr. Reid, My father and I are political exiles here in southern New Mexico, masquerading as a mine superintendent and his adventurous daughter. I’m not sure which of us is better disguised, for he knows next to nothing about mines, and I am hardly adventurous. You see, I am a girl of just seventeen, recently admitted to Wellesley College, fond of textiles, not fortresses. I’m sure your hopes will be dashed when you hear just how perfectly dull your imagination’s occupant actually is, but I will make a heroic effort to give you words worth the postage. Alas, our correspondence has only begun and already I must chastise you. Please, do not invoke your death. It is not a matter to be tossed around cavalierly. Some might even say it could be used to manipulate a person’s emotions. Let’s agree to exist for each other forever. You are alive here on the page, here with me in our borrowed adobe house in the middle of nowhere. I will keep your pages, your words, as evidence of your vitality. Our existence can reach as far into the future as can be imagined. Look at that, we’ve created our own immortality. Regardless, there are lots and lots of stars out here in the desert and your safety will always be one of the things I wish for when I see one make its lucky streak across the black sky.

  She is still under the table, composing her reply, when Berto comes in the front door, whistling twice, and slides a box onto the tabletop. She knows it will be filled with the items her father has chosen from the grocery: tins of smoked fish, a jug of milk, cider, fresh beans, a wedge of soft cheese, and ham bones.

  She looks at Berto’s boots, the black leather old and broken around the toes. To Hensley they look just like the pair she imagines on Mr. Reid. She wiggles her own toes, but they are unfettered; she is barefoot. This, even more than Berto’s presence, brings Hensley back to her present.

  “Boots,” she says, even as she reaches her hand out and places it on one, in greeting.

  It is a manly boot, but there is something overgrown about it, something clumsy. Without thinking, Hensley pushes her thumb into the toe and the leather gives way easily. There are no toes in the way; no manly foot resides in these manly boots.

  Berto pulls his foot away from her reach. “I could ask what you are doing under the table, or why you are groping my boot, but I’m just going to ignore you.”

  Hensley crawls out from under the table. “Wait, Berto.” The smell of the cheese wafts up from the box and makes her stomach lurch. She bends over, grasping the table for support. Pushing the box away from her face, Hensley stands up straight.

  With her face ashen and her bare feet clutching the wood floor, she says, “Listen, Berto. I’m not like these people. I’m from New York. Manhattan. There are people of all kinds there. Just tell me. I won’t be shocked. And I can keep a secret. But I can’t pretend I don’t know.”

  Berto stands there, his cap nearly hiding his eyes, and smiles. “When you feel inclined to share your own secrets, then I will take your open-mindedness more seriously.” His eyes hold hers, even as she swallows hard, the nausea climbing into her throat.

  Hensley runs to the open window and throws up the oatmeal she managed to eat just an hour ago. She spits the leftover sour taste out of her mouth and watches as an eager fly lands on the small puddle in the dirt. Wiping at her eyes with her sleeve, she wishes Berto would just go. She cannot bear to turn and face him.

  Hensley closes the window and dries her sweaty palms on her skirt. The back of her throat is tight and she yearns for a sip of water. “Berto,” she begins, but the sound of her own voice is punctuated by the bang of the screen door.

  He is gone. She stands there, and her bare toes on the dusty wood seem at once bold and timid. She sighs and pours herself a cup of water.

  Dear Mr. Reid,

  The words form all on their own as she watches more and more flies gather and fuss over her pile of vomit.

  Things you should know to better imagine me:

  1. I am pregnant.

  The words, imagined in black ink on her own stationery, are suddenly all she can see. As if alive, they twist and curl, stretching into every corner of the room, under the table, across the floor, around the candlesticks. Like hungry predators chasing the scent of their prey, the words surround her, threatening to obliterate her entirely.

  Hensley closes her eyes.

  2. Also, I am losing my mind.

  Her stomach seizes again, threatening. She gathers her skirts in her hand and pulls the cloth to her mouth. Biting hard on the cotton and pushing her tongue into the bundle, she wills away the nausea. Finally, she opens her eyes and the words are gone, vanished. There is no longer any confessional wrapping the kitchen in black. She sighs again. Letting her skirt fall from her mouth, she busies herself with readying her father’s lunch.

  At first she blamed it on her cha
nged diet. The small clutch of blackberries she’d picked from beside the arroyo. A bad tin of fish or an old egg. But the fear has been like a small black spot hovering in her peripheral vision all along. Now, nearly three months have passed since opening night and as noon approaches and the sun blazes, Hensley cannot deny it. Today marks the day it becomes true. The day her past transgression can no longer be ignored.

  She tries to distract herself by adding to her reply to Mr. Reid’s letter, but she can think of nothing more to tell him about herself that matters—everything significant is also unspeakable. It is as though her secret is burning her, charring her from the inside out, until she will soon be just ash. The black wispy remains of a fire that convey only its previous heat.

  She toys with the idea of simply creating a second, better self: one who is picnicking in Central Park, taking boat rides in the reservoir, seeing theater, musical reviews, and art exhibitions; whose clothes are a reflection of the highest style, whose hair is coiffed each evening as the noise of Broadway throws its joys and sorrows up to her; who does not feel a sickness when she awakens and remembers that there is only one street in town; whose evenings are not filled with the noise of miners and misfits spilling out of the saloon onto that one dusty street, riding each other’s backs like schoolboys, crooning songs that betray their own yearning for more perfect lives.

  But writing false letters offers comfort to no one.

  Hensley crouches, jamming the back of her heel into the space between her legs. Instead of a letter to Mr. Reid, she begins addressing the baby.

  Dear Unfortunate,

  You have taken up residence in the wrong place. There will be no happy announcement of your birth, no fireside toasts, no sterling spoons. Most likely, in fact, you will be taken from me at the very moment I’ve decided to love you most. They will hold you close, those anonymous, well-meaning arms, but then they will give you to a dreary place full of unwanted creatures who rely on strangers for food, clothing, and comfort.

  She stops. Her knees throb and her head hurts. She stands up, certain of only one thing: she must tell her father. There is nobody else. There is no turning back. This is her life. It has left the realm of her own imagination and become something quite foreign and unfamiliar.

  The cats surrender to the heat, jumping down from their perches into the shade of the moving crates. Isaac meows at Hensley, soliciting affection. Hensley grabs at his tail, letting it slide through her hand. She opens her palm and watches his white hairs fall to the ground in slow motion. He rubs against her in thanks, then stretches out on the bricks, happy in his solitude. Newton begins fastidiously cleaning himself, his little gray head bobbing with purpose.

  Hensley imagines her father’s face—its piercing blue eyes and down-turned mouth. Whether or not he can ever forgive her or look at her again without feeling ashamed, she suddenly doesn’t care. She only wants company in this black hole in which she is living.

  Hensley looks again to the top of the hill. The horizon is empty and there is not a soul in sight. She lets the quiet settle into her. The sky’s blue seems to have been bleached by the sun into a joyless pastel, its deepest color but a memory of its own exuberant past.

  • • •

  Mr. Teagan is genius. That these words ever exited her mouth now seems nearly as incomprehensible as her present circumstances. That she spoke them to her brother is downright astonishing. She had simply hoped they would induce Harry to attend the show, but their effect was the opposite.

  “Mr. Lowell Teagan?” Her brother put his hands to his head. “Please tell me you haven’t fallen under his spell, Hen.” He smiled a maddening, patronizing grin. “Of course you haven’t. He is so transparent, we took to calling him Glass at Columbia.” He turned his eyes to Hensley’s and made his eyelids go soft, batting his eyelashes slowly. In a falsely deep voice, he mocked, “‘It is my lady, O, it is my love! / O, that she knew she were!’”

  Unable to stop herself, Hensley laughed at the imitation. She threw his own handkerchief back at his pining face. “Stop it. Just because you’re a brute. And a terrible actor.”

  Harold smiled, but then his face went dark. “Hennie. Really. He’s a cad and not to be trusted. You could line the block with all the broken hearts he’s collected.”

  She wanted to correct him then, to tell him that he’d got it wrong. That Lowell did, in fact, love her. That he’d told her he’d never, ever felt this way about anyone. But she could not speak. The doubts that she’d been swatting away like flies at a picnic were suddenly swarming her. Her stomach felt hollowed out and she forced herself to take a breath. The kitchen floor, littered with boxes of silver and plates wrapped in newspaper, seemed to dip beneath her feet. Her vision narrowed. She stared at her brother’s shoes, shiny and black.

  “What is it, Hen? Tell me it’s not what I think.” She looked up at his face. His eyes were full of judgment and disbelief. She hated him. She hated all of them. Everyone. Their greedy hands and empty words. Their votes and their guns and their stiff uniforms. Their narrow hips thrusting, thrusting, declaring absolutely nothing.

  “He’s shipping off in four weeks anyway. He’ll probably die and then you’ll be happy. I have things to do, Harold. If you’re not here to help, then please let me be.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Hen, I hope you haven’t been too foolish. Don’t believe a word he says.”

  “Just go, Harold. Go do your duty and let me do mine.”

  He held her elbows briefly with sweaty palms and his breath warmed her hairline. He had cried when their mother died, when her absence left their apartment a dim, quiet set of rooms. Hensley guessed it was the last time he’d shed any tears. She let him kiss her forehead in a gesture of dominion and pity and leave their apartment for the last time.

  She shoved the tip of a butter knife into the palm of her hand. It was too dull to draw blood, but it left a blue dent that throbbed and ached and justified her tears.

  When the telegram arrived from her brother the next day—the very same day of their departure—it said simply, No record of enlistment by Mr. Lowell Teagan. Hensley told her father it was simply a note of farewell.

  • • •

  When her father comes in for lunch, Hensley is ready. She has put shoes on, combed her hair, and powdered her nose. This is the day. The one that will change her life. Or at least the one in which she will no longer be alone with the truth of her life. Of what it’s become. Of what it’s going to become.

  But he is distracted. There are personnel issues at the mine: unhappy men who dislike having a New York newspaperman in charge. Coincidentally—according to her father—less gold has been brought up in the past month than in any of the previous eleven months of production, which makes their animosity toward him seem justified. He does not mind being disliked for his opinions or tastes, or poor production, but this general disdain rankles him. In New York, he was the agitator, the advocate. He wrote articles about abuse, discrimination, corruption; exposed the dehumanizing conditions of sweatshops and tenements; walked with suffragists, sandhogs, and steelworkers.

  Here, he is simply the boss.

  Hensley watches him spread the soft cheese across a cracker. “Daddy,” she says, toying with the cuff of her blouse.

  “I suppose I’d feel the same way. Is that what you’re going to say? Probably right, Hennie.” He bites the cracker. She watches the crumbs tumble into his beard, a few scatter across his dark vest. “Did you get the post?”

  “Not yet,” she lies, knowing that this distraction will undermine her resolve.

  “I suppose I should join them in the shaft. Take down the barrier between us. Get my hands dirty.”

  She tries to smile. Taking a raspberry in between her thumb and forefinger, its color deep and violent, she says, “Daddy, something happened in New York.”

  “Ah, news? Good. Distract me from my worries. Was there a
telegram?” He looks up from his plate, his eyes meeting hers. She blinks. “Is it Harold?”

  She replaces the raspberry on her plate. “No, it’s not Harold. Before we left, something happened.”

  He blinks, waiting.

  Hensley cannot hold his gaze. She looks at her cuff again, twirls the little pearl button.

  “The director of the play, Mr. Lowell Teagan.”

  “Of course. He was to ship off not long after we left, didn’t you say?”

  Hensley nods but does not answer. The button is held by thin cotton thread. She put it there herself before any of this, pulling the needle through, believing that the pretty little embellishment would be admired by some charming gentleman. Believing that her own love story—like a brilliant dress pattern—was just waiting to be cut. Believing that somehow life would become simpler when she could craft her own choices.

  “Has something happened? Have you got bad news, Hennie?” He has taken off his glasses, set them among the crumbs on the table.

  She nods. “Yes.”

  One hand covers his mouth. The other reaches for her. She lets him hold her hot, damp hand, squeezing it so tight it hurts.

  “What is it? Killed?”

  She shakes her head. His hand relaxes slightly and she wishes it hadn’t.

  “Injured?”

  Hensley shakes her head. But she cannot speak.

  “Well, what is it, then? You are upset. Look, you haven’t eaten a bite of your lunch.”

  Hensley closes her eyes and sees the black letters of her own handwriting spinning about her, clinging to her white skirt, the ink pooling into a stain in her lap. A sudden dark spot as though she’s been shot and this is the blood seeping through. If she could be in a trench beside Mr. Reid, the plump rats so close, bullets and shells exploding overhead, she would.