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
