“Why—everything!” he said, grasping her hands and gazing into her eyes. “Our whole life and everything we’ve ever endured and imagined, all wrapped up and turned into make-believe, and—oh, I can’t explain it. But I promise you, by the time I’m done, it will all be in there.”
In spite of Frank’s unbridled enthusiasm, Maud watched the mounting pile of scraps of paper, of penciled jottings, with a growing sense of concern. At Frank’s age, forty-two, it was a leap of faith, Maud knew, for him to try to return to the creative life. But, honestly, what would the book publishers think when her husband, a china salesman, showed up at their office, his briefcase filled with a manuscript scribbled on torn envelopes and the backs of shopping lists? Frank had been—well, not beaten down exactly, but certainly chastened by the ups and downs of their life together. And now, here they were—both of them—nurturing a small hope for something that had seemed too late to hope for. Just as she wanted to guard the small life blooming within her, Maud felt protective of her husband’s kind heart.
* * *
—
MAUD LAY ON THE BED, staring at the ceiling. By turns she cried, then fell back to sleep. When Frank tried to console her, she turned her back to him; when he fetched the doctor, she told the man to go away. Maud had weathered it all—the hard days and the good ones, saying goodbye to Magdalena, the loss of her mother—but this loss, unimportant on the surface, just the barest promise of a new life, was the one she could not bear. Maud longed for her mother to come through the door, longed for the comfort of her snowy-white hair, her placid face. Matilda would have something to offer: a salve, a tincture, a soup, or a few words—something natural, something soothing. But now, the matriarch was gone and the flicker of hope for a girl to carry on her tradition had now been lost. Maud lay on her bed, her limbs heavy. The sunlight filtering through the curtains seemed insipid. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she knew that she was no longer sick in body, just brokenhearted in spirit, but she could not bring herself to leave her bed. Frank brought her trays of food, looked after the children, and worried over her, but Maud did not yet have the heart to rejoin the land of the living.
After about ten days, Frank came upstairs and sat down on the bed. For a long time, he stayed there without moving or speaking. Maud didn’t even turn to face him. He placed his warm, big hand gently on her shoulder.
“Maud, darling. Dearest Maudie. Can’t you come back to us?”
Maud lay with her back to Frank, staring at the patterned wallpaper, and said nothing.
He kneaded her shoulder gently with his broad, strong thumb.
“There is something I want to say to you, Maud.”
Maud didn’t even look at him; she just made a soft sound to indicate that she was listening.
“I know I’m not perfect, but I’ve tried to be a good husband to you.”
Maud continued to stare into space. Her body felt heavy, weighted down.
“I know you love the boys, but I wish I could have given you a daughter,” Frank said.
Maud rolled over and looked at him. “A daughter was not yours to give.”
“You Gage women, you are something else altogether, a force of nature. I feel so lucky that you came into my life. And I wanted to give you a daughter of your own, to carry on that legacy.”
Maud pushed herself up and leaned against his shoulder. “Frank, you’ve given me everything I could hope for. And I had no right to pine for a daughter when I was given four beautiful, healthy sons—it’s just that Mother…”
Frank waited as Maud struggled to find the right words.
“Mother was certain that her spirit would live on in a girl child…and now it feels like the end of the line.”
Frank reached out and squeezed her hand.
“You remember how your mother always encouraged me to write? ‘Write those stories down, Frank Baum!’ You remember how she always used to say that?”
Maud nodded, barely, keeping her eyes fixed on a crack in the plaster shaped like a flower that ran along a seam of the ceiling.
“Well, I’ve named the girl in my story Dorothy.”
Maud rolled over and stared at him. “Our Dorothy?”
“It’s a story about hope. It’s a story about knowing that there is always someplace out there that is better. Dorothy is a Gage girl, like you, like your mother, like Magdalena. Brave, tenacious, tough.”
Tears leaked out of Maud’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She made no move to brush them away.
“I’m sorry I never gave you a daughter, Maud. This is the best I could do.”
Maud looked into her husband’s gray eyes, noting the crow’s-feet that now encircled them, the graying temples. She leaned forward until their foreheads touched.
“Our Dorothy is not made of flesh and blood,” he said. “She’s fashioned from words and paper, pencil and script. But she has one quality that no flesh-and-blood child has. She’ll never grow up. She’ll never grow old. She’ll always be with us.”
Maud buried her face in her husband’s shoulder as he stroked her hair.
He whispered in her ear: “I did the best I could.”
* * *
—
IT WAS LATE ON a Friday afternoon in October when Maud finished up in the kitchen and came out to the parlor to find Frank slumped back in his armchair, staring into space.
“Darling Frank, what is it?”
He held up the short stub of pencil in his hand.
“I’ve done it,” he said.
“Done what?”
“I’ve finished.”
Suddenly he jumped up and flung his pencil into the air. It hit the tin ceiling and ricocheted off the lamp before coming to rest at Maud’s feet.
“By golly,” Frank said. “I’ve done it. I’ve just written the words ‘The End’!”
He was grinning like a small boy.
“Now,” he said, “all I need to do is find a publisher, and what was just imaginary ramblings will sit proudly on our shelf. And if you want my opinion, I think we’re sitting on a future best seller.”
That night, Frank went to bed early and fell into a deep and satisfied slumber, as if finishing his story had taken a weight from his mind. But Maud had trouble sleeping. Her own loss still ached deep within her. She’d do anything to spare her husband a similar pain.
The next day, Maud stood at the parlor’s threshold, looking around anxiously to make sure no one was about. But she was being silly. Frank was at work, and the boys were at school. It was only her guilty conscience that made her fretful. Resolutely, she walked across the room toward the shelf where the ungainly heap of pads and stray papers known as “the book” was piled up in a haphazard manner. She flipped one of the pads open to a random page and began to read.
Even with eyes protected by the green spectacles Dorothy and her friends were at first dazzled by the brilliancy of the wonderful City. The streets were lined with beautiful houses all built of green marble and studded everywhere with sparkling emeralds.
Green-tinted spectacles? Sparkling emeralds? Vividly, she remembered the jeweled lights of the White City carpeting the ground beneath them as they swung aloft on the Ferris Wheel. Gathering up the rest of the pile, she settled herself on the sofa, bracing herself to start at the beginning and read straight through. She wasn’t eager to find out what other parts of their lives she might recognize in the story, but she felt it was her duty. If what he had written wasn’t good enough, she would let him down gently, save him from the struggle to find a publisher, and keep him from being embarrassed. She despised snooping on him and this wasn’t her habit, but surely, this once, she could do it for his own good.
As she turned to the first page, she thought again of the view of the White City through green spectacles, and suddenly another memory came back to her from that night. After the Ferris Wheel ride, as they’d strolled along the promenade, what was it that Frank had said to her? She remembered now.
If you could just try to have faith in me.
The words came to her so clearly it was as if he were standing near her and spoke them aloud.
She looked at the pile of papers in her lap with shame and then placed it gently back on the shelf, unread.
* * *
—
FRANK SPENT THE NEXT COUPLE of weeks carefully recopying the jumbled manuscript, until at last he had a neat stack of pages. He tied it up with string and placed it in his briefcase. “Well, this is it. I start knocking on publishers’ doors today!”
As the days passed, each time he pushed the door open in the evening, she studied his face, wondering what the day had brought. Every evening he said, “Not yet, dear heart. Not yet.” Until one day, about two weeks later, he burst through the door carrying a bouquet of roses and swept Maud up into a warm embrace.
“I’ve done it!” Frank crowed. “I’ve found a publisher!”