“I’m very grateful…deeply, deeply grateful,” she said, putting her hand over her heart, “to have, as our final speaker today, Anthony Blake. Anthony,” she said, turning her head to address him directly while still speaking into the microphone. “I do not envy you this task.”
The assembly applauded again.
“For those who don’t know, Anthony and Maxine had been married for over forty years at the time of her passing. In a 2000 interview inWriters & Poetsmagazine, Maxine said of Anthony, ‘Behind every writer is someone reminding her that she can’t live on coffee and Oreos and maybe it’s time to stand up and stretch, and while she’s at it, take a shower. But Anthony isn’t just my husband, he’s my muse. Listen to him talk for five words and you’ll know exactly where the Duke of Chicago came from. Except Anthony’s even more romantic and handsomer. But don’t tell him I said that.’ Oops,” Nancy said to soft laughter. “I guess we were supposed to keep that a secret from you, Anthony.”
Nancy stepped back as Maxine’s husband rose slowly from his chair. The atrium echoed with the deep and pregnant silence of several hundred people trying not to cough or sneeze as a man, pale and fragile in his grief, walked to the podium.
Rainy looked for Duke in his features. They were both tall with broad shoulders, but other than that, she didn’t see much of a resemblance.
“Thank you so very much for being here today,” Anthony began. There it was. He and Duke spoke in the same voice, the same rather proper English accent. “Maxine and I were afforded the rare luxury of a long and gentle passing into the next chapter, as my wife called dying. We had time to make plans, and the first thing she told me was that she wanted her funeral held at the library. This was a sacred place to her, a home to all books, holy and unholy. That was her firstrequest. Her second was to be cremated. She said some of the greatest stories ever told had been consigned to fires—Savonarola’sBonfire of the Vanitiesin 1497, Hitler’s purges of supposedly subversive art and books in the 1930s, the burning of comic books in the 1940s and ’50s, not to mention the burning of the Library of Alexandria in 48B.C.—and she wished to share their fate.”
His voice trailed off. Rainy caught herself holding her breath.
“Friends and family will gather at Santa Barbara Cemetery to inter her ashes at sunset this evening. Starting tomorrow, tributes may be left at her final resting place.”
Rainy forced herself to exhale. Surely that was the end of his remarks. His voice shook with emotion and his shoulders were hunched. But somehow, he dug deep into himself and found the strength to go on. He took a breath, stood up straight, and in a steady voice said, “I’d like to tell you a story Maxine told me once, a story I will tell now and never again.
“Maxine liked to call herself a classic orphan,” Anthony began, and the crowd laughed again, but quietly, nervously. Where was this going?
“A good old-fashioned orphan of the Dickensian persuasion. She was born in a small town near Chicago—”
Chicago. Rainy thought of Duke. That’s where he came from…from Maxine’s childhood.
“And her father, who worked on the railroad, died in a work-related accident. An explosion. That happened a lot back then. Her mother died a few years later of complications from pneumonia. Which…also happened a lot back then. No family stepped forward to take her, so Maxine, age nine, was sent to an orphanage in Chicago. St. Sophia’s Home for Girls. It was a crowded, dank warehouse sort of place. I’ve seen the pictures. Six girls to a room. Harsh discipline. Inadequate nutrition. But at least the place had a small library.”
He paused, then lifted his head. “The girls were mostly shell-shocked, angry, traumatized, violent. Some were orphans like her. Some had been taken away from parents who’d hurt them. Maxine was a quiet child, frightened all the time, not good at talking. She told me her loneliness was like a black hole. Only books could fill it because books were infinite. She could imagine herself on an infinite numberof adventures with Nancy Drew or the Bobbsey Twins or Dorothy in Oz or Alice in Wonderland. She said she was lucky that place had a library. If it hadn’t had books, she would’ve had nothing to live for. Some days she only ate the slop they served because the more obedient she was, the more library time she was given.”
Anthony cleared his throat, then began to speak again.
“It’s hard to think about her in that place,” he said. He took a breath, then went on. “Maxine would often hide under her bed with her school notebook. She’d write stories where she and Nancy Drew solved crimes together, or she was invited to move in with the Bobbsey family and spend Christmas with them. It was her school notebook, a plain black composition notebook, so everyone assumed she was doing homework, not writing stories. All her life she used those notebooks for her books. I used to find them stuffed between the couch cushions.”
He paused again, cleared his throat again.
“Very sorry,” he said, then, like the good Englishman he was, kept calm and carried on. “One day, one of the little girls at St. Sophia’s came home from school with a fever and a rash. Chicken pox, they thought, but no. It was scarlet fever. The girl, Rosa, was given antibiotics and quarantined in a room of her own far from the other girls. A nurse would check on her twice a day, but otherwise she was left completely alone. She’d never been alone in her life. Maxine said she’d wake up to the sound of the girl crying for her mama, her papa, her sister, her dog. Maxine didn’t even know if she’d ever had a dog or if she was delirious and dreaming of her perfect life. All the girls were forbidden from going anywhere near the child. Understandably, but still Maxine would lie awake listening to Rosa’s cries.”
Anthony paused again, squaring his shoulders.
“Three nights into her illness, Maxine said the rumors started that Rosa wasn’t going to make it. One girl said she’d overheard from another girl that Rosa would beg the nurse to read her a story every time she came in, but the nurse wouldn’t stay a second longer than she had to, the disease was so contagious and deadly. The girls went to sleep, all except for Maxine.” Anthony sniffed, wiped his nose. “Finally, Maxine couldn’t stand it anymore. She got out of bed. She always kept aNancy Drew book under her pillow for emergencies. ‘Where are you going?’ one of the girls asked as Maxine opened the door. ‘Bathroom,’ she said. ‘With a book?’ the girl asked. And Maxine said, ‘It’s number two.’ ”
The crowd’s laughter rose, then faded, and Anthony continued on.
“But she didn’t go to the bathroom. Maxine took her Nancy Drew book down the hall and snuck into Rosa’s bedroom. The girl was barely recognizable under the horrific red rash that covered her face. She looked like she’d been stung by a thousand bees or rubbed with sandpaper. But under the redness, the child looked gray, almost ashen. Rosa opened her eyes and asked, ‘Who are you?’ And Maxine answered, ‘Special story hour.’ The book wasThe Moonstone Castle Mystery.Maxine started at chapter one and read to the girl all night, read to her even after Rosa went still with sleep, even after Maxine realized she wasn’t sleeping. Good company in a final hour, I think,” he said. “Nancy Drew and Maxine Blake. Of course, Maxine caught Rosa’s illness. She was sick for nearly a month as scarlet fever became rheumatic fever, which caused permanent damage to her heart. Maxine might still be alive today if she hadn’t gone into that child’s sickroom and stayed long enough to read half a Nancy Drew book to her. But then Maxine Blake wouldn’t be Maxine Blake if she hadn’t read that last bedtime story to a dying child.”
He took another labored breath, then smiled at them all.
“Maxine’s favorite poet was the great Emily Dickinson. I will give Emily the final words…If I can stop one Heart from breaking / I shall not—”
His voice broke and he couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Forgive me,” he rasped, then tried again. “If I can stop one Heart from breaking / I shall not…”
Rainy raised her voice and completed the quotation for him.
“…live in vain.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The pianist began to play again, a piece everyone in the room—and the world—recognized. A slow, contemplative version of “Over the Rainbow” fromThe Wizard of Oz.
