May 22, 1929 … Afternoon

Something is not right with Henry.

Despite eating a ton of food, he appears to be shrinking, every day dissolving into a bag of bones. The circles under his eyes seem permanent.

He refuses to let me examine him, but every day I see new marks on his body. Bruises. Cuts. Despite the heat, he continued wearing long sleeves to stop me from pestering him.

Clearly, there’s something very wrong, but I don’t know what it is or what to do.

But, the worst part was the stench.

It was yesterday when I began to smell it. Like something rotten. Fetid. At first, I assumed something had died in the house—maybe a rat or a mouse. I started searching all the nooks and crannies. Henry refused to let me in his room, said he would search it himself.

I found nothing.

The smell intensified. I asked Father to check the cellar. Henry still refused to let me into his room.

I got so desperate, I hid upstairs and waited for him to leave. I knew eventually he would end up in the kitchen grabbing a snack, because Cook was downstairs baking his favorite cookies and the sweet smell was battling the scent of decay and rot as to which would rule the house. The combination was making me slightly nauseous, but I suspected Henry would have a different reaction. I had a feeling the lure of freshly-baked cookies would wear him down at some point, I just knew it.

Finally! His door cracked open and out he came. As soon as he had descended the staircase, I hurried to his room.

The moment I opened the door, I started gagging and had to hold my handkerchief over my nose until I yanked a window open.

There were piles of clothes stained with blood and sweat on the floor. The bed reeked of body odor. I quickly stripped the bed and scooped up the pile. The sooner I got this in the wash, the better.

“Oh, my dear God in Heaven, that smell!” Gertrude was standing at the door, her hand over her nose.

“I know, I’ve got to get this washed. Can you put clean sheets on?”

“Of course.” She went to the linen closet to pull out new bedding. “Where is it coming from?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. There didn’t seem to be enough blood and sweat to have caused this bad of an odor. Was there a dead mouse in there too? I did a quick check in the closet and under the bed and I didn’t see anything. None of this was making any sense.

I took the soiled items down the stairs, trying to hurry past the kitchen before Henry saw me, but too late. I saw his eyes widen when he realized what I held in my arms. “What are you doing? Were you in my room?”

“Henry,” I tried to interrupt, to pacify him, but he was already on his feet, his pale face flushed an angry red.

“You can’t do that! You can’t go into my room!”

“But, Henry. The smell,” I tried to say. “Don’t you want clean clothes?”

“I don’t want clean anything,” he shouted, and stormed up the stairs. I heard him yelling at Gertrude to get out before he slammed the door. I could only hope she finished making the bed before he threw her out.

What was happening?