For Love of Audrey Rose

by Frank De Felitta

  “I don’t feel too well,” Bill said softly. “I think it’s the fever.”

  “You look a bit flushed. Maybe we should get you back in bed.”

  Together they walked out of the library, down to Bill’s room, which had been made up in their absence, and Bill undressed and slipped under the covers, clutching his book. Janice knew by the warmth of his forehead that he was running a high fever again. His cheeks were flushed.

  Bill took her hand and kissed it.

  “Was I sharp with you?” he asked softly. “I didn’t mean to be.”

  “No. No, Bill, you weren’t. But I think you’d better close your eyes now. You don’t look at all well.”

  “Kiss me, Janice.”

  She kissed him on his closed eyes. As she left, she saw him wave weakly to her. She knew that as soon as she closed the door behind her, he would start reading again.

  She found Dr. Geddes sipping coffee in the clinic dining hall. He looked up from a journal, sensing her footsteps. Immediately, he pulled aside a second red metal chair for her. As she sat down, his smile faded.

  “Dr. Geddes,” Janice said, “are you aware that Bill has developed a fixation about certain subjects?”

  “No. Frankly, I was not aware. What kind of subjects?”

  “Well, at first it was the poetry you had him read. Keats. It was innocuous enough. Then he passed on to Eastern verses—”

  “What Eastern verses?”

  Janice blushed.

  “I brought him a stack of books, as you suggested. About consolation and endurance. One of them was a collection from the Bhagavad Gita.”

  Dr. Geddes frowned, slid his journal away from his coffee mug, and lit a cigarette.

  “The Bhagavad Gita,” Dr. Geddes said. “That’s the sacred writings of the Hindus. What’s wrong with that?”

  “He keeps rereading it.”

  “He’s probably read Keats again, too. It’s just what any man would do who’s coming out of an experience like Bill’s.”

  “Then I’m not getting through to you,” she protested. “He’s not only memorized half of it, he told me to bring him some more.”

  “On Hinduism?”

  “A sect called the Jains.”

  Dr. Geddes shrugged, then scratched his head.

  “I frankly don’t know what to make of it,” he admitted, “only it doesn’t seem like something to worry about.”

  “How can you say that?” Janice spluttered. “Bill never cared for that sort of thing. in fact, it made him sick!”

  “I’ll tell you quite frankly what I think,” Dr. Geddes said thoughtfully, “but you’ll have to calm down first.”

  “All right,” Janice conceded. “I’m sorry if I—”

  “The reason that Bill broke down and you didn’t,” Dr. Geddes said, “was that you had support. Whether you really believed in these religious ideas—”

  “I don’t know what I believed. I was too confused.”

  “Please let me finish. During the trial, and in the hospital, you gave at least partial credence to a viewpoint that allowed you to accept what in fact finally happened. Do you follow? And after, as you explained to me, you attended several services—Buddhist or whatever—which amplified that support. Bill had nothing. He just cracked open like an eggshell and fell to pieces. Now he wants some support, too.”

  “So that’s why he’s reading all this?”

  “I’ll bet my state license on it. You were helped over a rough spell. Now he wants the same help. It worked with you. Why shouldn’t it work with Bill?”

  Janice stared out of the cafeteria window.

  “There’s a second reason why you shouldn’t worry,” Dr. Geddes continued. “Bill needs to develop his thinking muscles. His memory. Actually, I’m very glad to see him develop an outside interest.”

  Janice said nothing.

  “If Bill seems a little edgy on the subject,” he said, “it’s because he’s trying so desperately hard to organize his thinking. You see what I mean? His mind is still fragile.”

  “Maybe I jumped the gun,” she said. “I’m probably the edgy one.”

  Dr. Geddes laughed, but added seriously, “I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.”

  She smiled, embarrassed, all defenses melted away.

  Wearily, Janice took the long train back, once again, to New York. She could hardly keep awake. The trips to the clinic were draining her, and she was frightened to realize just how much.

  5

  At 9:30 the following night, Bill telephoned.

  “Hello, darling,” he said brightly.

  “Bill?” Janice questioned worriedly. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “A bit better. They’ve given me some antibiotics, so I’m still woozy from it. How are you?”

  “Dragging. It’s so miserable being here alone. The weather is creepy. As long as you asked.”

  Bill laughed pleasantly. “New York has a patent on gloom sometimes, doesn’t it? Listen, I have a small favor to ask of you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Could you get some more books for me?”

  Janice paused. For a while she wanted not even to answer.

  “The same kind of books?” she finally asked.

  “Well, not exactly,” Bill conceded. “Let me explain. The Jains do not believe in God, at least not as you and I were taught. They don’t even believe in a universal soul. According to them, there is a countless number of souls, all—”

  “Bill, darling, I don’t mean to be unresponsive, but…”

  “But what?”

  “It—it just gives me the creeps, somehow. Being here alone. In this apartment. Hearing what you’re talking about.”

  There was a pause at the other end. She heard him sigh, though whether in resignation or anger, she did not know.

  “Look, Janice,” he said in a voice slightly strained. “I’m trying to explain that there’s nothing creepy about it. Didn’t I just say they don’t believe in a universal soul and all that malarky?”

  “Yes. All right, Bill. You did say that.”

  “It’s a very old sect. According to them, everything has a soul. Rocks, trees, people, animals. And the whole universe goes through these incredible long cycles—”

  “Bill, please.”

  “And each soul in it, according to the cycle, transmigrates; that is, it moves on to another animal, or tree or person, and—”

  Janice pulled the receiver away from her ear.

  “Are you there, Janice?” Bill demanded.

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “So this doesn’t hold water at all,” Bill explained feverishly. “Aren’t you listening at all? Have you gone deaf?”

  “Bill, you’re so angry. Why?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to explain a few very simple facts. Now, if that girl—you know—the daughter of…”

  “Audrey Rose.”

  “If she—I mean, if there was a problem, she could have come back as a rock. Or a television set. Or a pair of spectacles. Who the hell knows? You get what I mean? Well, we know that’s not true.”

  Janice paused a long time, trying to think of a way of luring Bill to some other topic of conversation. But he pursued his line of questioning relentlessly, almost as though he were talking to himself.

  “If there was a question of her returning in our Ivy—I guess I’m not being clear. I’m just trying to say that, good as these Jains are, it’s not right, Janice. It doesn’t explain anything!”

  Bill’s last words were shouted in hysterical anger and frustration.

  “Calm down, Bill,” Janice said. “Nothing has to explain anything.”

  “I need to know, Janice! I can’t live like this!”

  It was a heartbreaking voice, vulnerable and barely articulate, conscious of its own weakness, of grappling with things it might never truly understand. Bill was clutching, and he expected Janice to pull him up out of the quicksand.

  “All right, Bill,”
she said quietly. “Tell me what you want me to bring you.”

  “Well, there’s an even older religion. It exists in the mountains of Tibet.”

  “Tibet?”

  “Yeah. It’s a part of Buddhism now, but it goes back to the time when human beings first learned how to talk.”

  “All right. If that’s what you need. Just Tibetan Buddhism?”

  “Yeah,” Bill said, already cooling off. “I’d—I’d really appreciate that, Janice.”

  “Bill.”

  “What is it, honey?”

  “Does Dr. Geddes know you’re reading all this sort of thing?”

  “Dr. Geddes? Why should he know? I mean, sure, he knows everything I do. That doesn’t mean I have to go tell him every time I pee, does it?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “Then you’ll get me a few books? I wouldn’t ask you, Janice, except that I’ve got nobody in the whole world. Nobody else in the world out there.”

  Janice softened.

  “I do truly understand, darling,” she said softly. “And I’m glad you’re feeling better. Get your rest and I’ll do as you ask.”

  “Thanks, darling. I knew I could depend on you.”

  After hanging up, Janice stared into the apartment, listening to the cold wind throwing itself at the long windows. Jainism, Hinduism, and now what? Northern Buddhism. Mountain style. It was all so sad, Janice thought. Bill was so confused, so fanatically looking for explanations, for expedients. It did not seem right to her. It had made her calm, once, after Ivy’s death, and now the same ideas were agitating Bill.

  Maybe he was just having trouble getting a grip on the concepts. Maybe he was fighting it. Maybe, after roaming the world’s religions for solace, he would circle right back around and find comfort in the eternal grace and benediction of Jesus Christ. Janice sat for a very long time, listening to the wind. Poor Bill, she kept thinking, over and over again. But for the first time, she felt she was an accomplice on his road to recovery, she hoped, and not simply watching him through an invisible partition while he struggled for sanity.

  She set the alarm, determined to be at the New York Public Library when it opened. If there was such a thing as Northern Buddhism, if only one hairless old monk with one tooth was still alive and practiced it, she would find out about it and bring it to Bill. It was their way of communication now. He need never know that it ripped open seams in her memory that were unendurable.

  That night, during a troubled sleep, the past came back to assail her with a vengeance.

  The voice suddenly rose to a shriek, reverberating, piercing all the corridors into Janice’s ears. She covered them with her hands and heard, through the screams, the rush of blood and the pounding of her own heart.

  “Daddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddyhothothothot!!”

  Rebounding, filling the hall with madness and terror, lashing out at Janice with shattering impact, Ivy rushed to the stairs. Her face was hideously distended, and deep red.

  “HOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOT” she sobbed, the words running together into a single blast of pain.

  “Oh God! No!” Janice pleaded.

  But the force of the girl was uncanny. Ivy ripped from her grasp, fell headlong down the stairs, and bolted, bleeding, across the living room.

  “Ivy—!” Janice wept.

  “HOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOT” came the scream, further away now, as Ivy threw herself at the long, dark windows, frosted, glinting with the cold. Again and again, she beat her bandaged hands at the cold glass, looking for escape, until the blood dappled the patterns of the windows.

  “Daddydaddydaddydaddydaddy—” she shrieked.

  But Bill was gone, escaped to Hawaii, and the screams escalated into a single, incoherent, note of hysterical terror. From far away, as in a dream, Janice was conscious of the red light blinking on the house telephone, and without sensing her own feet, found herself picking up the receiver.

  “Miz Templeton,” Dominick’s voice said. “There’s a Mr. Hoover down here in the lobby.”

  “Send him up!” Janice cried, dropping the phone.

  When Hoover arrived, she opened the door. Immediately he sensed the situation. He walked slowly into the apartment, unsure of his steps in the darkness. His tall, athletic body seemed to bend forward as though ready for anything. His thinning, blond hair gleamed in the light from above. Janice, fascinated, saw his pale blue eyes narrow, concentrating on the image of the whirling bundle of cloth, flesh, hair, and panic across the room.

  “Audrey Rose!” he called. “It’s Daddy! I’m here!”

  “DADDYDADDYDADDYDADDY!!”

  “HERE, AUDREY ROSE! DADDY IS HERE, DARLING!”

  Slowly, as he called her by that name, that name that was now as much a part of the apartment as anything else, Hoover stepped carefully toward the dark windows. Over and over he called to her, until she heard. Lips quivering, she looked blindly for the sound.

  “Here, darling,” he whispered, “I’m here! It’s Daddy!”

  Exhausted, looking for him, touching his coat as he came within reach, Ivy seemed unable to believe it. Then she scampered into his arms, sobbing against his chest. Hoover rocked her back and forth. Janice stepped slowly through the quiet apartment. All she heard was Ivy’s gentle, rhythmic breathing.

  Hoover lifted Ivy’s arm and softly redressed the burnt hand. Then he washed her forehead, caressed her cheek, and carried her up to her bedroom. Janice followed in a daze. For a long time, he stood there, looking down at Ivy. The room was dark, and quiet, and Janice suddenly felt the aftershock of the violence. She sat down abruptly on the bed.

  “Don’t you see what we’re dealing with here?” he asked, his eyes avoiding hers. “We’re dealing with something far greater than Ivy’s physical welfare. We’re dealing with her soul, the selfsame soul of my daughter, Audrey Rose. That’s what we must help and try to save.”

  A peculiar buzz ran through Janice’s head, as though she had not slept for a week. All she wanted was for him to stop talking.

  “It’s a soul in such pain and torment that it will push Ivy back to that moment of death, back to the fire and smoke, if we don’t help…”

  Shut it out, her brain screamed. Don’t listen!

  “I—I don’t know what you’re saying,” she managed to blurt.

  He looked at her.

  “I’m saying that Audrey Rose came back too soon,” he said simply. “Out of fear, horror, she returned too soon, and now seeks to escape this earth-life. This is the meaning of Ivy’s nightmares.”

  “No!” she shouted. “You’re crazy. My husband says you belong in the nuthouse and he’s right!”

  Hoover’s jaw clenched. Mastering himself, he swallowed and relaxed, but his eyes blinked rapidly as though humiliated that she still did not understand him.

  “That’s your fear talking, Mrs. Templeton,” he whispered.

  “No, damn it. It’s me talking. Now get out of here!”

  Hoover came suddenly closer, leaning over her, until his face was only inches from her, his breath warm and sweet. Janice looked into the depths of his pale blue eyes and found an intolerable gentleness there.

  “Will you open your heart and try at least to understand what I’ve been saying?” he entreated.

  “I don’t know,” she said, her voice weak. “I don’t know what you want of me.”

  Hoover sensed contact with her. He smiled. His eyes became bright. The words poured out in a silver rush.

  “We must form a bond, Mrs. Templeton, you and I, so filled with love that we can mend her, so that the soul of Audrey Rose can find its rest. We’re the only ones who can help her. You and I.”

  Janice felt a hypnotic power in his voice, a lulling, tugging seductiveness that weakened her. Yet she felt secure with him; his presence meant Ivy was safe.

  “Don’t shut the door on me, Mrs. Templeton,” he breathed. “Allow me to come into your life. Allow me to serve you, and Ivy, and Audrey Rose. This is the meaning of my life.
All those years of searching, hoping, doubting—”

  He drew Janice closer to him. He saw that her eyes now darted over his face, examining him for signs, clues, some symbol of what reality had become.

  “Can you just throw me aside?” he whispered heatedly. “Can you?”

  “No,” Janice cried weakly, feeling the wet of her own tears on her face.

  “Thank you,” Hoover exhaled, grateful.

  He stood up, and it seemed now that he possessed the bedroom, the apartment, and all that was in it, as well as the two living beings there. He looked back at Ivy, who turned comfortably in a pleasant sleep.

  “We are connected,” he said with finality. “You and I, Mrs. Templeton. All three of us. We have come together by a miracle and now we are inseparable.”

  He turned, a dark look suddenly flashing across his eyes.

  “Say yes, Mrs. Templeton. Please!”

  “Yes,” Janice wept, and she felt that she was about to fall.

  Early the next morning, drugged from lack of sleep, Janice trudged to the library, selected several Tibetan books, and mailed them to Bill, resolving to think no more about it.

  That night Janice found herself working into the wee hours with Elaine, trying to complete two separate sets of layouts before the spring deadline.

  Two Tensor lamps cast bright cones onto their adjacent work tables. The rest of the suite was lost in the night, where bits of red and yellow lights gleamed inward from the city skyscrapers.

  Together they prepared the outlines and marked out instructions for the staff in the morning. Wearily, Janice stood, rubbed her eyes, and stretched, yawning with a deadly fatigue. It was 2:30 in the morning, but Janice didn’t mind. She was gratified that Elaine depended on her professional collaboration in these all-night sessions.

  “It is late,” Elaine yawned. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m in no rush to go home to an empty apartment!”

  They worked in silence for several minutes.

  “But you do have a daughter?”

  Janice licked her lips. A nightmarish, queasy sensation invaded her, as though this one moment of perfect friendship, this island of hard work and steady hopes, might also break apart.

  “What makes you say that?” Janice asked.