St. Louis January 1890
You would have loved Bernard as a boy. Ada was a refined lady from the moment of birth, but Bernard was a true rebellious child, with all the fearlessness of one who has not yet learned that the world can be unforgiving of the slightest misstep.
At our lonely homestead in Iowa, I taught Ada all the skills of womanhood she would need to run a household, and she took to them with all the enthusiasm I never felt. With Bernard, I found my own pleasure in sharing the natural world with him, as my mother had done with me. He was as comfortable outdoors as Ada was in the domestic sphere. I never felt as close to my son as when the two of us were out in the garden under the wide blue skies.
If Bernard had loved school, our time in St. Louis would have been paradise for him, for Ada and I endeavored to let him focus on bettering himself so he could support us when he came of age. Unfortunately he had neither the aptitude nor the patience for classroom learning. We fought over this constantly, and I must admit now I was especially hard on him for not appreciating an opportunity that I’d always yearned for.
Instead this disaffected young man gravitated towards trouble. At too-young an age he discovered a passion for carousing with other ne’er-do-wells. He was not naturally gregarious or outgoing, and I perceived that indulgence in spirits (the wrong kind) lent him some of those qualities, but at the price of his health.
After I forbade Adolphe from supporting him, Bernard turned to Chauncey and asked that he secure a career in the Express Service for him. Ada, who understood her brother well, recommended a physical role, one far away from bad influences. For a few years Bernard was posted down South, doing what Adolphe called “claims investigations,” but I suspect meant roughing up thieves. Bernard came home for Christmas one year and was animated with tales of rail heists he’d disrupted. In the end, though, he could not resist the temptation for easy money. He began to accept bribes to look the other way, and Chauncey was forced to fire him.
In the summer of 1889, I received word that Bernard was back in St. Louis. He was holed up in a very disreputable rooming house, one where men lazed in bunks stacked up to the ceiling and the air was stale and foul. I was told he’d been injured and was in a sorry state, so over Adolphe’s objection I went to my son.
Bernard was too weak to even rise from his filthy bed, so I sat with him, ignoring the leering taunts of his bunkmates and entreating him to better his life before it was too late. He would not tell me what had befallen him. We’d once been confidants, but now he was a hard man who had closed himself off to me.
“I just had an accident, Mama. I only need to rest,” he said.
“You look as if you’ve been beaten within an inch of your life,” I replied, and attempted to clean his brow. “When was the last time you had a bath? Come to our apartments. You can stay with us for a time.”
“I have friends here. They take care of me.”
I pursed my lips. “There is no bond of union among these sorts of lodgers.”
“Hey, come on now,” a man in a nearby bunk objected. I ignored him.
Bernard was shaking his head. “I know you mean well, Mama, but I’ll be up and about before you know it.” Here he began coughing but did not even have a handkerchief to his name. I gave him a fine silk scarf that Ada had bought for me in New York.
I was only his mother and could not force him to do anything. When his coughing fit had subsided, I felt I’d done all I could—I tried one more time to convince him, but when rebuffed I took my leave of him. He kissed me goodbye with real love, though, and that is a comfort to me, because that is the last time I would see my son alive.
Carl Bernard passed away on January 14, 1890, at Chauncey’s pied-a-terre in Chicago. No one has ever told me how he died. When I’ve asked, I’ve received only a sad shake of the head, or they mutter, “Poor Bernard, it is too terrible to speak of.”
I am forced to imagine all possibilities, and this is a kind of blessing. I hold these ideas in my head delicately, never fixing on any of them. I keep his fate sealed away, in a state of suspension, my son eternally deathless:
The funeral was held in Dayton, Ohio, and he was buried in the family plot that Chauncey had secured for us. I could not attend. Adolphe arranged for me to be watched by friends ’round the clock while he attended on our behalf.
I’m told I was abed for three days when I learned of his death, and would not be roused. I greedily welcomed the same enveloping fog of grief that had consumed my mother. I spoke to her often through that fog, which she had called Moûentos hoa̤ falados, the Valley of Desolation. I told her I forgave her for her selfishness now that I had shared her loss. I heard no answering voice, because I believe that death is final, that there is nothing beyond a physical existence. I refused food, and drank plain water only sufficient to satisfy my caretakers, who I called foolish in their Spiritualist beliefs, and sent them away from my room. I wanted to die, not to join my son—because I did not believe in such things—but because I could not imagine living with this pain.
My first clear memory is afterward, when Adolphe finally came home—whatever day it was I do not know. He stood over me, still in his travel clothes, his face gaunt with sleeplessness. He kissed me on the temple and told me, “Take as long as you need, Zara. I will be here waiting for you.” I remember that he opened the drapes to let my beloved sunlight in, and how gently he closed the door, and how angry I was to realize that I could not bear to leave him after all.