Nostalgically, I remember around the age of ten snooping in my grandma’s room. It was a slow summer for Ian and me at her Martinsville farmhouse. Sunlight spilled across the blue quilt of her spindly antique Jennie Lind bed. Her curiously large hurricane lamp rested near the bedside. I don’t remember why I was in there. I think I was just bored and thought it might be fun to poke around her drawers. I found the Magic Wand in the nightstand. The box said it was a body massager. That looked like fun to me, so I plugged it into the wall, a little surprised at how loud it was. Giggling, I rubbed it on my lower back like I had a backache.
“Lizzie? What are you doing?” my mom barked sternly from the doorway, a basket of folded laundry in her arms.
“I’m playing with Grandma’s body massager. This isso fun!”
“Yes, well,thismassager isn’t for little girls.” She plopped the basket down, unplugged the “massager,” and took it from me. She folded it neatly back in the box, telling me over and over again how rude it is to rummage through people’s drawers.
It wasn’t until I was a teenager when I learned what the “massager” actually was.
“You’re not offended, are you, luv?” Ms. Fernsby asks, blushing a little.
“Oh no, not at all! It’s just been a long time since I’ve seen one of these.”
“Oh...” She looks a little sad. And, happily married or not, that was a rather sad thing of me to say.
But I keep talking, sounding more pitiful by the second. “I mean, who needs a vibrator when you have my husband, right?”
Again, really dumb. Every woman needs a vibrator, and I haven’t indulged in years. Honestly, I’m not even sure where mine is. Probably stuffed in the back of one of my drawers with a spent battery.
“I do hope it helps,” Ms. Fernsby says kindly.
I thank her and leave with the package, my face searing hot.
When I get back to the bedroom, I stare at the wand, wondering what to do. Why am I so embarrassed by another woman giving me this? I’ve always considered myself liberated. And yet, why haven’t I used my own vibrator in years?
Back in graduate school, I remember a Gender Studies class where we discussed vibrators as essential to women’s sexual pleasure and how the Victorians, oddly enough,inventedthe vibrator. Philip and I had a fantastic sex life. Yet why did I forget how fun these are? It’s strange how amid this ritualizedgrief, I’m feeling more connections to my pre-Philip self. I touch the jet necklace around my neck. Long before the 1960s wand, Victorian women loved their vibrators.
Using Ms. Fernsby’s gift might be my most authentic Victorian move yet.
I wake up the next morning, sunlight spilling through the drapes. My brain feels strangely clear, like a dissipating fog.
I glance at my phone—I’ve sleptsevenstraight hours.
This is the longest I’ve slept since Philip died. Before the advent of sleeping pills, vibrators must have made a world of difference health-wise for young wives advised to “lie back and think of England.” (Although, as I always tell my students, there iszeroevidence Queen Victoria actually ever gave this advice to any woman. As indicated by the scandalous loose-haired, bare-shouldered self-portrait she gifted Prince Albert, they had quite the steamy relationship.)
A text from Henry pops up.Almost to the finish line and will be in touch soon!
Wonderful! Can’t wait to hear!I text back.
?
I stare at Henry’s smiling emoji, heartbeat quickening. Whatever will come to light is what Philip was trying to tell me that night. I want to know, but I’m anxious. There are some big secrets at bay. I’ve had one awful shock this year, and admittedly, I’m also afraid of the truth.
I get out of bed, pull on my robe, and brush my teeth.
But I’m me and not Mirabel.
I’m my steely nurse-mother’s daughter, and I’m not aboutto keep the Wellses’ Southern family skeletons crammed in the attic. Philip was going to tell me the truth that night, and I need to know it all—at least for our son.
After a leisurely breakfast with Ms. Fernsby, Heathcliff and I go to the Sherlock Holmes Museum. With a promise to Heathcliff to find some nondairy ice cream if he is good during the tour, we make our way through the museum’s quirky rooms. Heathcliff likes the interesting toilet with the blue patterns. Dad always gave books as gifts for every holiday and birthday, and I still remember my thirteenth birthday, when he presented me with a shiny newSherlock Holmesanthology. I stayed up all night readingThe Hound of the Baskervilles.
As we leave, Heathcliff happily wearing a gift shop Sherlock Holmes hat, I think of Dad sitting alone in his study, rejecting sweet, artistic Beverly Lamott because she can’t cook.
“I know what Daddy would say about everything,” Heathcliff says, ridiculously expensive coconut ice cream dripping down his bottom lip.
I push the hat up to see his face better.
“What would he say now?”
