Isabelle and Alexander by Rebecca Anderson (new books to read TXT) 📗

He continued. “My dearest Isabelle,” he said, reading from a small piece of creamy paper, “you never cease to amaze me with your patience and your grace. You love that girl, it is clear. Perhaps it means you can love me as well. Your attendance and kindness . . .” Isabelle heard the paper turn over before she drifted into sleep again.

Upon waking again, she saw Alexander straighten a pile of papers and place them into the bottom of the lovely wooden box, replacing the fresh stationery atop them. “Perhaps I shall read them to you again when you wake.”

Isabelle again wished to say something, but her body simply could not pull itself out of her sleep.

When she finally woke again, she heard his gentle voice continuing to address her. It felt as if he had never stopped whispering to her as she slept. He spoke as he gently rewrapped the bandages covering her hands.

“You shall heal completely; I know you shall.” His voice caressed her, and as she continued to wake, she realized his hand also stroked her. As he finished wrapping the bandage, his fingers skimmed the side of her face.

“Isabelle, how could I have lived if you had . . .” He did not finish the question. She immersed herself in the warmth of his fingers in conjunction with the tenderness of his speech and felt her eyes flutter open.

The room was filled with predawn darkness, but a single candle illuminated the corner of the room in which they sat. His chair was drawn as close to the side of her makeshift bed as it could be. She leaned into the warmth of his hand.

As much as Isabelle would have loved to lie on the chair in the parlor forever, basking in the tender ministrations of her husband, she knew he could not sustain this. Nor could she stay in the parlor as Doctor Fredericks carried out his next appointment with Alexander. She excused herself to the drawing room and slept again.

At the close of their exercise, Alexander’s exhaustion was clear, but he insisted upon caring for Isabelle’s wounds—unwrapping her coverings, applying cooling salves, and re­wrapping her in clean, white cloths. She silently noted the shaking of his arms, clearly pushed beyond the limits of his newly strengthening muscles.

His care for her was most tenderly offered. His words and motions were the very definition of careful. He lifted her hands with a gentleness she equated with the touch of feathers or butterfly wings.

He rarely spoke, and Isabelle found herself wondering if she had dreamed his late-night words, his letters, his whispered pleadings. She longed to lift the lid upon her stationery box and discover if the letters she thought he had read from were, in fact, inside. But as she could hardly have held a pen with her hands bandaged so, she knew how foolish she would look in asking for the box to be brought.

After her bandages were changed and Doctor Kelley pronounced it a job well done, he asked them both if they could confer. Neither Isabelle nor Alexander were likely to deny Doctor Kelley anything, so the doctor took a seat across from Alexander’s chair. “There is much we could discuss,” he said, turning to Alexander to take control of the conversation.

Alexander looked from the doctor to Isabelle and back again. “There is,” he said in agreement.

Isabelle watched as Alexander brought his hands together, placing one atop the other. This simple gesture, probably done a thousand times a day by most people without a bit of notice, brought the tears back to Isabelle’s eyes. She wanted to point it out, to celebrate every muscle required to have brought about the small motion. She wanted to say, “Look at what you have done; you’ve clasped your hands!” but she understood better now Alexander’s responses to his incremental gains. Small victories did not balance out what he could not yet accomplish. She blinked back the tears that threatened to fall and remained quiet.

Alexander raised his eyes to hers. A flush of gladness filled her at the small attention. “I wish to speak to Doctor Kelley alone,” Alexander said, his serious voice suddenly taking her joy with it.

It had been a long time since he’d spoken so. Surely the bad days were balanced by many small encouraging moments, but Alexander’s formal tone brought back to the surface her every insecurity. Instinct forced her to remove herself. She stood. Took a step forward. Then stopped.

Isabelle stood in the middle of the parlor, hands swathed in clean cotton, and felt herself a stranger in this home—would it ever be her home?—when a deep understanding came clearly to her mind. She knew if she walked away at Alexander’s dismissal that she was agreeing to a lifetime of secondary significance.

Until now, that subordinate role had been sufficient. In fact, in her physical and mental exhaustion it had been all she could manage. Her occasional boldness, either in giving Alexander physical care or tiny moments of intimacy, brought her joy and satisfaction, but without consistent response from Alexander, she would be unable to maintain the efforts. She bowed to the expertise of the household staff, all of whom understood Alexander’s expectations. She cowered in the presence of Doctor Fredericks. She fled the room at the arrival of Nurse Margaret.

Unsure about the unfamiliar and unidentified boundaries of her still-new role as Mrs. Osgood, and then complicated again at Alexander’s injury, not to mention her own, she had sheepishly held back, tiptoeing around the home she had come to, for a time incapable of speaking out, making decisions, or altering customs. She had allowed herself to become invisible.

No longer.

This would simply not do. Isabelle had been sent away for the last time.

“No,” she said. Forcing her voice to carry a calm she did not feel, she said, “I understand that you would like to speak to the doctor alone, but I cannot allow it.” Her words surprised even herself, and she saw Alexander’s eyebrows rise