The truth had long been settling on Jonathan Gray, sneaking into his resisting corners, but it had finally resounded in the deepest part of him. He'd prayed it wasn't so, hoped that if he willed it untrue it would be. But it was true. He knew it. At last it had to be faced…and dealt with. After denying it all these years, it had come to Jonathan Gray that he was infertile.
Jonathan and Aaron had suffered together in that winter when it had happened, as they'd suffered most of their childhood illnesses together. As only brothers they'd shared everything from the tin cup on top of the water pump to the bed they'd slept in all their growing years, so it was only natural that what one got, the other one got, from the croup of babyhood to the head colds of childhood and, finally, the mumps of adolescence. It was the mumps that had done it.
Who's to say why they'd stayed up on Aaron and moved down on Jonathan. Their ma had tried everything from packs of icy, burning-cold snow to poultices of boiled beans, but Jonathan's swelling genitals had stubbornly refused to sub- side.
It was one of the few times he ever remembered Doc Haymes coming out to their house, and maybe that had something to do with his mistrust of the man now. "There's nothing I can do that you haven't already done, Mrs. Gray," the doc had said, and those words rang now in Jonathan's memory. He blamed the doc because Haymes had found no way to take away the pain.
When it was over and done with, they'd all said not to worry because it wasn't a sure thing he'd been damaged. Probably he'd end up with more babies than he needed, they'd ventured.
But he'd been married seven years and there were no ba- bies yet. He and Mary had been trying all that time, and now it seemed almost certain there wouldn't ever be any babies.
And that old fool Haymes hadn't helped matters recently, either. For the life of him, Jonathan couldn't figure out why Mary listened to Haymes's farfetched notions. Now he had her counting the days on the calendar with some nonsense about some days it can happen and some days it can't. That riled Jonathan. Somebody ought to shake some sense into that old fool's head, but Jonathan was a peaceful man and it wouldn't be him that did it. Besides, the old fool seemed to keep Mary hopeful. So Jonathan stifled his tongue and went along with it when she announced it was the right day to try again. But he cursed Haymes half of the time for giving her false hopes.
But the pretending got harder and harder and the bed seemed smaller and smaller as their lovemaking brought no babies. The strain was rife between Jonathan and Mary, and nothing would ease it ex- cept the baby they both wanted and couldn't have.
It wasn't clear in Jonathan's head just when the notion had come to him, but it was somewhere back during the past winter. He'd had time to mull it over in his mind, holding it, weighing it, measuring it, rolling it back and forth as he might work a lump of spring soil, wondering just when it'd be ready for its mating with the seeds.
When it first came to him he was sitting where he was now, right here in the family pew after Sunday services, soaking up the good closeness of himself and the Lord after all the others had left the two of them alone for a while. It was a time he enjoyed best. Let the others yammer away, exchanging gossip in the churchyard like they always did on a Sunday. He'd rather spend his last few minutes here.
He'd been reading his Bible, easing his eyes over some words there, when he came to a verse that held his mind from wandering on: "Take unto thee Aaron thy brother and his sons with him." At first it was Aaron's name that held him, made him go over it one more time. It was hard to say who had taken whom unto whom, for Aaron and Jonathan still shared their childhood home, and had since their parents had died. But as for who was doing the "taking unto"-now that was hard to say. For they shared the home place equally, although, strange as it was, the land had been left to Jonathan while the house and outbuildings had been willed to Aaron.
Their pa knew what he was doing when he left things that way. It was a sure bet that Jona than would never leave the land. He loved it too much. Aaron, on the other hand, was held more loosely to the land. Hadn't he already left it once and taken a fling in the city? But he'd come back after a year of that wildness. He'd come back to the home place, and you might say Jonathan had taken Aaron unto his land while Aaron had taken Jonathan unto his house. Seven years ago when Mary married Jonathan, she was taken into the lives of both brothers, as wife to the one, as true friend to the other. And that suited them all just fine.
Their pa knew what he was doing when he left things that way. It was a sure bet that Jona than would never leave the land. He loved it too much. Aaron, on the other hand, was held more loosely to the land. Hadn't he already left it once and taken a fling in the city? But he'd come back after a year of that wildness. He'd come back to the home place, and you might say Jonathan had taken Aaron unto his land while Aaron had taken Jonathan unto his house. Seven years ago when Mary married Jonathan, she was taken into the lives of both brothers, as wife to the one, as true friend to the other. And that suited them all just fine.
Jonathan was pondering all this after he'd read that Bible verse the first time, and he wasn't quite ready, in his peaceful, unsuspecting state of mind, for the downright disturbingly sinful idea that entered his soul after he reread the verse a third time. "Take unto thee Aaron thy brother and his sons with him."
It was the part about Aaron's sons that started the notion rolling around in Jonathan's brain. For Aaron had no sons. Aaron wasn't married-yet!
But before he was married…suppose Aaron sired a son for Jonathan!
From the moment the thought entered Jonathan's head it wouldn't leave. It just lodged there like a fishbone sticks in your throat and no amount of hard swallowing or eating dry bread is going to make it move. You keep thinking you can forget it's there, but you can't.
And that surely was the way of it with the notion he'd taken about how he and Mary could get a son.
The sinfulness of it filled Jonathan with shame. But that didn't make the idea disappear. Instead, It made him conjure up reasons why it might be less than sinful after all-and now he'd gotten himself to the point where the idea seemed almost sound.
Oh, he'd done plenty of praying over it, and time and again he'd asked the Lord's forgiveness for it. But then, hadn't he been reading the Bible when he'd first gotten the idea, and right here in the Lord's house, under His very eyes?
Through the end of the winter and early spring Jonathan had watched Mary and Aaron together. They had an easy way with one another, almost easier than between Mary and himself. But they were strictly friends, observing the propri- eties between brother-in-law and sister-in-law no differently from the way Jonathan thought they should. "Thou shalt not covet…" gave Jonathan hours of troubled thoughts. It ran itself through his mind a thousand times, but after the thousandth time he still told himself that there was no coveting between his wife and his brother. Might they not therefore be sinless if they did this thing at his bid- ding? If there were sin involved, Jonathan would willingly accept it.
He'd thought about it long enough now, and it had even come to him that the perfect time was in the offing. Soon he'd be off to Minneapolis to buy the Black Angus bull. And so, on a sparkling May morning in 1910, Jonathan Gray decided the time had come to put it to them.
Once the decision was made, Jonathan apologized to the Lord one last time, left the quiet church, and stepped into the brilliant late-morning sun.
Mary was standing amid a gaggle of Garner children, their mother-her Aunt Mabel-at its core, Uncle Garner at its fringes. Mabel Garner's voice, as always, could be heard above most in the churchyard. As Jonathan approached, she was saying, "It don't hardly seem like my Catherine here could be old enough to be a bride yet, but I reckon she grew up since you left us, huh, Mary?" "Catherine, I'm so happy for you," Mary said, kissing her young cousin on the cheek. "Well, here you are, Jonathan!" Mabel Garner's voice boomed again. "You're either powerful good or powerful wicked, needin' that much time in church!" Her boisterous laugh followed. She was almost as big as Jonathan, wattle- chinned, red-faced, bespectacled, good-natured, and well- loved. Jonathan was used to her outspokenness by now, and it didn't bother him anymore. With her whole brood around her, she resembled a mother turkey, her head higher than theirs, gobbling away while herding the young ones. "Come over here, boy!" Every man was a boy to Aunt Mabel.
When Jonathan neared the group, Mary said, "Aunt Ma- bel's just told me that Catherine and Mike are to be married in June." Jonathan had inherited this bunch of cousins when he married Mary, so it was more or less family news that the oldest of them was to marry.
Preoccupied as he was with other thoughts, Jonathan found himself hard-pressed to join in the felicitations. But the wo- men were giddy at the news and couldn't be hurried away from each other, so Jonathan waited on the fringe of the group. Uncle Garner and he talked man-talk.
Jonathan's attention was now and then diverted to Aaron, who was across the dusty stretch of yard where the rigs were tied, leaning against a wheel next to Priscilla. From the way she cocked her head and blinked up at him from under her bonnet, it was apparent that Jonathan didn't have a day to waste. Pris meant to have a wedding ring on Aaron's finger, and then it would be too late. Sunday was the perfect day for doing the asking, the one day a week that they slowed their pace and let the farm do the same. The chores, milking and feeding the stock, were about all they did. It was the Lord's Day, and they used it as such. Plenty of time to ap- proach Mary and Aaron and put it to them, time for whatever would follow after he'd asked it. "Jonathan, you'd better listen up a bit better, 'cause by the looks of it you'll be going through the same thing soon with that brother of yours over there," called Aunt Mabel. "If ever I saw a lovesick calf, it's Priscilla Volence. You know wed- dings always come in threes, and Catherine's will be only the first one of the summer!" "Well, it's what we're hoping for, isn't it, Jonathan?" Mary asked, glancing at Aaron and Pris while taking Jonathan's arm. "That's Aaron's lookout and none of ours," Jonathan said, "but yes, we're hopin'."
They all moved toward the rigs, and Mabel Garner's voice preceded them. "You gonna shine that wheel all day, boy, or you gonna drive that pretty li'l gal home?"
The head capped with a wealth of russet curls came up, and a hand waved at Mabel Garner. Aaron was a slightly younger version of Jonathan, slim-bodied, straight- nosed, wide-mouthed, although his lips were more crisply etched. Aaron had an eternally amused look about him. Crinkling his brown eyes in a smile, he called back, "I see a morning in church didn't put much benevolence in you, Aunt Mabel. Your tongue is just as disrespectful as always." "Never mind my tongue, boy, just watch your own!" she hollered. Then, more quietly, she added, "That boy's got the same spunk his pa had." She watched Aaron and Priscilla mount their buggy and leave the churchyard, followed by Jonathan and Mary.
Moran Township was still reaching for its prime. The grass along the roadside was a pale shadow, like the beard of a youth not yet shaved for the first time. The willows along Turtle Creek wore fat, adolescent buds, promising soon to burst into the fullness of maturity.
So it seemed with Mary. She was something to behold, Jonathan thought, looking like a schoolgirl, eagerly leaning forward, hands on knees, nostrils to the wind, sniffing it, tasting it. Sitting as she was, she might be mistaken for a child. Her form was so slight that it seemed the knot of honey-brown hair at the nape of her neck must weigh her down. The only hints of maturity about her were small breasts, evident only when she drew in her breath beneath her woolen coat, sucking in the spring as if some of its fecundity might remain with her if only she could capture it long enough. She was a woman waiting for the same awakening that Moran Township awaited, awaiting the fullness of her season.
Jonathan knew this. From the corner of his eye he studied her, her eyes the blue of a summer cornflower, always wide, excited. Her little face, so childishly round of cheek, told of her Slavic ancestry. When she smiled, her eyes became larger, rather than narrower. It was this that gave her the look of expectation and gaiety. Too, Jonathan had never seen her pout or sulk or feel sorry for herself, and perhaps it was this everlasting zest that made him hopeful now. "There's just nothing in this world as good as April!" Mary claimed now, nose still windward. "Except maybe May!" Then in her typical, ebullient fashion, she raised her arms skyward and recited: "April away!
Bring on the May!
But never too soon
For then it is June."
Then her hands slapped back down upon her knees, shoulders hunched as before.
How in tarnation was a man supposed to reply to a thing like that? Most of the time, like now, Jonathan didn't answer, for there was no answer in him, not in words anyway. "Just imagine waking up one year and finding that April and May had skipped by without stopping…I don't think I could stand it!" she bubbled.
Jonathan thought she talked like a child some times, and he wondered if it was because she had no child to do its own talking.
She was going on, "…but I guess April and May can't pass fast enough for Catherine and Mike. Just imagine, Jonathan, a June wedding, and Catherine's at that! Oh, it'll be lovely; Aunt Mabel will see to that. And we'll dance…" Here she raised her arms again, a bit of her skirt caught up in her fin- gertips, swaying to the imaginary music. Jonathan enjoyed her merriment but found himself unable to respond to it, which was often the case with Jonathan.
So, with the Minnesota breeze ushering them home, they rode, the quiet man and the childlike woman, following the rig that skimmed the gravel ahead.
When Aaron Gray left Moran Township a couple of years before, Priscilla Volence had been just another of the gawky kids up the road. By the time he returned, the gawkiness had become female allure. Everyone in Moran Township knew she'd set her sights on him the first time she'd seen him back at the Bohemian Hall. When his head snapped around for a second look, he found her meeting his stare boldly before the expression on her face softened. The gossips of Moran had hashed over every move the couple had made since then. And now they were sure Aaron and Pris weren't long for the altar.
If Priscilla had her way, they'd be dead right. She'd been ready for marriage since that first time she saw him after his return from the city, and he knew it perfectly well. But Aaron was put off by the idea. She'd worked her simple wiles on him in the plainest country ways possible: being available whenever he called, making no firm demands, letting him see how well prepared she was to handle a family and a home. Their farms were so close together that he'd had countless occasions to see her handle her younger brother and sisters, helping her mother with the never-ending house chores, her father with the field chores. Oh, she was prepared for marriage, all right. All she needed was the asking. But there was no pushing Aaron Gray. He seemed satisfied to woo her until they both started losing their hair, and nothing could get a proposal out of him.
And what did Aaron think? Riding through that April morning, taking Priscilla home in her father's rig, he recog- nized how deeply he'd settled himself into her family. He was so comfortable with them all that it seemed as if he were already a part of them. Maybe that was why his hackles rose when he thought of marriage. It seemed he and Pris had never had the chance to think about marrying before every- body in the township had the knot tied for them.
He admitted that he'd given Pris more than enough reason to expect his proposal. They'd been constant companions for the last year, and once, but only once, they'd been more. Granted she'd given in to him only once. But that was enough to build her assumptions on. The memory of that encounter didn't set lightly on Aaron. He knew she wasn't the type to dally with every young buck in the county. Indeed, he'd been her first. And just because that was true, Aaron felt a responsibility toward Pris. But it made him feel he was being forced toward marriage. And he simply wasn't ready for marriage.
Still, habits are hard to break, and spending time with Pris wasn't exactly a hardship. She was pretty, she lived close by, and they had fun together. So here he was again, headed down to her place to while away a Sunday, driving her pa's rig like he'd already married into it!
None of the others in Pris's family had gone to church that day. Agnes, her mother, was due with her fifth baby. Coming up the rise now where his own driveway angled off to the left, Aaron asked, "You want to go straight home today, or should we have breakfast with Jonathan and Mary?" "It's best I get straight back," Pris answered. "Ma will need help with the meal and all."
From behind them Jonathan saw Aaron's hand wave a farewell. The lead rig continued over the crest of the hill to- ward the Volence place, which lay a quarter mile beyond, at the bottom of the hill. "Looks like they're not stopping for breakfast," Jonathan observed.
Mary watched the dust settle ahead of them, saw the rig disappear over the crest of the hill, and felt a wisp of loneli- ness dim the bright day. She would miss their usual Sunday breakfast together. The house would seem empty. Mary thought about the bustling Volence household with all those kids and didn't blame Aaron for preferring it to their own silent house, which always seemed a little bigger and a little quieter on Sundays. Well, at least she could escape to the garden today, Mary thought, shaking off the bothersome emptiness, but what she said was, "Agnes will be needing help. It's best they didn't stop, anyway."
Newt Volence came charging down the driveway on his stubby six-year-old legs, a-hollering all the way, "Ma's havin' the baby! Ma's havin' the baby!" "You git down to the barn and stay there!" Pris yelled as the rig passed Newt in the dusty gravel. She was down and running to the house before Aaron could bring the rig to a full halt. When he stepped down, Newt was right on his feet, pulling at his hands and hollering, "Do I gotta go to the barn, Aaron, do I? Pris can't make me!" And little drops of spit came flying out where his tongue peeked between his teeth. "Better do like she says, Newt, so you won't be in the way," Aaron said. "She just doesn't want me to hear if Ma does some yellin'."
Aaron laughed and reached down to grab Newt under the arms and hoist him up, astraddle his own waist. "How do you know that?" "Jimmy Martin said his ma did plenty o' hollerin' last time," Newt confided, "and so did Clara when her calf was born."
There was no arguing with that, Aaron decided, and offered to keep Newt company down in the barn with his sister Gracie-for a while, anyway. Cora was sixteen, so it seemed she'd be allowed to remain in the house.
As it turned out, the baby was nowhere near to being born yet. The day lengthened and Aaron stayed, entertaining the young ones, getting news now and then from the house. Clem Volence wandered in and out of the house, and Aaron wondered what a man said to his wife at a time like this. Pris fixed sandwiches when the sun was well past midday and brought them to the barn for Aaron and the kids. She said Aaron needn't stay, but he did. The afternoon dragged on. Finally, near suppertime, she sent Aaron to town to fetch Doc Haymes. Riding past his own place, he saw Mary coming from the hen house clutching an apron full of eggs. He waved and she waved back, stopping to watch him disappear toward town.
On his return trip it was dark outside, but the lights were on at home. The house looked good and he wished he could pull in and stay, but he thought it best to hang around the Volences' until he was sure he wasn't needed any longer.
Doc Haymes wasn't far behind him. Priscilla was relieved when she saw both rigs pull in. "Nothing yet," was all she said before she and the doc went inside, leaving Aaron in the damp chill, uncomfortable and restless.
The barn was warmer, drier, and Aaron found the kids bedded down there, so he joined them, alternately dozing and waking, finding his thoughts hazily reconstructing the memory of Pris and himself, that one time in the hay in the chill of a February night.
Later she came without a lantern, and Aaron awoke at the sound of her entering below. He came down the ladder from the mow. Turning, he nearly bumped into her in the dark- ness.
"Mama had a boy," she whispered. "How are they faring?" "They're both fine." "Is the doc still here?" "No. He offered to give you a lift home, but I fibbed and told him you'd most likely be sleeping the night in the barn. I wanted to talk before you got away. Let's go outside in the air."
He took her hand and led her out into the crisp, glittering night. As he carefully closed the barn door, holding the latch from making its customary click, Pris sighed, a confession of how long the day had been.
Aaron turned and drew her into his arms, pushing her head down until it nestled beneath his chin. "Tired?" he asked.
She moved her head, and it bumped his chin. "But happy." "Yes, I reckon everyone is, now that it's over. Won't Newt be happy he's got a brother?"
She pulled away from him momentarily. "Oh, I should have checked on the kids. Are they all right up there?" "Yes, yes, don't worry over them. They're tuckered, too, and sound asleep." "You know, you didn't have to stay in the barn. Ma just meant for Newt and Gracie to stay out from underfoot." "I was more comfortable out here, too," he admitted. "How did Cora take it?" "Oh, you know Cora…never misses anything. Sixteen and snoopy." Pris laughed, remembering Cora's grown-up at- tempts to be helpful and her undisguised chagrin at the sounds going on in the house. "And you, Pris, what do you think of it all?" Aaron asked, brushing a hand across her cheek, the memories from the hayloft still fresh in his mind. "I guess it's more beautiful every time it happens. I remem- ber when Newt was born, and it was something to treasure. But now that I'm older-of age, you might say-well, it's just about the most beautiful thing there could be. You should have seen Mama and Papa together afterward. I guess there's no time two human beings feel closer than after a birthing." She paused, as if expecting a reply, but when he made none she went on, "Thank you for staying, Aaron. I appreciate your taking to the little ones the way you do and keeping them from underfoot." "I couldn't very well run off without knowing whether it was a boy or a girl, could I?" He leaned back and smiled down at her. "Which would you rather have, Aaron, a boy or a girl?" she asked, and there was a catch in her heart, a moment of uncertainty during which she knew it was a mistake to press Aaron. She sensed his withdrawal. His hand dropped down from her face, where it had been, and the night cooled the skin he'd been touching. "What difference does it make?" There was an edge of annoyance in his words. "Things like that matter to a woman," Pris replied. "She'd like to think they do to her man."
Her words formed a cinch around his gut, and he felt it tightening in a way that needed escape, like he imagined strangling must feel. "Am I your man?" he asked. There was no warmth to the question. "I don't know. Are you, Aaron?"
He knew damn well what she was trying to lead him to, and the worst part of it was she had every right. But he wasn't ready to be confronted. "Don't push me, Pris," he said. "Have I ever pushed you?" "Maybe push is the wrong word. Maybe it's pull."
She said nothing, and he turned to walk toward the drive. In spite of his reluctance to speak of marriage, he felt he owed her something. He could feel the hope springing in her, and in himself there was something akin to pity because he hadn't the same nesting urge she had.
They walked together, but apart, near the corncrib and toward the road. The moon highlighted things: her hair-mussed now-an old, misshapen sweater she'd thrown on against the chill, her downturned face.
He took her hand in apology and drew her against his side. They walked very slowly, their hips bumping in a famil- iar way with each step, until by some unspoken agreement they stopped. He knew it had to be brought out into the open, and she'd done her part, more than a woman should have to. His silence belittled her, and she deserved better.
He eased his hold on her hand and very lightly stroked his thumb up and down her own, feeling her shiver as he did.
"Pris, I know what you want," Aaron said, and his voice was so quiet that her breathing seemed a roar in her ears.
He stood beside her, unmoving, except for the warm thumb that kept stroking across hers. She waited for him to go on, but he just stood there, the thoughts so quietly loud around them that perhaps they were already spoken. "What is it I want, Aaron?"
He swung to face her then, and gripped both her hands so hard they hurt. As if unable to look at her, he put his face up toward the sky instead. "Oh God, girl…you want me to marry you, and I should be askin' right now." Something told her his eyes were closed, and she heard him swallow. "But you're not?"
He looked down at her then, but she was looking at the ground. She wondered if Aaron could feel the heat of her face through the night chill. "No, Pris, I'm not. I'm just not ready for it yet. And that makes me feel guilty." "Is it something I did?" she asked, meaning the time she gave herself to him, blaming herself for it.
He held her right hand in his, and with his free hand ran the length of her forearm, up and down again and again from wrist to elbow. "It's nothing, Pris, nothing you did. Please believe me. It's got to do with me, not you. People had us marching down the aisle before we even got used to the changes we saw in each other. We sort of fell together like, living so close like we do. And it's for sure I enjoy being here-I mean I like your folks…the kids…and you."
He put a hand under her chin and made her look up at him as he asked, "Do you know what I'm saying?" "No." The word was choked out. "I'm saying I've been unfair to you. I've come around here for a year now, and I can feel all the threads tightening me to you…and some days I feel like they're strangling me be- cause I'm not ready to be tied down yet. That's the part that's unfair to you. Folks in these parts see me coming to call, and right away they say she's Aaron's property. Nobody asks me, and nobody asks you. Meanwhile, the others who might take a fancy to you keep away, thinking it's all set between you and me. It seems I can't have the pleasure of you without us taking vows." "I never said that, Aaron." "No, you never did, but it's the truth, nevertheless. Do you know what I was doing up there in the loft tonight while I was waiting for you? I was remembering the time we made love up there, and wishing it would happen again. Even though I don't want to marry yet, and even though I know what…well, how guilty you felt after the first time. And if I keep hangin' around here, I'm going to keep after you until it does happen again. So I think it's best I leave and make way for somebody who'll think of marriage first and haylofts second. With me aside, other fellows might feel more wel- come around here." "But they aren't welcome, Aaron. You're the only one I want."
He reached a hand behind her neck and pulled her face against his neck. "I know that, Pris, and I want you, too. But wanting and marrying are two different things to a man. To a woman they're the same."
She felt the heat of her face centered now in her eyes, and tears spilled. "Don't cry for me, Pris, don't." "I know why you're saying all this," she cried, her voice muffled. "It's because of what I let you do last winter. If I hadn't held myself so cheap, you wouldn't, either." "That's not true," he argued. He had to make her see it wasn't true. "I'm the one at fault for that. I knew you couldn't…knew I shouldn't…"
Finally she said, "If I hadn't given in then, you'd be asking me to marry you now." "That's got nothing to do with it." "Wasn't I good enough?"
He pulled her roughly against him, put his arms clear around her shoulders, which were jerking quietly. "Jesus, Pris, don't do this to yourself."
And then, to comfort her, he lowered his mouth to hers. As she always could, she made his body surge with desire. She opened her mouth without thinking, and in that slacken- ing movement he lost himself. Her arms clung to his neck, fear of losing him a threat that hurt more than the slats of the corncrib digging into her back.
With his fingers between the wooden slats behind her head, he pulled the length of his body against hers, and she could feel what the kiss had started. One of Aaron's hands left the slats and found her breast inside the old woolen sweater, and he made a groaning sound, while his body betrayed him.
She pushed in denial against the hand on her breast, but he held her pinioned against the corncrib wall, her head firmly against the slats and his mouth holding her still. She struggled until she could twist free and gasp, "No, Aaron, not again! If you set out to prove you can make me want you, you did! But I can't."
His angry words cut her off. "I didn't set out to prove anything by you, and you know it! I'm just not made of a goddamn lump of stone, Priscilla. I can't turn my body on and off like you can!" "Just what are you aiming to do here, Aaron? Threaten to leave me so I'll give in to you again?" Her anger matched his, making her accuse him when she might not otherwise have done so. "That's a cheap accusation and you know it. It's hardly worthy of you." "Do you think just because I want to marry you, you have the right to act as if we're already married?" "I don't stop to make lists of rights-or wrongs-and maybe if you didn't, you'd quit trying to push me into mar- riage and give your body what it's panting for!"
She slapped him then, and it cracked through the April night, stunning them both into silence.
He broke it first. "I'm sorry, Pris. But a man has physical needs, and I'd say I've done quite well, pressing mine as little as I have." "Well, go press them somewhere else. Go try one of the chippies at the Bohemian Hall Saturday night. After all, their price is cheaper than mine. All they want is money. I demand marriage in return for my favors."
Meaning to hurt her, he backed a step away, bowed slightly, and said with quiet sarcasm, "Ah, yes, if favors they could be called."
He had hit his mark, and he heard her sharp, sucking breath of surprise and shame, and he wanted suddenly to grab back the words. But she was running up the drive to- ward the house, and it was too late.
She heard him call her. There was apology in his voice, but she was too humiliated to hear it. She heard only the words that cheapened what they'd once done together. They hurt more than the absent proposal ever had.
Mary was lying awake when she heard Aaron's steps on the gravel. A glance at the alarm clock in the moonlight showed it was well past midnight. Jonathan was snoring lightly, and she lay listening to his snores and waiting to hear Aaron come into the house downstairs. Glancing at the clock again, she wondered if she had really heard footsteps. Ten minutes had passed, and Aaron hadn't come in. Climbing over the foot of the bed, she jostled Jonathan, who rolled over. He made a snuffling sound but continued sleeping. Grabbing her chenille robe from the back of the bedroom door, she made her way into the dark upper hall, where no moonlight touched the floor. The familiar railing guided her down the squeaky stair more surely than any moonlight could have done.
Aaron was home, all right, sitting on the back porch step, looking all worn out. His elbows rested on his knees, and one hand hung limply down while the other massaged the back of his neck. If it hadn't been for the moving hand, she'd have thought he was asleep. "Aaron? You okay?" she whispered. "What're you doing up?" he asked. "I couldn't sleep for wondering about Agnes. Is everything all right down there?" "Yeah, it's just fine. The baby's a boy." "A boy…" she repeated, her voice like the trailing-away note of a mourning dove, wistful and uncertain. "Did you see him, Aaron?" "No, not yet," he said, and he knew she wanted to hear far more of it than he was able to tell her. He patted the step beside him and hitched himself over a bit. "Come on out," he invited in an indulgent tone. "There's room for two, and I can tell you're not going to let up till I tell you all I know."
She eased the door shut behind her and squatted on the wide step above him, hugging her long robe around her ankles and knees against the damp. "It took a long time, did it?" she asked as she settled.
But he didn't reply, as if he'd forgotten he'd invited her out there. "Aaron?"
At the sound of his name he seemed to waken. "Oh, longer for Clem and Pris than for Agnes, probably."
She laughed. "Honestly, Aaron, the things you say. No sympathy for poor Agnes?" But her tone was not accusing. "Now tell me about it." "I would if I knew more, but I spent most of the day with the kids in the barn, then riding into town to fetch Doc Haymes." "Aah," she said, a little disappointed. "Best let Agnes and Pris do the telling, Mary. They know more of it than I."
She was disappointed for sure. She longed to hear of the birth. She wondered about all Aaron couldn't tell her, about all the mystery involved in a birth that no one but a mother could know. She huddled there while he puzzled in silence over thoughts of his own.
As if he'd come to a decision, Aaron straightened, then leaned his elbows back onto the step behind him with a weighted sigh. "Ah, I think I've been a damn fool," he mumbled, more to himself than to Mary. "You trying to convince me or you?" "Not me, for sure. I don't need any convincing."
She said nothing, waiting for him to go on when he chose. It was cold. She curled her bare toes away from the concrete.
He half turned on the step below her, so she could see his face profiled with the moonlight behind it, and he saw her bare feet on the same cold concrete step. He moved and took them onto his warm thigh and covered them with the hem of his Sunday suit jacket, which he still wore. Over the hem he placed his hand, and between Aaron and Mary there was a natural warmth that had nothing to do with his taking her feet upon his thigh to warm them. He did it without conscious thought, for they'd always had that care- less way between them. They'd always counted themselves lucky at the friendship they enjoyed, knowing Jonathan was not the reason. They'd have been friends even if Jonathan were neither Mary's husband nor Aaron's brother. "I hurt Pris tonight, on purpose, something I never thought to do. We argued and I ruined her day for her-after the birthing and all. I shouldn't have done that." "Is all the blame yours? It takes two to anger, doesn't it?" "It takes two to do a lot of things." Then he grew quiet, the silence more telling than the words. "So it's finally come to that?" "Yes, finally. She'll have it no other way. And damn my hide! I'm just not ready. But she can't see it my way, and I can't see it hers." "You've given her reason to look at you with marriage on her mind, Aaron, you can't deny that. You've seen no one but her for a good year now. Could be she's a right to expect more than walks in the moonlight." "Maybe I've a right to expect more, too."
Once he'd said it he felt coarse and guilty, and he supposed he must seem so to Mary. "That's what you fought over, then?" "Aha," he confessed, "I told you I'd been a damn fool." "Well, I reckon many other men have been equally as foolish as you, then." "It ought to be Jonathan I talk to about this," Aaron said.
"Jonathan isn't a man for talking, though, is he?"
It was true. Aaron had always been able to talk with Mary far easier than with Jonathan. "A man's needs can sometimes be bigger than his common sense, you know? And women have a hard time understand- ing that. But a woman's needs are so different." "A woman's needs aren't different at all, and don't you think they are. We all want pretty much the same-marriage and love and children." "In that order?" "Most of the time." "It doesn't always happen so for a man." "That's nature, Aaron." "Yeah, well, nature's been giving me a hell of a time lately, then." "Maybe it hasn't been easy on Pris, either." "Whose side are you on?" "I can't take sides, Aaron. You know I can't. I care enough about both you and Pris to want to see you happy. Both of you."
She paused. "But you see, Aaron, there's something you should under- stand, and it's what happens to a woman when another woman has a baby. It's like nature plays a trick on her, makes her think of it as her own. Hearing the news the first time, she'll hold fast to her own belly, just as if it were growing there. And no matter who the father is, for a time he seems special-as if she herself had been touched by him. Why is it she asks so many questions of an expecting woman? Well, it's because the more she hears, the more she shares-the discomforts and the joys. She hears about the quickening, and for a time it's hers, too. She hears of a heartbeat, and it might as well be beating inside herself. And the birth-she takes a share in that, too. And to see a newborn child is to want one of her own, whether she already has two-or twelve. It doesn't matter. Because that's the trick nature plays on her. It makes all women think of babies in terms of themselves."
Under his hand Aaron could feel her toes, curled tightly now, as some might clench a fist in intensity. "You plead Priscilla's case too convincingly for it to be only her case," Aaron said, smoothing his hand over her feet, looking down at them. He looked up at her, huddled shiver- ing above him. "I'm sorry, Mary, for being selfish and going on about myself."
She drew her robe tighter about her. "No, Aaron, that's not true. If you're selfish, then so am I, but I don't see us that way. I see us as two people who have to talk about what needs saying." "Don't excuse me so lightly. I should have had more sense than to go on-" "More sense than to what?" She cut him off. "To air a few feelings that needed airing? That's all we're doing, you and I."
And it was all they were doing. But it occurred to Aaron how unseemly it would be if anyone knew how freely they'd talked. Here in Moran Township the straitlaced matrons would not understand that a talk so personal could take place innocently. He was amused at the thought of some pucker- faced old harridan pursing her mouth in sour shock. Gossip was the thing they thrived on, and Aaron disliked it. "Oh, but if the town gossips could hear what we've been talking about, they'd choke in their sleep."
It hadn't occurred to her before, but the thought of it brought a bubble of mirth to her lips. "Oh, Aaron, I expect they would," she laughed.
And the night, sealing them against self-consciousness, carried their laughter on its uncensoring ear.