Specimen Days. Michael Cunningham
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you are, then. That’s what you make.”
“I see,” he said. He didn’t see, but it seemed better to let the subject pass. It seemed better to be someone who knew what a housing was.
Catherine looked at him tenderly. Would she kiss him again?
She said, “I want to give you something.”
He trembled. He kept his jaws clamped shut. He would not speak, not as the book or as himself.
She unfastened the collar of her dress and reached inside. She drew out the locket. She pulled its chain up over her head, held locket and chain in her palm.
She said, “I want you to wear this.”
“I can’t,” he said.
“It has a lock of your brother’s hair inside.”
“I know. I know that.”
“Do you know,” she said, “that Simon wore its twin, with my picture inside?”
“Yes.”
“I was not allowed to see him,” she said.
“None of us was.”
“But the undertaker told me the locket was with him still. He said Simon wore it in his casket.”
Simon had Catherine with him, then. He had something of Catherine in the box across the river. Did that make her an honorary member of the dead?
Catherine said, “I’ll feel better if you wear it when you go to the works.”
“It’s yours,” he said.
“Call it ours. Yours and mine. Will you do it, to please me?”
He couldn’t protest, then. How could he refuse to do anything that would please her?
He said, “If you like.”
She put the chain over his head. The locket hung on his chest, a little golden orb. She had worn it next to her skin.
“Good night,” she said. “Have your supper and go straight to bed.”
“Good night.”
She kissed him then, not on his lips but on his cheek. She turned away, put her key in the lock. He felt the kiss still on his skin after she’d withdrawn.
“Good night,” he said. “Good night, good night.”
“Go,” she commanded him. “Do what you must for your mother and father, and rest.”
He said, “I ascend from the moon … I ascend from the night.”
She glanced at him from her doorway. She had been someone who laughed easily, who was always the first to dance. She looked at him now with such sorrow. Had he disappointed her? Had he deepened her sadness? He stood helplessly, pinned by her gaze. She turned and went inside.
At home, he fixed what supper he could for himself and his father. There were bits, still, from what had been brought for after the burial. A scrap of fatty ham, a jelly, the last of the bread. He laid it before his father, who blinked, said, “Thank you,” and ate. Between mouthfuls, he breathed from the machine.
Lucas’s mother was still in bed. How would they manage about food if she didn’t rise soon?
As his father ate and breathed, Lucas went to his parents’ bedroom. Softly, uncertainly, he pushed open the door. The bedroom was dark, full of its varnish and wool. Over the bed the crucifix hung, black in the sable air.
He said, “Mother?”
He heard the bedclothes stirring. He heard the whisper of her breath.
She said, “Who’s there?”
“It’s only me,” he answered. “Only Lucas.”
“Lucas. M’love.”
His heart shivered. It seemed for a moment that he could abide with his mother in the sweet, warm darkness. He could stay here with her and tell her the book.
“Did I wake you?” he asked.
“I’m ever awake. Come.”
He sat on the edge of the mattress. He could see the sprawl of her hair on the pillow. He could see her nose and chin, the dark places where her eyes were. He touched her face. It was hot and powdery, dry as chalk.
“Are you thirsty, are you hungry?” he asked. “Can I bring you something?”
She said, “What’s happened to ye? How have they darkened ye so?”
“I’ve been to work, Mother. It’s only dust.”
“Where’s Lucas, then?”
“I’m here, Mother.”
“Of course you are. I’m not quite right, am I?”
“Let me bring you some water.”
“The hens need looking after. Have ye seen to the hens?”
“The hens, Mother?”
“Yes, child. It’s gone late, hasn’t it? I think it’s very late indeed.”
“We haven’t any hens.”
“We haven’t?”
“No.”
“Forgive me. We did have hens.”
“Don’t worry, Mother.”
“Oh, it’s fine to say don’t worry, with the hens gone and the potatoes, too.”
Lucas stroked her hair. He said, “Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from.”
“That’s right, m’dear.”
Lucas sat quietly with her, stroking her hair. She had been nervous and quick, prone to argument, easily angered and slow to laugh. (Only Simon could make her laugh.) She’d been vanishing gradually for a year or longer, always more eager to be done with her work and off to bed, but still herself, still dutiful and fitfully affectionate, still alert to slights and hidden insults. Now that Simon was dead she’d turned into this, a face on a pillow, asking after hens.
He said, “Should I bring you the music box?”
“That’d be nice.”
He went to the parlor and returned with the box. He held it up for her to see.
“Ah, yes,” she said. Did she know that the box had ruined them? She never spoke of it. She seemed to love the music box as dearly as she would have if it had caused no damage at all.
Lucas turned the crank. Within the confines of the box, the brass spool revolved under the tiny hammers. It played “Forget Not the Field” in its little way, bright metallic notes that spangled in the close air of the bedroom. Lucas sang along with the tune.
Forget not the field where they perish’d,
The truest, the last of the brave,
All gone—and the bright hope we cherish’d
Gone with them, and quench’d in their grave.
His mother put a hand over his. “That’s enough,” she said.
“It’s only the first verse.”
“It’s enough, Lucas. Take it away.”
He did as she asked. He returned the music box to its place on the parlor table, where it continued playing “Forget Not the Field.” Once wound, it would not stop except by its own accord.
His father had moved from his place at the table to his chair by the window. He nodded gravely, as if agreeing with something the music said.
“Do