Belle Cora: A Novel by Phillip Margulies

on the words, “our love,” his throat constricted, and Robert said, “Yes,” and Edward said, “Yes, give him our love,” and we all wept.
    “Mama, don’t go,” cried Lewis, and he began to climb into bed with her.
    My father stopped him. “No, Lewis.” He may have feared Lewis would tax her strength and end the life she was clinging to so feebly. Or it may have been his sense of decorum; my mother herself had very definite ideas of what was fitting at a deathbed.
    Lewis kissed her cheek and begged her, “Stay with me, Mama.”
    She told him that she hated to leave him when he was so small, butif the Lord was calling her, there must be a good reason for it. She asked Reverend Fowler to back her up on this point, and he agreed. She told Lewis to respect his elders and obey his father and his sister and try to lighten their burdens. Then, in a weak voice, but with a confident mastery of this moment for which she had so long prepared, she moved on to Robert and Edward and to me, giving each of us a particular word of warning and encouragement.
    “You will continue to take good care of your brother Lewis, Belle?”
    “Yes, Mama, oh yes.”
    “You must always be watchful and loyal. Promise me.”
    I promised.
    She said that we had all been a great blessing to her, that we had given her great happiness, and that thanks to us she counted herself among the most fortunate of women.
    “I shall be watching you,” she said, and a shudder racked her body, and her eyes shut, and I cried out, “Mama!” but Dr. Boyle went close and leaned his head next to hers, then announced, “She’s sleeping.”
    After that we all took turns keeping vigil by her bedside, calling the others into her room when she seemed to be at a crisis, so that we should all be there when she expired. At her request, friends from her sewing circle came to say farewell. One, Mrs. Wilder, was obviously very sick herself. “You and I will not be separated long, Mrs. Wilder,” my mother predicted, and Mrs. Wilder, with a rueful smile, agreed.
    Giving directions from her bed, my mother dispensed presents, some she had made or purchased especially as gifts, some from among her possessions. I received her sewing kit and pins and brooches; a blank diary purchased especially for me;
Advice to a Young Married Woman
, by a minister, which she asked me not to read until I was older, though I need not necessarily wait until I was married;
Exemplary Letters for Sundry Occasions
;
The Whole Duty of Woman
; and some of her own volumes of Walter Scott’s novels, which I might enjoy when my reading had improved. With a glance at Reverend Fowler, whose advice she had sought in this matter, she said that, for a sensible girl such as she knew me to be, novels by respectable authors could provide harmless amusement, but I must remember not to neglect my duties for them, not to demand that my life be a romance, or overstrain myself with too much reading.
    She gave Robert and Edward some of her books as well, and she had bought each of them a writing kit and a copy of
Advice to a Young Man
, and she gave them decorative pincushions and other needlework she had made herself, stitching in pain so that they should have the work of their mother’s hands to remember her by.
    Under her direction, we read to her from the Bible and sang her favorite hymns. She conducted her leave-taking with such assurance, it began to create an illusion that she wasn’t dying, that our lives had entered a permanent new phase of visiting and giving presents and praying at her bedside, with a difficult but tolerable undercurrent of dread. Then, early in the morning, with a dry gasp, she died. I was woken from my sleep to be told—“Your mother is in heaven”—by my father, who looked, most of all, weary.
    MRS. FITCH STAYED ON IN THE HOUSE to help us. With my mother gone, the burden on Christina was considerably eased, my own chores were lighter, the house became noticeably cleaner and