Chapter 2
Chapter
The routine Margaret had engineered for herself was by no means an infallible preventive against physical collapse, but after years of trial and error, it had proven to be the most effective system for ensuring she burdened as few people as possible.
On this most ordinary of Mondays, said routine ticked along like clockwork.
Wake at a quarter to seven. Bemoan the earliness of the hour and procrastinate leaving the relative comfort of her bed for approximately fifteen minutes, knowing full well that the moment she moved, pain would strike.
Gather her resolve to rise as the clock struck the hour.
With gritted teeth and a sense of dread, slowly sit up, triggering pain that wedged between her ribs like a crowbar, prying a gasp from her lips.
Margaret clutched the edge of her bed as her muscles tightened, bracing against the spasm. Pain, sharp and merciless, rent her breath into splintered fragments. She fought for every intake of oxygen. Fought against the automatic surge of panic. It’ll pass. Just hold on. God . . . help me hold on.
Something soft brushed against her trembling arm.
Margaret glanced down into the amber eyes of Figaro, the tuxedo cat with a distinctive and rather distinguished white mustache, who’d been curled at the foot of the bed the whole night through.
Rubbing his head against her arm, the cat slipped beneath it, climbed into her lap, and proceeded to purr.
Dearest Figs, best of feline companions, never failed to sense her distress.
Next, regulate breathing to match the cadence of Figaro’s heartbeat and wait for the pain to subside for .
. . as long as it takes. Margaret’s routine allotted an hour, just in case, but thankfully, it only took about twenty minutes this time.
Able to stitch together a full breath at last, she uncurled her taut fingers from the mattress and stroked Figaro’s soft fur, shifting her focus to the brass figure of a sleeping kitten upon her nightstand.
Then, wrestle with guilt for a minimum of five minutes before finally pressing the kitten’s button nose, triggering chimes in another room of the house, to request assistance.
Margaret heaved a ragged sigh. Though it required little in the way of physical exertion, pressing that button was still the most difficult part of her routine.
If she hadn’t been so curious, so foolish, the accident never would’ve occurred, and she wouldn’t now be a deadweight on the backs of those she loved most.
Margaret closed her eyes, quickly redirecting her thoughts to the next step in her routine.
Evaluate her body as though it were one of her devices.
She’d learned long ago to perform this assessment honestly and without fail.
While the condition and functionality of her body varied from day to day, based on a variety of factors—some quantifiable, others vexingly mercurial—pain remained a constant.
An intrinsic part of her mechanics. If she were a machine, pain was the fractured axis around which her entire life revolved.
A harsh reality much easier to accept than the fact that others must alter the rotation of their lives to accommodate her brokenness.
The delicate click of a turning knob announced help’s arrival.
Dressed in a woolen wrapper with her favorite gold chatelaine pinned to her hip, Mama padded across the bedchamber’s wooden floor.
Her black hair was pulled back in a chignon, and the items hanging from the delicate chains of her chatelaine swayed, tinkling as she moved.
A smile set her silvery eyes to twinkling. “Morning, dear one.”
Margaret attempted to smile back, but a jolt of pain in her rib twisted the expression into a grimace. “Sorry to have woken you so early.”
“No need for sorries, Maggie. I’m glad the pain subsided sooner than expected.
” From a creaky drawer, Mama withdrew a chemise and tea gown, setting the individual garments beside her on the bed.
For Margaret, comfort and functionality must take precedence over what society deemed in vogue, and thus her wardrobe had come to consist exclusively of tea gowns.
More structured garments, especially those with fitted bodices, were wholly impractical, as was the practice of changing one’s attire numerous times a day to suit a new hour or occasion.
The physical exertion of simply getting dressed in the first place was tiring enough and no small victory.
Fetching a cloth and a washbasin next, Mama filled it with water from a pitcher. Then she brought the basin to Margaret’s bedside and, dipping the cloth in the water, proceeded to gently cleanse Margaret’s face.
Margaret closed her eyes, trying to focus on the fragrance of the rosewater instead of the lingering throb in her side. And the accusatory ache of uselessness jabbing at her heart.
When Mama completed this part of her toilette, she transferred Figaro to the end of the bed and moved on to the process of helping Margaret dress for the day.
Carefully, Mama brought Margaret’s nightgown up and over her head.
In this moment, between the removal of her nightgown and the donning of her chemise, the ache of uselessness intensified to a pang of exposed vulnerability.
As Mama slipped Margaret’s arms through her chemise and covered her once more, the pang transformed without fail into a conflicting duality of gratitude for Mama’s tender ministrations and sorrow that it was required.
A woman of thirty should not still need to be dressed like an infant.
A woman of fifty-three should not still have to wash her grown daughter’s face and brush the tangles from her hair.
Yet these should-nots were Margaret’s reality.
While she knew it was common for other women of her privileged station to have servants assist with their toilette, the guilt still gnawed at her every morning before she pressed the call button for Mama.
Dear, sweet Mama, who’d taken over her care after countless nurses and maids had proven ill-equipped, ill-tempered, or simply ill-at-ease around an invalid.
One who looked well and able but was, in actuality, trapped in a body riddled with concealed fissures and scars.
A body that would only get worse . . . not better.
When Margaret was dressed in a tea gown of mazarine blue, matching embroidered slippers, and her D.O.G.S.
brooch, Mama opened the curtains to welcome the morning sunlight.
Fetching a brush and ribbon, she made quick work of arranging Margaret’s hair in a simple plait and then sat beside her on the bed, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “How many teaspoons have we today?”
Margaret rested her head on Mama’s shoulder, staring at the wallpaper’s toile de Jouy print of frolicking kittens in pinafores.
How odd such a question would probably sound to an outsider.
Most people, quite logically, used teaspoons as a unit of measure for the sugar in their afternoon cuppa.
Only in the Kingsley home did teaspoons serve as a unit for measuring the intermittent spurts of energy Margaret had at her disposal in a given day.
After the accident, she’d developed the teaspoon system as a way of communicating her level of functionality to her parents and of coping with her physical limitations.
To push herself to grasp a teaspoon her body didn’t possess resulted in a complete and utter crash that could require days, possibly weeks, of recovery.
A lesson hard learned. Yet it was another difficult reality she’d come to accept.
“Since I slept so fitfully, I’ve calculated I have about six teaspoons.
” Dressing and attending to her morning toilette used only one teaspoon since Mama had lent a helping hand.
The more aid she accepted at home, the more teaspoons she reserved for her work at the D.O.G.S.
Keeping that purpose in mind was the only thing that prevented her guilt for overburdening Mama from becoming unbearable.
Mama’s brow pinched as she studied Margaret with the thoroughness of a physician. “Then we’d best not overdo the calisthenics. Just two turns about the room, I should think. Ready?”
Margaret nodded. Bracing herself against Mama, she stood and proceeded to shuffle oh so carefully around the perimeter of her chamber.
After a night in bed, her muscles were stiff and rusty, making her gait awkward.
Cumbersome. Yet move she must if she wished to maintain the mobility she’d regained after the accident.
With every laborious, halting step, she distracted herself from the difficulty by breathing a prayer to the ever-present Helper her parents had taught her to lean upon.
Thank You for the ability to take this step, Lord.
Thank You for Mama’s arms to keep me steady. Thank You for never leaving me. . . .
By the end of the second turn about the room, Margaret’s muscles were warm but not yet quaking with fatigue.
Mama had judged well. Lowering into her wheelchair, Margaret caught her breath while Mama put away her nightclothes.
Figaro leapt into her lap, kneaded her skirts with his white mittens, and then resumed purring.
The habitual feline knew her routine as well as she did.
Calisthenics completed, she’d now join her parents downstairs for breakfast.
Crossing the room, Mama opened her door and then looked back with a frolicsome glint in her eyes. “On your mark?”