A Gift Upon the Shore (41 page)

Luke, at least you gave your son something to think about—if he's willing to face it
.

I fold the letter and slip it into my skirt pocket, then look at Stephen. He stares at my hands as if they still held the letter, a muscle tensing spasmodically in his jaw. I say, “Stephen, the story is ended now. There's no more I can tell you.”

“Isn't there?”

That question is so curt, so coldly adult, I am for a moment shocked and even angry. Stephen seems to realize, too late, the cold charge in his words. He turns away, holding himself rigid.

And I chide myself for my anger. I don't know what's preying on his mind, but it's serious, and I must understand it. I study his profile, the tight, sculpted contours of his full lips, and I wait for him to speak, but he seems willing to outwait me. At length, I ask, “You don't think the story is finished?”

He rises, goes to the railing, keeping his back to me, and again I wait, for the first time afraid. When at last he turns, his eyes fix on me with a gaze so full of fear and doubt I'm hard-pressed not to look away.

“Miriam told me something after morning service.”

Miriam. Of course.

“What did she tell you?”

“She said Rachel was an unbeliever.”

Rage is my first response to that, and I feel the chill of pallor in my face. How did Miriam know that? Has she been reading my diaries?

I almost laugh at that explanation, at the thought of Miriam purloining my diaries, poring over them in secret, trying to decipher my writing, laboriously spelling out each word.

No, the explanation is undoubtedly far more straightforward: to call Rachel an unbeliever was simply the worst thing Miriam could think of to say against her. She didn't care about the truth or falsity of her accusation.

And it is immaterial why she chose that particular blade to cut the bonds between Stephen and me. She chose her weapon well, however inadvertently. In these people's lexicon, unbelief and evil are synonymous. I needed time to prepare him for this, to teach him that there are many answers to the question of the existence of a god. But Miriam has forced the issue, and the damage she's done may be irrevocable. I can't lie to Stephen. Not now, with his dark, seeking eyes fixed on me. He would recognize a lie.

I ask, “Did you wonder why Miriam told you that?”

“Yes. But it doesn't matter, does it? I mean, if it's not true.”

“It matters. But not as much as what you feel about it. Obviously it bothers you a great deal. Does it frighten you?”

He starts to answer negatively, then pauses to think about it and says, “Yes, I guess it does.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought Rachel—I mean, everything you told me about her made me think she was good and wise and brave, but now . . .” The chagrin in his voice almost overwhelms his words. “It isn't true, is it? Rachel
wasn't
an unbeliever.”

He seems to be begging for a comforting lie. No, he is begging for a comforting truth, and I can't offer it to him. I rise, take a step toward him, then stop, feeling his tension. He doesn't want me to touch him.

“Everything I told you about Rachel was true, Stephen. She
was
good and wise and brave. But there was one thing I didn't tell you. I didn't think you were capable of dealing with it yet. And I was right.”

He stiffens, perhaps stung by that. “Then what Miriam said—it's true, isn't it? Rachel was . . . an unbeliever.”

And finally I must answer, “Yes.”

He is stunned by that syllable, staring at me as if I'd betrayed him, just as Jerry stared at me with incredulous accusation only a few days ago. But I can feel no anger for Stephen as I did for Jerry. I can only feel myself betrayed.

“Stephen, what you believe about god is your concern. It is your right as a human being to believe anything that makes sense to you. And it was Rachel's right to believe what made sense to
her
. If her beliefs don't agree with yours, does that negate her goodness, her wisdom, or her courage?”

He is as close to weeping as I am, but he won't give in to tears. He stands facing me, rigid and trembling, his voice thick. “But if she didn't believe in God . . .”

“What? Does it follow inevitably that she was evil? That's the way Miriam thinks, the way she wants everyone else to think.”

“And you—what do
you
think? Are you . . .”

He can't speak the words. He wants to know if I'm an unbeliever, too. Oh, Miriam, how unerringly your blade has gone to the jugular.

“Stephen, what difference does it make what
I
believe? I've never asked you to believe the way I do, any more than Rachel asked me to believe the way
she
did. I just want you to . . .”

But he is past hearing what I want, what I hope for him. He stares at me as if he had never seen me before, and I know I've lost him.

My scholar, my hope for humankind. My heir. As much my son as the infant who died in my womb. I've lost him.

“I have to go help Jeremiah,” he says coldly.

And I stand helpless, wordless, while he walks away from me.

In the vacuum he leaves, I clutch the railing for support, and the pain I feel now is shaped like grief and is of the same substance.

There have been times in my life when I knew that if dying were easy, if I had only to let go and slip into that sleep past dreams, I would do it. This is such a time, and age has eroded my will; I feel no resilience in body or mind. I am too brittle and fragile to withstand the shearing stress of this grief, of this defeat.

But dying is seldom easy, and even at the nadirs of despair, I always had a compelling rationale to hold on to life. My aching hands grasp the railing, and behind my closed eyes I seek the rationale that will give me a hold on life, on hope, at this moment.

What I find, finally, is stubborn pride. Will I spend my last years in defeated despair, or will I risk them for the shreds of hope?

Will I surrender to Miriam?

I straighten, look out at the sun-spangled sea, and I laugh, bitterly, on the edge of weeping.

Miriam, you've won another battle, but I still will not surrender.

That means I must begin my preparations for the next battle. My eyes are dry as I leave the deck and go to my room. I replace Luke's letter in its box in my souvenir drawer. My pulse beats hard and slow in my ears, and I feel a hint of the familiar constriction in my chest.

When I emerge into the greenhouse again, Bernadette is at her worktable transplanting seedlings into pots. She turns and studies me with narrowed eyes. “Stephen's lesson over so soon?”

I only shrug. “I'm going for a walk on the beach.”

She presses dirt around a seedling with her small, strong fingers, nodding absently. “Take care, Mary.”

When I leave the greenhouse, I call Shadow, then make my way down to the beach, with Shadow trotting ahead of me. I go south, but only as far as the old beach access where the bank is low, and I can make my way easily up to North Front Road. I follow it past the ruins of the Acres house back toward Amarna. Once I leave the remains of the asphalt, there isn't much left of the road into Amarna. The gravel is buried in moss; alders and bracken fern encroach on the margins, leaving only the tracks of our wagon wheels. I pass the gate at Amarna quickly, hoping no one there sees me, and walk up the quarry road until I come to the trail that leads to the tree. It seems fitting that my preparations should begin there.

At length, I reach the tree and sit down on the bench. I feel Stephen's absence here, and I lock my hands together, accepting the pain to focus my thoughts away from him. I look up at the granitic column of the tree, savoring its monumental silence, gathering strength out of my memories.

Finally I call Shadow from her explorations. She comes to me panting, plumed tail waving.

“Shadow, speak!”

She knows that command and responds with three sharp barks. They seem brazenly loud in this domain of quiet. I lean down to pet her. “Good girl, Shadow, good girl.”

Next I pull the silent whistle out from under my collar. It wheezes softly as I blow on it, but what Shadow hears makes her dance with confused excitement. The whistle means
come here
, but she's already
here
. I blow on the whistle again and say, “Speak, Shadow!”

For the next two hours—what I judge to be two hours by the movement of the shadows around me—I continue the lesson, working with her for a few minutes, then letting her go to explore or find water at the Styx, which murmurs unseen in the jungle of elderberry and fern. Then I whistle her back, repeat the lesson, and before this training session is over, she not only comes for the whistle, as she always did, but I usually hear her bark before she appears. But she isn't consistent, and I must have consistency in this. My life may depend on Shadow.

At supper I sense a different pitch in the tension that makes all but the most necessary or banal conversation impossible. Stephen is distracted and quiet, his gaze seldom lifted above his plate. He hasn't had a word for me, but neither has he spoken, except when questioned, to anyone else, and the questions haven't gone beyond whether he wants another helping of chicken. No one has asked about our truncated lesson this afternoon; no one seems interested in that small change in schedule. We've all withdrawn into ourselves, and I can almost hear the hum of thought, but none of it is expressed aloud.

And Miriam watches me, the cold fire in her eyes glowing perceptibly brighter this evening.

After supper, the skim of high, curdled altocumulus clouds in the west colors splendidly, but I enjoy that display alone. The family is at evening service. I wonder what text Jerry has chosen for his sermon tonight.
Before the cock crows, thou shalt deny me thrice
?

When the color fades from the sky, I go to my room and undress, put on my nightgown and robe, then take a book and my magnifying glass to the living room. I sit in the big armchair at the south end of the couch, ostensibly for the light from the oil lamp on the side table between the couch and the chair. But from this position, I have only to lean a little to the right to see the far corner of the dining room. The basement door is on the south wall of that corner, the backdoor on the east wall.

When the family comes in from evening service, they aren't surprised to find me here. I often read here by the fire and often stay up after the others have gone to sleep. Bernadette brings me my nightly cup of willow bark tea and sits down long enough to drink a cup of comfrey tea herself. She is never talkative, and tonight her terse conversation centers on Deborah, her apprentice. “Well, you were right, Mary. She does have a way with plants. Asks too many questions, though.” But when she rises to leave, she adds: “Maybe I'll take her with me next time I go out for wild herbs.”

When at last everyone has gone to bed, I stoke up the fire and settle down with Shadow sharing my chair, Diamond lying at my feet, the two black cats, Dante and Beatrice, curled on the couch. I'm reading
Alice
in
Wonderland
. My excuse is that I plan to use it in school. The ironies will be lost on the children, but they'll enjoy the fantasy.

My reading late isn't unusual, but I seldom stay at it past ten o'clock. Tonight I remain at my post, rising occasionally to revive the fire, to let a cat or dog in or out, or simply to limber my stiff limbs, until long after the Seth Thomas clangs out midnight. I am relishing the courtroom scene in
Alice
when Shadow, who is again nestled beside me in the big chair, raises her head, ears tilting after a sound. A soft tread on the basement steps, no doubt. A moment later the door opens.

Little light from the lamp reaches the basement door, yet Miriam's white nightgown augments the light, makes a ghost of her. But ghosts aren't pictured wearing moccasin boots. I watch her as she reaches for the knob of the outside door, then hesitates, turns toward me.

She remains motionless, and I am for a time—it seems a long time—paralyzed with fear.

Will she kill me now
?

No, of course not. So says my rational mind as she slowly approaches me. Shadow growls, white, curved canines glinting. I rest my hand at the back of her neck, and the growling ceases.

Miriam stops perhaps two yards away, the golden light caught in her bright hair, lighting her blue eyes where the banked fire glows.

She says softly, “You're up late tonight, Mary.”

“Am I? Well, I don't feel sleepy.”

She smiles, only the lifting of the corners of her mouth. Then she walks back to the basement door, pauses there, speaks to me out of the shadows. “You'll get sleepy, Mary. Sooner or later you'll get sleepy.” She opens the door and disappears beyond it. The door closes quietly.

My breath comes out in a tremulous sigh, and my heart is beating too fast.

Yes, Miriam, I
will
get sleepy, probably sooner than later. I can't keep up a vigil every night indefinitely. Miriam will be patient now. She will wait, and that's all I can hope for.

I stay at my post through the night until the clock strikes five, when I go out on the deck, see the gibbous moon hanging like a worn piece of ivory filmed with rose mist. The sky is deep blue; birds are already singing. Jerry will wake soon. His inner clock is amazingly attuned to the sun and always sounds an alarm in his head about half an hour before sunrise. Miriam knows that as well as I do, and that means I can safely leave my post now. I go to my room to sleep for an hour. I'm already feeling the lack of sleep.

And this is only the first night.

The day is much like the last three, although the pervading tension seems to have eased to some small degree, as if everyone decided that since nothing disastrous has happened thus far, they could relax, if only slightly. There is, of course, no relaxation of the tension that exists between Miriam and me.