The Signature of All Things

had been his wish, it hadn’t worked. Retta, for her part, became increasingly nervous around her quiet husband, which made her speak only more frantically, which, in turn, only made her husband more determinedly silent.
    After a few years of this, Retta had developed a most peculiar habit, which Alma found painful to watch. Retta would flutter her fingers helplessly in front of her mouth as she spoke, as though trying to catch the words as they came out of her—as though trying to stop the words, or even thrust them back in. Sometimes Retta was actually able to abort a sentence in the middle of some crazed thought or another, and then she would pressher fingers against her lips to prevent more speech from spilling out. But this triumph was even more difficult to witness, for that last, strange, unfinished sentence would hang uncomfortably in the air, while Retta, stricken, stared at her soundless husband, her eyes wild with apology.
    After enough of these upsetting performances, Mr. and Mrs. Hawkes stopped coming to dinner at all. Alma saw them only in their own home, when she came down to Arch Street to discuss publishing details with George.
    Wifehood, as it turned out, did not suit Mrs. Retta Snow Hawkes. She simply was not crafted for it. Indeed, adulthood itself did not suit her. There were too many restrictions involved in the custom, and far too much seriousness expected. Retta was no longer a silly girl who could go driving about the city so freely in her small two-wheeled chaise. She was now the wife and helpmeet of one of Philadelphia’s most respected publishers, and expected to comport herself as such. It was no longer dignified for Retta to be seen at the theater alone. Well, it never had been dignified, but in the past nobody had forbidden it. George forbade it. He did not enjoy the theater. George also required his wife to attend church services—several times a week, in fact—where Retta squirmed, childlike, in tedium. She could not dress so gaily after her marriage, either, nor break into song at the slightest whim. Or, rather, she could break into song, and sometimes did, but it did not look correct, and only infuriated her husband.
    As for motherhood, Retta had not been able to manage that responsibility either. Within a year of marriage there had been a pregnancy in the Hawkes household, but that pregnancy had ended in a miscarriage. The next year, there had been another unsuccessful pregnancy, and the year after that, another. After losing her fifth child, Retta had taken to her room in a most violent mania of despair. Neighbors could hear her sobbing, it was reported, from several houses away. Poor George Hawkes had no idea what to do with this desperate woman, and he was quite unable to work for several days in a row on account of his wife’s derangement. He had finally sent a message up to White Acre, begging for Alma to please come down to Arch Street and sit with her old friend, who was beyond all consolation.
    But by the time Alma had arrived, Retta was already sleeping, with a thumb in her mouth and her beautiful hair splayed across the pillow like bare black branches against a pale winter sky. George explained that the pharmacy had sent over a bit of laudanum, and this had seemed to work.
    “Pray, George, try not to make a habit of that,” Alma had warned. “Retta has an unusually sensitive constitution, and too much laudanum may do her harm. I know she can be a bit nonsensical at times, and even tragic. But my understanding of Retta is that she requires only patience and love in order to find her own way back to happiness. Perhaps if you give her more time . . .”
    “I apologize for having disturbed you,” George said.
    “Not at all,” Alma said. “I am always at your disposal, and Retta’s, too.”
    Alma wanted to say more—but what? She felt she may have spoken too freely already, or perhaps even criticized him as a husband. Poor man. He was exhausted.
    “Friendship is here, George,” she said, and laid her hand on his arm. “Use it. You may call upon me at any time.”
    Well, he did. He called upon Alma in 1826, when Retta cut off all her hair. He called upon Alma in 1835, when Retta vanished for three days, and was ultimately found in Fishtown, sleeping amid a pile of street children. He called upon her in 1842, when Retta came after a servant with a pair of sewing scissors, claiming that the woman was a ghost. The servant had not suffered serious injury, but