Read Online Wickett's Remedy by Myla Goldberg - Free Book Online Page B

distress, strode to themiddle 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 becameaccustomed 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 unhappinesscould 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