The Lesson

The Sixth Visit

Loring had left the door open this time.

The mother let Stan run up the stairs and into the house, and she went off into her own day, and whether she heard the door shut or not, who can say?

For Stan closed it, and went into the parlor, and that is where we go, to where Loring is waiting, her eyes radiant.

— In our game, she said, I am going to call you Ezra.

He set down his things.

— Yes, dear, he said.

— In our game, I am going to take you places in the house. There we will do things to see how they are, to see how they feel. Do you know what I mean?

Raise your hand to your cheek, she thought. Brush at something that isn’t there.

He raised his hand to cheek. He brushed at something that wasn’t there.

— We won’t play chess today, she said. That was something we used to do. We don’t do that anymore.

— No we don’t, he said. We are through with that.

They walked hand in hand through the house. They walked in the kitchen. She led him there.

She said,

— You are getting old. You are almost as old as I am.

— I feel old, he said.

She laid her hand on his cheek. It was cold.

— I don’t see you where you are, she said. I think about where you will be.

— I am a long way from where I was when I first came.

She took a book down from a shelf in the kitchen. In it were old photographs.

— Do you know who this is? she asked.

— That’s James Len.

— And that?

— That’s Myra Lossen.

— What house is that?

— That’s the house on Faring Road where you broke your arm.

— And how did I break it?

— I broke it.

— How did you break it?

— We were cutting down a tree. I cut off the branch and it landed on your arm. It was an accident.

— And you were sorry. What did you do?

— I bought you a yellow flower every day for seven years, and we kept the dead ones. At the end of it, we burned them all in a fire, and laughed that your arm was good as new.

Loring led Stan into the hall. She led him up the stairs.

— I have clothing for you here, she said.

Laid out on the bed was a full set of clothing.

— But you, said Stan. You must change too.

He went to the closet and opened it. He found a dress, a pale dress with lace at the edges. He found gloves and he found a veil.

— These, he said, these you should wear.

Loring took the things and went down the stairs.

She could hear him, dressing. She heard the door open, and she heard the door to the spare room as it creaked open. She could hear him pull a chair over to the table, could hear him at the box.

She went up the stairs, and she was dressed as he had bid her.

What she saw there was something like her husband, dressed as he had been.

— Ezra, she said. What is in that box?

— My Loring, he said, my Loring. These are feathers for your hair. These are rings for your fingers.

She knelt by him and he put feathers in her hair. He put rings on her fingers. She pressed her face against his, and ran her fingers along his back. She was crying and crying.

— I said, also, that in the box there would be an order, something to be fulfilled. I said that.

— Ezra, she said. What is it you would have me do?

— First he said, have you not wondered where I am?

— I have dreamt, she said, I have imagined that I would go away. I would find it possible one day to go away from all I have, that there would be a place where I was going, and I would go to it. I would go there, and in that place I would be awaited. I believe it would involve nothing at all, a short trip, as if by car or boat, as if by water. I would say, already we are here, we are here, and we would be there.

She took a deep breath.

— Will you not tell me what you ask?

— I will not say yet, he said. For that we wait.

— No, tell me.

She pulled at his hands with her gloved hands. Tell me.

— No! NO! he shouted.

He pulled himself away from her and ran into the bedroom. He climbed onto the bed and there collapsed, weeping, and was soon asleep.

He was still asleep when his mother came, and dressed as he was, she took him away.