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Authors: Myla Goldberg
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granddaughter refers, Maureen’s hands are hidden by her dress, but they were just as her granddaughter describes.
From the moment Henry invested her with the task of designing the Wickett’s label, Lydia had known itwould be a pale blue shield depicting a girl with dark plaits clutching a flower blossom, topped by the words WICKETT’S REMEDY in bold, dark letters. She had assumed an artist would be needed for its execution, but to her surprise Henry not only lettered the label but drew the requisite portrait, emerging from his office only a few hours after she had submitted her design.
The picture came as a shock. In her mind, the girl on the Wickett’s label was one of those generic, soft-haired cherubs who graced cookie tins and cough syrup. Henry’s creation had Lydia’s rounded nose and his gentle eyes. Though her daydreams were filled with children who shared her and Henry’s features, seeing an actual picture caused her chest to ache. Her first instinct was to hide the girl’s portrait in her top dresser drawer with her letters from the worldly suitor who also had not succeeded from paper to flesh and blood.
The face Henry drew had quietly graced his imagination since his wedding night. It belonged to a daughter whose name—Lucy—he had also intended to share with Lydia until he observed the portrait’s unintended effect.
After the first months of marriage, their shared silence on the topic of childlessness seemed to stem from the mutual sense that discussion would grant the subject unwanted substance. The appearance of such a picture after a year of fruitless, wordless efforts breached this tacit agreement. A different portrait would be better, one that did not take as its model their unrealized hopes. But when Lydia turned toward Henry to explain this, the yearning she saw there revealed the cruelty of such a request. He had created a child. And so, because she had to say something, she exclaimed that she had no idea she had married an artist. In answer, he explained that he had been embarrassed by his doodling until medical school, where to avoid wielding a scalpel he had diagrammed dissections for his lab mates and, in so doing, improved his technique. Thuswas the unspeakable topic opened and closed without either of them ever saying a word.
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
From the moment Henry invested her with the task of designing the Wickett’s label, Lydia had known itwould be a pale blue shield depicting a girl with dark plaits clutching a flower blossom, topped by the words WICKETT’S REMEDY in bold, dark letters. She had assumed an artist would be needed for its execution, but to her surprise Henry not only lettered the label but drew the requisite portrait, emerging from his office only a few hours after she had submitted her design.
The picture came as a shock. In her mind, the girl on the Wickett’s label was one of those generic, soft-haired cherubs who graced cookie tins and cough syrup. Henry’s creation had Lydia’s rounded nose and his gentle eyes. Though her daydreams were filled with children who shared her and Henry’s features, seeing an actual picture caused her chest to ache. Her first instinct was to hide the girl’s portrait in her top dresser drawer with her letters from the worldly suitor who also had not succeeded from paper to flesh and blood.
The face Henry drew had quietly graced his imagination since his wedding night. It belonged to a daughter whose name—Lucy—he had also intended to share with Lydia until he observed the portrait’s unintended effect.
After the first months of marriage, their shared silence on the topic of childlessness seemed to stem from the mutual sense that discussion would grant the subject unwanted substance. The appearance of such a picture after a year of fruitless, wordless efforts breached this tacit agreement. A different portrait would be better, one that did not take as its model their unrealized hopes. But when Lydia turned toward Henry to explain this, the yearning she saw there revealed the cruelty of such a request. He had created a child. And so, because she had to say something, she exclaimed that she had no idea she had married an artist. In answer, he explained that he had been embarrassed by his doodling until medical school, where to avoid wielding a scalpel he had diagrammed dissections for his lab mates and, in so doing, improved his technique. Thuswas the unspeakable topic opened and closed without either of them ever saying a word.
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
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