The Marriage Cure (11 page)

“I've had my fill of the bed,” h
e said when she tried to coax him to lie down.

When later, his color came back a bit and the tight line down his forehead eased, she stood behind him, hands on his shoulders.

“Did ye mean it?” s
he asked
.

“What?”

“What ye said to them in the corn.”

He called her his wife; words that resonated in her soul but she wanted to be certain he meant them.

“Ah, that,
” Johnny said
.
His tone was lighter now than any time since they heard the Payton men coming
.
“Aye, ye know I did, woman
.
Ta gra agam duit
.”

Her eyes moistened, her heart expanded, and she felt so happy that it almost hurt.

“I love ye, too,
Johnny dhu
,
mo anam cara
.”

Johnny turned to face her, the smile on his face lighting his eyes.

“Then will ye live with me and be my wife?
Nial a
on leighea ar an ngra ach posadh
.
"

“'Tis true,
” Sabetha whispered. “So cure me with marriage, then, and I'll cure ye?”

“Aye.”

“I'll be yer wife but Johnny?”

“What?”

She did not know how to say it so she just blurted it out.

“There's no one to wed us proper.”

He laughed and rose, almost turning the bench over in the process, and swept her into his embrace
.
“Do ye care? I'll take ye to a priest when one is to be found
,
or a minister
,
but in the meantime, hand fasting is good enough for me.”

Sabetha remembered how her Da spoke of hand fasting, how he and her Ma married so
.
It was, he said, a way of wedding that went back far before the Christ and before St. Patrick brought salvation to Ireland
.
If it worked then, he told her, it was valid enough now.

“
My own parents married that way,
” Sabetha said. “They did, back in County Tyrone.”

“Then won't we do the same?” h
e said. “If ye like, I can kill ye a deer and bring it to you, the
Tsa-La-Gi
way but I'm never sure I can hunt without falling over in the woods and I don't want to wait.”

“I don't want to wait either.”

They stood, facing each other, hands clasped.

“I take
ye, Sabetha, to be my own wife,
” Johnny began, trying to recall some if not all of the words from his hasty marriage to Janey but he could not. “I'll love ye, provide for ye, and care for ye as long as I live.”

She was crying, tears of
joy as she said her vow to him,

“
Is sibhse fuil m'fhuil, agus cnamh mo chnamh, Tugaim duit mo chrop sa chaoi is go mbiodh an beirt again mar dhuide amhian, tugaim duit mo spiorad go crioch na saol.”

It was the old vow, ancient, that her Da had spoken to her mother, blood of my blood, bone of my bone, I give ye my body so we may be one, I give ye my spirit until our life is done.

He repeated the words back to her, his tongue as fluent with the Gaelic as hers
.
His face, as he recited the vow, was tender.

“Now ye
are my wife, before God and man,
” Johnny said
.
Hands still clasped, they kissed, sweet at first and then warm as her blood rose
.
Passion blossomed in her veins, carried little shivers of delight to every part of her body
.
She wanted him, body, and soul, and from the way he kissed her, he wanted it too.

Reason cast aside in the rising ardor, she did not stop to wonder if he felt well enough or if he might be strong enough
.
Instead, she released his hands, undid her dress, and stepped out
of it
.
She came to him as naked as the hour of her birth, her long hair falling free and loose over them both.

****

Johnny Devaney

The pain in his head receded as he spoke his vows to her, committed his life and love to Sabetha
.
When she spoke the old words, his heart filled almost to bursting and he thought he could bear no more until their lips touched
.
That kiss sealed their marriage but ignited fires he banked long before, fanned the embers into raging flames that threatened to consume them both in its heat.

When Sabetha removed her dress and let down her hair, he respond
ed.
My,
but she was comely, her body lovely and well made as he touched her, put his hands over all her secret places
.
She took his face between her hands, kissed him with such force than he knew they would consummate this marriage even if it killed him
.
He kicked off the breeches and stripped the shirt away with one fluid motion, giving back what she gave in kind.

She was no virgin, he remembered, but a seasoned widow
.
From her movements, he thought it likely that she never reached fulfillment and he promised he would give her what Henry Trahern did not.
He explored her, caressed her skin, and claimed her.
Johnny gloried in their love until that defining moment ascended into the nearest thing to heaven on earth.

Afterward, they lay spent, tangled together upon the bed sated and renewed
.
Such contentment poured over him that he basked in it and let it steal over him until he slept.

He did not wake until deep into the reaches of the night and found her curled beside him, tucked into the curve of his arm
.
He kissed her awake
.
When she roused enough to listen, he spoke.

“Wife, I love ye
.
I'll not say it every day but I will love ye till I die.”

“
Mo chroi
, ‘tis enough ye're here.”

“My old life is dead,
” Johnny said
.
“Ye'll build a new one with me, woman.”

“I will,
” Sabetha whispered. “Are ye well?”

“Aye, I am,” h
e told her
.
Although still weak in body, he felt strong
.
His heart brimmed full with joy and his body longed to do again what they had just done
.
He wasn't sure if he had the stamina but he was willing to try
.
“Would ye ever want to love me again?”

Her body shook with laughter, merry peals that he liked.

“I would but can ye?”

He could and he did.

That time, he finished lovemaking weak but happy
.
Johnny slept, one arm around his woman, and did not wake until after daylight.

****

Sabetha Mahoney Devaney

When she awakened, her body felt wonderful, both sated and rested
.
Henry's clumsy efforts had never made her feel so alive or so delicious
.
She lay beside Johnny, half-asleep, lingering because it felt so nice to be beside him
.
Asleep and happy, he looked so young with the lines in his face relaxed more than she had ever seen them
.
She had never thought about his age before but watching him now, she thought he must not be much older than she was, younger than she might have guessed
.
Sabetha felt giddy as a girl and until now, when she was not alone, she had not realized just how heavy loneliness weighed upon her.

Rising, she found her dress, buttoned back into it, and then combed out her hair, tangled and knotted
.
Then she braided it and found the few wooden hairpins she owned so that she could put it up
.
She slipped out to bring fresh water from the spring and when she returned, he was awake.

“
Conas atu tu, mo chroi
?” s
he asked.

Johnny stretched out his hand to her with a smile and she came to the bed, wrapping her fingers around his.

“
Ta me go maith
,”
h
e said, kissing her fingers
.
“I'm grand but I'm hungry.”

“Then I'll feed ye,
” Sabetha said
.
“It is food ye're wanting?”

He laughed. “It is, for now
.
But I'll never be done hungering for ye, woman.”

She felt the warmth of the blush in her face but she smiled back at him.

“I have fresh eggs,” s
he said
.
“I can scramble them if ye like.”

He released her hand so he could stretch and rise.

“I would
.
Ye wouldn't have a few rashers of bacon to go with it?”

She hoped he was teasing because she had none, no pork at all
.
“I would not.”

“Then the eggs will do, Sabetha.”

Their first meal together as man and wife was a simple one but enough
.
After breakfast, they went together about the chores and finished in the corn just after noon
.
Working in tandem
made
everything easier
,
and she could see a future, something to hope for, stretching ahead instead of just a chain of days, one like the other
.
Until he came, her life had been empty; now it was full.

Today marked a beginning, she thought with a smile, and celebrated a love that would last for the rest of the
ir
lives or beyond.

Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy was born in the old frontier city of St. Joseph, Missouri, a descendant of both some of the earliest settlers and immigrant stock.
She began scribbling her stories early and grew up into a writer.
She holds degrees from both Crowder College and Missouri Southern State University, spent a number of years working in radio broadcasting and
currently
has eight other novels
and
novellas available to the public.

She is a member of Romance Writers of America, the Missouri Writers Guild, and the Ozark Writers League.
Her short fiction has appeared in many places, both print and online
,
as well as in nine anthologies.

She now makes her home in a small town in the Ozark Mountains with her husband and three children.

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