New Story!! So far untitled.

Cecile was a frail girl, married at the age of 18 before her health forbade her to perform housewifely duties. It was at an early age that she had discovered liquor and men, spent a life in smoke-filled clubs dancing and enjoying youth. On her 18th birthday she took a fall climbing out of her bedroom window and her health took a turn for the worst. She was poor in health, but for what she lacked in omnipotence she was all the richer in her looks. Her slight, ghostly figure could be masked as dove-like; her pale complexion: charmingly like china. Her mother had found her a rich beau of course, and he fell in love with her far before he learned of her medical costs and her hidden past. And because he was a good Christian man, none of it mattered. Her fragility was charming, her fiery nature, heartbreaking. She showed him how to dance the Charleston, and he made love to her gently one night beneath an apple tree and found he could not live without her.

He brought her to what would become her home, by the sea as the doctors had prescribed, away from the city air and the lifestyle she had grown accustomed to, a life that had ruined her. His work was a town away and he would travel the miles back and forth between home and the office; all while his wife planted a garden, baked, and sewed his worn suits. She often longed for the city, but silenced her urges for the nightlife by playing a little jazz as she cooked dinner and tended the garden, her hands always delicately busy, her voice always belting the melodies. When Paul got home she was always tired from the sun and toil, after dinner was served she would then go straight to bed after drawing his bath. Her laughter left her and her fiery eyes grew dim as her aging bones began to remind her of youthful fall. Cecile’s mother sent them a collection of antique porcelain dolls as a gift that suggested her hopes of future grandchildren, and Cecile displayed them in the drawing room, secretly loathing their perfect appearances, their sad smiles. She often forgot to dust them and their hair became matted, the china turned dinghy.

Cecile was able to hold up the house for two years before a winter’s flu knocked her out and her servants took over the home. She was resigned in bed for what was more than three months, her hands idle and no radio in the bedroom. Instead of living, she took to longing. Her mind filled with the past life she had known, with her mother who sent her away, with the thoughts of being a near cripple. The only solace she found was in the bottles of gin she ordered one of the servants to fetch from town weekly, and when available, in her husband who adored her childlike ways. The drinks filled her mind with happy dreams, she saw her garden grow larger and her husband handsomer. Her mother was far from her mind drink in hand, her youthful mistakes forgettable. She was able to get out of bed and very slowly pace the garden, she saw the gardenias as silk organza, the roses were the plump mouths of Ella and Billie, the lilies loud jazz trumpets. Her booze complimented all until one afternoon she took another fall and a servant found her—very drunk—and strewn, ankle twisted, among the ivy. She was more careful after that, and took her drinks sitting down.

It was strangely so that after the bulk of her illness, Paul noticed Cecile was sincerely brighter, more free and gay in her mannerisms, and that she could not contain her laughter. Her pain seemed stifled and her skin rosy, she seemed more alive than before the flu had overtaken her. But no, she was still a sliver of a girl, she barely ate and hadn’t the strength to walk—not even back and forth through the garden as she so once loved to do. Her singing was silenced, and the bright jazz music never echoed though the dank halls. Their time together, though scarce, was precious and Paul adored her more than ever. In the heat of the summer the garden flourished, and so did Cecile’s spirits—both intangible and tangible. During the days when she was alone, she began sitting more often in the garden she had grown, and it was there that she took her afternoon cocktail, her morning cocktail, and her mid-morning cocktail before having the servant retire the bottle to her makeup bureau when her husband returned home. It was exactly in this bureau, upon planting a secret gift—a bottle of French perfume—that her husband uncovered the real secret. He lectured her, much to her detest, and then smashed all the bottles and buried them at the back of the garden. It was after his outburst that Cecile’s health turned again, Paul assumed she had caught a bug from one of the vegetables grown in the garden, and she upset all over the house for almost two weeks.

She sat in bed for another long series of months, her dinner brought to her in fine china, fed to her by her husband, or the youngest of the servant girls, with a silver spoon. She took milk before bed and had the radio brought into her room so she could listen to the jazz. She no longer belted the melodies but listened quietly, with seeming intent, with apparent longing. She grew quieter as the days passed and her husband had the servants answer to every whim while he was away, and when he returned he made sure Cecile did not lack anything she wanted. When she turned dreadfully sick, she began to smile at the songs, she lost her voice and forgot to smooth her hair. The doctor was sent for and straight away blamed the illness as the cause of her muteness. It didn’t matter Paul, she was still pleasant and was sure she loved him. She would nod and shake her head politely. It appeared she still loved her music and her garden; she still loved to sit and listen to her husband when he came home from work. When she was a little better, the servants would dress her and take her around in a wheelchair, her garden had died without her touch and no mater how hard the youngest took to tending it, it would not come back to life though spring was here.

After the worst of it was over, she was still quite a doll—now almost literally so—quiet and polite, immobile because of the sickness, eyes gleaming and mouth slightly ajar, formed to a secret smile. The servants would take turns wheeling her, and she would again sit often in the garden—this time to take tea—and the servants would fawn upon her, fixing her hair when the breeze ruffled it, refilling her cup of tea even though she hadn’t drank any. She hardly moved at all these days. The servants forgot to talk to her and Cecile soon forgot how to shake her head or nod. They brushed her hair, they dressed her up and admired her great beauty, but they hardly looked to her as the woman of the house. Paul returned from work and took his turn wheeling her, he turned on the jazz music, he brought her new clothes from the city, he fed her with the silver spoon. But he forgot what her eyes looked like when they had gone out dancing, he forgot what her voice sounded like when it mimicked the notes on the radio. Finally, they forgot to bring her to the garden and left her often in the drawing room with the collection of dolls. Her skin hardened to china, her eyes glassed over. Cecile sat, looking into the distance with those wide eyes, until her husband came home from work and brought her to the bedroom. He would undress her delicately and put her into her nightclothes, relishing that sweet smile that masked her pain.

She would have liked for him to have smashed her up and buried her under the lilacs.