Wickett's Remedy Read online

  With the appearance of the first Wickett’s advertisement Lydia adopted the twice-daily habit of walking to the post office to collect incoming Remedy correspondence. When the first morning yielded an empty letter box she followed a different path to Post Office Square to avoid encountering the same bad luck along the way. Though the afternoon letter box was just as empty, she retained this custom, and cast about for additional measures to help their luck. The next day she chanted a Hail Mary just before climbing the post office stairs. The third day she wore one of her better dresses, and on the fourth she decided to change her dress between morning and afternoon outings. When, on the afternoon of the fourth day, she arrived at the letter box to discover a letter waiting, the hopeful practices she had adopted became codified; and from that moment forward she observed all of them with the same fastidiousness with which certain older Southie women attended obscure Masses.

  Carlotta Agnozzi lived to be 103—but she credits leeks, not Wickett’s Remedy.

  Their first customer was a middle-aged North end woman named Carlotta Agnozzi, whose complaints included fatigue and dyspepsia. After an hour spent cloistered in his office Henry emerged waving his inaugural letter with the pride of a boy who has caught a pop fly. On seeing the once-familiar sheet of pale blue stationery, Lydia understood the origins of the color of her Wickett’s label. But while the blue hue of the labels exerted a pleasant, fluttery effect on her heart, that same shade on a letter intended for someone else caused her ears to buzz and her throat to tighten. Henry, oblivious to his wife’s distress, strode to the middle of the sitting room and began to read what he had written.

  “The dyspeptic stomach is like a child, longing for Mama’s comfort,” he intoned, a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose, the hair on the right side of his head standing up in odd tufts from repeated tugs and smoothings by his excitable nonwriting hand. “Be kind and patient and feed it wholesome foods. Try dining in new places: a riverside picnic can do wonders for the morale and the digestion, and fresh air is a known enemy of fatigue.”

  Mrs. Agnozzi doubts Dr. Wickett had allowed for the stink from the Boston Gas Company Wharf.

  As Henry read on, Lydia was forced to acknowledge that neither the words nor the sentiments were familiar: only the stationery belonged to her former beau. She had not suspected that a persons paper face could be any more changeable than its flesh counterpart. The notion that her husband contained such diverse men replaced Lydia’s jealousy with a melancholy strain of consolation: for though she did not have to share her paper lover, Henry’s letter to the North end dyspeptic confirmed that her passionate, impetuous suitor was forever confined to the aging bundle of letters in her top bureau drawer.

  Mrs. Agnozzi’s letter marked the beginning of a regular trickle of correspondence into the Remedy’s post office box. Most first-time customers were short and to the point, but occasionally Lydia found herself listening to detailed lists of woes ranging from rheumatism to an ungrateful spouse to a cat who shed out of season. In reply to these complaints Henry penned letters ranging from two to five pages, written in his beautiful, almost feminine hand, sending warmth, encouragement, and confidence. They soon became accustomed to letters that began, “I am a friend of Mrs. So-and-So, who just showed me the extraordinary letter she received from you, and I was hoping you would send me hope of a similar kind along with your Restorative.” To Henry, it marked the beginning of a medical revolution.

  But while a growing number of people perceived the good contained in Henry’s letters, no one appreciated that medicine not issuing from a bottle still ought to be paid for. Rather than reorders, envelopes bearing familiar return addresses yielded letters that opened, “Dear Dr. Wickett, As soon as I read your words I realized that I had met a kindred soul,” or “Dear Dr. Wickett, Though I myself am a man of position, I will ask that you call me Fred, for we are clearly two men meant to walk in the land of friendship, not commerce.” None of these repeat correspondents enclosed payment: they had exhausted the letter’s content, not the bottle’s.

  Henry was no more immune from the effect of a friendly letter than his erstwhile customers. The replies he received were so warm, appreciative, and genuine in their desire for a continuing correspondence that he—despite Lydia’s efforts to convince him otherwise—could not bring himself to demand payment for what was, in his mind, a reciprocal act. According to Henry it would have been rude to withhold the courtesy of a response and mercenary to insist on payment for one. And so, the Wickett’s advertisement garnered Henry a middling but steady number of new inquiries and very few repeat customers, but several pen pals.

  Henry’s clerkship stretched for six months, and then twelve months, and then eighteen. His unhappiness could be measured by the frequency of the evening headaches that banished him to the bedroom and the difficulty Lydia had in rousing him the following morning. She proposed that if she found work, the additional income provided by a part-time position would at least allow him to clerk part-time, but her offer was again refused. Henry saw no point in leaving his father’s office when he would have to return as soon as his wife became pregnant. Though Lydia had ceased to believe in this possibility, she viewed Henry’s abiding faith in their procreative potential as too precious a thing to squander. In lieu of part-time store work, he taught her to keep up the Remedy ledger. This was more involved than the account book she had been required to keep as a Gilchrist girl, and therefore more interesting. She liked the neat, straight columns of the Wickett notebooks and the feeling of importance granted by Henry’s desk, an oversized slab of mahogany of which he was quite protective but that she was now permitted to employ whenever conducting Remedy business.

  Henry had no more faith in this matter than Lydia, but he feared she would be devastated by mutual acknowledgment of their infertility.

  Here is a rare fragment of Henrys visual memory flash-frozen: Lydia’s pale hand resting against the dark-hued wood.

  As events in Europe accelerated, Henry’s dedication to the daily newspaper intensified. By evening, the orderly printed columns of the morning edition were transformed by his pencil into a dense thicket of corrections. Sometimes an entire article would be crossed out, with Henry’s rewritten version squeezed into the newspaper’s white gutters. By that March, talk of entering the war was rampant and so it came as no surprise in early April when President Wilson announced that America would be joining the fight against the Germans. The weekend following the President’s declaration, Henry exhibited high spirits the likes of which Lydia had never seen. On Saturday, they took lunch out and walked along the Charlesbank, then rode a swan boat in the Public Garden. On Sunday they caught a matinee and dined at Scollay. While riding the streetcar Henry grabbed her hand and murmured endearments into her ear, and while watching the feature he kissed her neck with an ardency that made her feel like she was a Southie girl of eighteen again. With the arrival of Sunday evening, she did not feel her usual dread. Her memories of that weekend would easily carry her through the five days preceding the next. Henry seemed to share this feeling. That evening he neither complained of headache nor went to bed early. Instead he invited her to sit beside him at his desk while he penned letters to customers, and as she balanced the accounts he occasionally paused in his writing to stroke her head or squeeze her hand.

  When Lydia awoke on Monday morning, Henry’s absence beside her brought a grateful flush to her cheeks. She donned her dressing gown and went quickly to the kitchen, but he was not there; she supposed he was working at his desk. She would surprise him by bringing him breakfast. Pouring his tea, she smiled to think of a new era in which the afterglow of each weekend would lighten the week to follow.

  She strode into the parlor with a tray. “Henry,” she called, “there’s tea.” But when she reached the study it was empty.

  “Henry?” she asked the cold room. She left the tray and proceeded to the washroom, then returned to the bedroom, thinking he must be dressing, and only then did s
he see the letter pinned to her husband’s pillow.

  “My dearest Wife,” it began:

  Now that Wilson has declared war, History has presented me an opportunity that I can’t resist. As a soldier I will be able to write about everything that is going on over there. By the time I return, I’ll be a first-class journalist. If I had told you, you would have tried to stop me and there would have been an argument, and you look so peaceful sleeping that I cant stand to wake you. Don’t worry. I will write you every day. Thinking of you will keep me strong. I know you’ll understand.

  Love,

  Henry

  She stared at the note as if she could unwrite it with her gaze, the delicate loops and curves of the letters unspooling into inconsequential blue lines; but the note remained stubbornly intact.

  Forgive me Dearest One, but History has outstretched her hand to me. Just as I obeyed my heart when I first saw you, so must I now obey again. While Wickett’s Remedy has not brought us wealth, it has confirmed the power of the written word. My family never meant for me to be a journalist, but with Wilson declaring war, it seems that Fate has other plans. As a soldier I will, of course, be serving my country, but I will also be disposed to write what I see and to fulfill what I have always suspected to be my true calling. When your husband returns a respected and accomplished reporter, a new life will await us. I feared you would try to stop me, and that tears and angry words would ensue. I prefer my parting memory of you to be as you look now, with your features in peaceful repose.

  “Henry?” she called, her voice reflecting off the bedroom walls. She had not been paying attention before, or she would have noticed the flat’s emptiness from the character of the surrounding silence; with Henry in his study, the quiet was less lonely, as if the flat could sense within it the beating of a second heart. She did not unpin the note from his pillow. She would not touch it—touching it would lend the words more credence. She returned to the parlor and sat down to her tea, not noticing until her cup was half empty that she had neglected to add milk or sugar. She ate her toast, then fixed her tea, and then drank Henry’s tea and ate his toast because she could not bear it going to waste. Buffered by the familiarity of two empty plates, she returned to the bedroom to dress where—so long as she avoided the sight of their bed—she could pretend that Henry, having finished his breakfast, had run for the streetcar. Once dressed, however, her imagination faltered. Unable to bear the note’s presence, she fled the flat as though the air had turned sour.

  Lydia could not bear to read this note more than once and her memory of it is subsequently poor. Henry, however, took great pains to compose this letter and remembers it well:

  On reaching the ground floor Lydia sank gratefully into one of the couches that dotted the lobby’s interior. She had left the flat without a clear idea of where she would go, but the sight of the street through the front entrance was a comfort. In the lobby, immersed in the Somerset’s usual morning bustle, she found it far easier to pretend at the note’s nonexistence. The pretense of normalcy lasted until Mrs. Lieben appeared. Usually the two women merely nodded politely in greeting but today her downstairs neighbor called out, “Good morning!” in a cheery voice that did not reach her eyes.

  Mrs. Liebnitz wonders if Mrs. Wickett never knew her proper name or if she forgot. When Mrs. Wickett moved in, Mrs. Liebnitz brought her a strudel, which she thinks Mrs. Wickett also forgot.

  “It is such wonderful news, yes?” Mrs. Lieben asked, her smile anxious.

  In Lydia’s current state it seemed Mrs. Lieben could only be talking of one thing.

  “Did you see him on his way out?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even.

  “Who do you speak of?” Mrs. Lieben asked in return, then smiled again. “Ah, it is your husband, the doctor.”

  “Yes,” Lydia answered, starting up from the couch. “Please, what did he tell you?”

  Mrs. Liebnitz remembers the fear inside her heart. Her husband laughed, but it was not for nothing she was afraid. Two months later their rent was raised with no warning, and she and Wolfgang had to find a building with kindness for Germans.

  “I have not seen him,” Mrs. Lieben answered, placing her hand on Lydia’s shoulder. She was talking too loudly now, as though she feared Lydia had gone deaf. “But I would like very much to tell him how too wonderful it is for our great President to declare the war. You will tell him for me, yes? You will tell him,” she confirmed, and nodding and smiling made her exit.

  In the wake of Mrs. Lieben’s departure Lydia found it impossible to perpetuate her charade; in the Somerset’s lobby Henry’s note had become as palpable a presence as it had been upstairs, and so she ventured outside. More people were on the street than usual and American flags hung from several buildings where there had been none before. Because she had not considered where she would go, her feet started by default toward her twice-daily destination. On her way to the post office, a boy in Scollay Square cried, “War at Last! Five cents! War at Last! Five cents!” When she quickened her pace to escape the newspaper boy she inadvertently crossed before an oncoming streetcar. Normally this would have caused a minor commotion but today the city was distracted by another matter. All around Lydia voices murmured; people stood on corners talking excitedly and making grand gestures with their hands.

  She sighed with relief on reaching the post office lobby. She turned her gaze toward the familiar wall of letter boxes as one looks homeward at the conclusion of a long journey—but the boxes were empty. Only then did she think to check the time. She was early: the morning mail had not yet been delivered. She found a bench along the wall, one that neither faced the letter boxes nor a clock. Her first thought was to wait for the morning delivery, but the initial comfort of this instinct faltered as soon as she realized that any incoming letters would require responses, which forced her mind to return to Henry’s note and its significance. Her husband had enlisted.

  She remained on the post office bench, observing the various comings and goings of strangers until the fact of her husband’s absence was no longer paralyzing. Then she retreated outside, mechanically retracing her steps. Intent on returning home, she became blind to the flags and newspaper boys, but when she reached the Somerset the prospect of the empty flat offered no comfort. She continued to walk.

  On Blossom Street she entered a small, strange bakery that smelled comfortingly of dough. Because there was no tea she ordered coffee and received a tiny ceramic cup with no handle, which contained the darkest, most bitter coffee she had ever tasted. The bakery was occupied by older women dressed in black, their gray-streaked hair wound into bulky buns behind their heads. The flesh of their faces and arms had gone soft. Fingers swollen with age immobilized rings planted by long-dead husbands. These women called and gestured to one another like children in a playground, their voices commanding the room. Lydia did not recognize the language but she was certain they spoke of the war—today the entire city was engaged in the same simultaneous conversation.

  The café was not strange, only Italian; and Vincent Iannacone thinks the young lady ungrateful for not remembering that her espresso that day was fee.

  Lydia finished her coffee. She would need a glass of water to drive the taste from her mouth, but rather than approach the counter she found herself tapping a neighboring shoulder. The woman who turned wore an expression more curious than friendly, as if Lydia were a stray cat with unusual markings who might or might not scratch when stroked.

  Lucia Petronelli does not remember what she and her friends were discussing the day the young sconoscuita came to their café, but she knows they were not discussing the war. Ignoring men’s foolishness was one great pleasure of widowhood.

  “My husband has joined the army,” she confessed, surprising herself. It seemed unlikely she would be understood and even if she was, she did not know what comfort a stranger could offer.

  The woman’s face spread into a broad, wide grin, revealing a gold tooth. “That is good,” she l
aughed, clapping her hands. The other women turned to look. “Very good,” the woman continued, nodding. “Army need strong men.”

  The other women began to nod as well, a chorus of moving heads.

  “Good!” one repeated.

  “Very good!” echoed another.

  “Strong men!” cackled a third, causing the entire room to burst into laughter.

  “But you don’t understand,” Lydia protested, her eyes filling with tears. “My husband isn’t strong at all; he’s small and frail.” She did not know which was more absurd: that Henry had joined the army or that this had become a topic of discussion among the widows of this odd café. She wished she had not spoken. She ought to have left as soon as she learned there was no tea.

  “Army make him strong,” the smiling woman pronounced. When she turned from Lydia the other women turned away as well, resuming their previous conversation as though they had never been interrupted. When Lydia staggered up from her table and stumbled outside, no one noticed. When she looked back through the window, her coffee cup had already been cleared away. There was no sign she had been there at all.

  If the young lady had ever returned she would have thought differently. Soon after her visit, tea graced Signore Iannacone’s menu.