Patterns of Swallows (52 page)

"Yes,
well, a woman's prerogative, remember."

"Fair
enough. And believe me, I'm not scolding you for changing your mind.
At least not in this instance. If you change it back now, I will be
unhappy about it. At this moment, I couldn't be more thankful for
that woman's prerogative."

"But
tell me, what did you think I was playing at then?"

"Remember
that I'd had a little experience of ... of a particular type of
woman. The kind of woman who's maybe not completely above-board all
the time. I mean, after getting to know Lily well enough to know
what she was really like ... well, once bitten, twice shy."

"Point
taken. You thought you may have been mistaken in the kind of woman I
was. Go on."

"Well,
to see you with James and then to have you run after me, apparently
very concerned that I should think there was nothing between the two
of you – as though you were trying to string me along, too –
I thought ... well, it seemed to me like maybe you were the kind of
woman who ... like maybe you ... there's a type of woman, and of a
man, too, of course, who thinks more of the power they can exercise
over the opposite sex than ... I mean, with Lily, for instance, I
soon learned that her feelings for me, maybe for anyone, didn't run
very deep. Maybe they couldn't. But what went deep with her was to
have a man running after her. That meant more to her than what she
felt for him. It's the love of power rather than the power to love,
I suppose, and women can exercise a great deal of power over a man if
they choose. I'm sorry to say that, for a whole day and a half, I've
been trying to convince myself that you were that kind of a woman.
That you were the type of woman who would turn a man down one day and
then run after him the next, just to hang on to him. That, of
course, you had many excellent qualities but that there was your
failing. And that I'd just have to get over my illusions about you
and see past your shortcomings and go on being your friend as I'd
promised. In fact, in my bitterness, I turned so irrational as to
start to think that maybe all women were like Lily in that area, and
I shouldn't hold it against you for being like all other women, etc.
etc. But the alternative – that you were concerned I should
know that there was nothing between you and James because you
actually did care something for me – well, that seemed
unbelievable. Especially after I'd seen you with James. It seemed
to me that you were using either one or the both of us to play us off
the other. And it was quite shattering to think that."

"Guilty,"
Ruth said. "Except that I was using James. Not you. I wasn't
using
you. I was only trying to deceive you. And I have repented bitterly
since then for both those sins."

Bo
laughed. "For some reason, I find those failings extremely easy
to forgive all of a sudden. Not like when I thought I was the one
being used. Poor James."

"Don't
you waste a thought on him. I'm not worried about James."

"Well,
then, I won't worry about him either though you may have done more
damage to his heart than you seem to think."

"Unlikely,
but if I have, he'll soon recover."

"Heartless
woman!"

"Not
quite."

The
two had been imperceptibly drawing closer and closer together, as
though by an invisible magnetic force, throughout this exchange.
They looked each other straight in the face for a moment. It was Bo
who drew back.

"If
you feel like we've got it all sorted out and you'll be able to sleep
now, maybe you'd better get inside so your mother-in-law can get some
rest, too."

Ruth
laughed and jumped out of the pickup without another word. Sleep was
a forlorn hope, she was sure, but it didn't matter now.

"Ruth,"
he stopped her as she was almost at the front door, "We can
still talk this out tomorrow, too. Let's say after work? For
dinner? Tell your mother-in-law you won't be home for dinner."

"Okay,"
she said shyly, waved, and went inside.

*
* *

As
she had thought, the only sleep she got that night was her nap in
Bo's pickup. But lying awake with happy thoughts is much different
than lying awake with unhappy ones. Sleep was not regretted.

She
replayed different scenes from the night over and over.

How
silly the incident with James had been, and yet, now she wasn't sorry
it had happened. It was a roundabout way of getting to a point of
understanding between her and Bo, but they'd arrived there in the
end. Probably better to have gone straight to that point in the
first place, but ... ah, well. She'd have to thank Mom in the
morning when she told her the outcome.

What
a man he was above all the other men she'd ever known!

She
dwelt tirelessly on the look she'd seen in his eyes as they'd met
hers on Sunday when she finished her solo.

All
the painful yearning of months, even years, had been poured into his
look in that one, unguarded moment when he hadn't known she was going
to see it.

And
yet, in spite of the pain, he'd determined to go on being her friend,
enduring the discomfort of being near her and believing she didn't
care for him.

When
he saw her, as he believed, happy with someone else, he'd determined
to be glad for her in spite of what her happiness did to him.

Even
when he'd believed her to be less than he'd believed her to be, he'd
wrestled with himself until he'd determined to overlook her faults
and go on thinking the best of her that he could.

Was
there anything he wouldn't do for her? She believed he'd die for her
if it came to that.

The
words of a passage in the Bible from Ephesians 5 that she treasured
came back to her.

Therefore
as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their
own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as
Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it ... For this
cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined
unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great
mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

It
seemed that everywhere she turned these days, she saw pictures that
all pointed in one direction. And that direction was death. But,
oh, what a beautiful picture this was! And what a beauty in this
death!

She'd
been married once. She understood the little, daily, hourly,
minutely doses of death that were required to make a marriage work.
She understood that if her relationship with Bo took them toward
marriage (and honesty caused her to acknowledge, in spite of the
boldness of the thought, that the relationship was certainly taking
them toward marriage), then there would be death required of her.
There would be death required of Bo.

It
was a little death to put aside her own wishes, her own rights, her
own ideas, her own feelings in order to make room for someone else
and his wishes and rights and ideas and feelings. She was no more
naturally unselfish than any other human. And death was never easy.

But
through that death, what a glorious resurrection! The death of the
two, separate, self-willed, self-serving entities. The raising to
life of the one flesh.

Life
through death. There was no other way to real life. Its path lay
through death.

And
there was no more heart-stoppingly romantic figure than the one
willing to give himself for the one he loved. Willing to lay down
his own wishes and rights and ideas and feelings. Willing to lay
down his own life.

How
could she help loving Bo when he reminded her so strongly of another
One who had been willing to lay down His life for her?

Bo's
only a man
,
she reminded herself.
I
mustn't put him on a pedestal, or he'll be sure to fall off it.
There's only One who won't fall off any pedestal I put Him on
.

But
how true it was! The glorious resurrection of the one flesh in
marriage was indeed an awesome picture.

Her
eyes filled, and she sang the beautiful, old words in a whisper,
"Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly ..."

*
* *

Exhausted
as she was from her sleepless night, nothing could have kept her away
from her date with Bo. Even if she slept through it, she was going.

They
left immediately from work. When he'd picked her up in the morning,
Bo had advised taking a change of clothes, and Ruth had run back
inside for a pair of blue jeans and an old sweater that she'd thrown
on after work was finished.

She
wasn't surprised to find that Bo's pickup turned in the direction of
the road to the lake. No crowded, noisy restaurant for their first
date. Only the open air and the still and the calm and the blue,
blue water and sky of God's creation (and the baloney sandwiches
she'd spotted in a decrepit picnic basket in the pickup). Baloney
wasn't her favourite, but bless his heart! He'd wanted to make their
picnic with his own, two hands and probably couldn't fix anything
else. She was oddly touched by the baloney sandwiches.

She
hadn't been to the lake since a time when she'd been there last with
Graham. She fought with old memories. But it would be a good place
for a new start with Bo. It was good to face old memories. It was
time to start making new ones.

There
had never been such a spring in recent memory. Or in any memory of
Ruth's possession.

It
was the end of April, and all the apple trees were in full bloom.

Ruth
strolled through the orchard where Bo was checking irrigation lines
and where she'd agreed to meet him at the end of her working day. He
had something he wanted to show her, he'd said.

She
let out an ear-splitting whistle, a talent she'd learned in
childhood, and followed the sound of the replying whistle.

Bo's
smile of welcome lit the orchard.

"I
have three more rows to finish checking. Wanna come along?" he
asked.

They
strolled beneath the canopy of trees – in their spring finery
resembling downy, earth-bound clouds on gnarled trunks – down
the aisles of long grass littered with white petals. There was no
need for speech nor touch. They were perfectly content just to be
near each other, experiencing a shared experience of spring in the
orchard and the silent presence of the other.

When
Bo was finished with the irrigation lines, he led Ruth to where he'd
parked the pickup.

He
surprised her by taking the road that led to the farm.

"Where
are we going? Are you taking me home first? What'd you wanna show
me?" she couldn't stop herself from asking.

"Haven't
you ever heard that patience is a virtue?" Bo asked, visibly
excited about something.

"So
I've heard. But you should know by now, it's a virtue I'm lacking."

"That's
my role. To try your patience till it grows and develops."

"Oh,
all right then. Be mysterious."

Bo
pulled into the driveway of the farm house, but he guided her toward
the fence line instead of toward the farm house.

"We're
going trespassing on my neighbour's property? That's what you
brought me here for?"

"It's
not your neighbour's property."

"Sure
is. Don't you remember? I told you I sold it to him. It's been his
for months now; almost a year."

"And
I'm telling you it's not your neighbour's property."

"You
mean Johnny sold it? Without saying a word to me about it? To who?
To whom, I mean?"

"Didn't
you hear that Johnny's packing up and moving back to the Okanagan?
Sold off all the cattle. He wanted to get away from large animal
farming, I guess. He put in an offer on a chicken farm near Kelowna,
and it was accepted."

"How
do you know so much about it? Why didn't he say a word to me?"