“Mary, your brunch is ready.”
There came no reply.
Keri slowly turned the handle and opened the door. The drapes were still drawn closed and the room lay still and dark. In the bed she could see the form lying motionless beneath the covers. Fear seized her. “Mary! Mary!” She ran to her side. “Mary!” She put her hand against the woman’s cheek. Mary was warm and damp and breathing shallowly. Keri grabbed the telephone and called the hospital for an ambulance. She looked out the window. Steve’s car was still in the driveway. She ran across the street and pounded on the door.
Steve opened it, instantly seeing the urgency on Keri’s face.
“Keri, what’s wrong?”
“Steve! Come quick. Something is terribly wrong with Mary!”
Steve followed Keri back to the house and into the room where Mary lay delirious on the bed. Steve took her hand. “Mary, can you hear me?”
Mary raised a tired eyelid, but said nothing. Keri breathed a slight sigh of relief.
Outside, an ambulance siren wound down. Keri ran out to meet it and led the attendants down the dark hall to Mary’s room. They lifted Mary into a gurney and carried her to the back of the vehicle. Keri grabbed Jenna and followed the ambulance to the hospital in Mary’s car.
I met Keri and the doctor outside of Mary’s hospital room. Keri had called me at work and I had rushed down as soon as I could.
“This is to be expected,” the doctor said clinically. “She has been pretty fortunate up until today, but now the tumor has started to put pressure on vital parts of the brain. All we can do is try to keep her as comfortable as possible. I know that’s not very reassuring, but it’s reality.”
I put my arm around Keri.
“Is she in much pain?” Keri asked.
“Surprisingly not. I would have expected more severe headaches. She has headaches, but not as acute as most. The headaches will continue to come and go, gradually becoming more constant. Coherency is about the same. She was talking this afternoon but there’s no way of telling how long she’ll remain coherent.”
“How is she right now?” I asked.
“She’s asleep. I gave her a sedative. The rush to the hospital was quite a strain on her.”
“May I see her?” I asked.
“No, it’s best that she sleep.”
That night the mansion seemed a vacuum without Mary’s presence and, for the first time, we felt like strangers in somebody else’s home. We ate a simple dinner, with little conversation, and then retired early, hoping to escape the strange atmosphere that had surrounded us. But even my strange dreams, to which I had grown accustomed, seemed to be affected. The music played for me again, but its tone had changed to a poignant new strain. Whether it had actually changed, or I, affected by the day’s events, just perceived the alteration, I don’t know, but like the siren’s song, again it drew me to the Christmas Box and the next letter.
December 6, 1916
My Beloved One,
Another Christmas season has come. The time of joy and peace. Yet how great a void still remains in my heart. They say that time heals all wounds. But even as wounds heal they leave scars, token reminders of the pain. Remember me, my love. Remember my love.
Sunday morning, Christmas Eve, the snow fell wet and heavy and had already piled up nearly four inches by afternoon when Steve met me near the mansion’s front porch.
“How’s Mary today?” he asked.
“About the same. She had a bad bout of nausea this morning but otherwise was in pretty good spirits. Keri and Jenna are still at the hospital with her now.”
He nodded in genuine concern. “Well, let’s go,” he said sadly. “It will be good for you to see this.”
We crossed the street and together climbed the steep drive to his home. Still unaware of our destination, I followed him around to his backyard. The yard was filled with large cottonwood trees and overgrown eucalyptus shrubs. It was well secluded by a high stone wall that concealed the cemetery I knew to be behind it.
“There’s a wrought-iron gate behind those bushes over there,” Steve said, motioning to a hedge near the wall. “About forty years ago the owner here planted that hedge to conceal the access to the cemetery. He was an older man and didn’t like the idea of looking out into it each day. My family moved here when I was twelve years old. It didn’t take us boys long to discover the secret gate. We hollowed out the hedge so that we could easily slip into the cemetery from it. We were frequently warned by the sexton never to play in the cemetery, but we did, every chance we got. We’d spend hours there,” Steve confided. “It was the ideal place for hide-and-seek.”