Mary, he thought. The memory of how he'd let his foolish tongue run wild blistered his conscience now, creating bubbles of fear, fear that Mary might somehow mistake his intentions, especially after all that was just said in the house.
He knew both Jonathan and Mary understood the reason he'd left the farm for the city two years before. He'd gone to give them privacy, hoping they'd accomplish in his absence what hadn't happened while he lived with them. Feeling like the outsider in his own house, he'd left it to them, gone to that miserable city to work in sweatshops among strangers, giving Jonathan and Mary time alone. But nothing had come of it, and after a year Jonathan had written, asking him to come back home. It was a two-man farm. They'd made it so after their pa died. In his absence, Mary had worked in his place. But she was a small woman, city-bred, and much as she loved the country, she never did take to field work. They all knew it was hard on her. And Jonathan wanted Aaron to come back, and so did Mary, he wrote. Aaron had come, and gladly-leaving behind the hated city and carrying with him the memory he now ruefully referred to as 'the time I went to town.'
Now the memory came back to Aaron, and with it the threat that he might have to leave the farm again. Surely there'd be no living together as they had before. Why, he couldn't sleep in the house tonight! Not on the other side of their bedroom wall!
So Aaron climbed to the haymow, still simmering. But the hay was nearly all gone from the loft, and what was left lent small comfort, compacted as it was from months of winter storage. He was exhausted after the long day yesterday at the Volences', the turmoils of tonight, and last night's argu- ments. When the heat of his anger cooled somewhat, he was left in the comfortless barn, tired and cold, and he finally gave in and returned to the house and his room, sleeping like a drugged man, worn beyond caring who was on the other side of the wall.
When Mary came back to the house, it was dim and still. Jonathan had left a lantern in the niche at the bottom of the stairs. There was no where for her to go except to bed, but she wouldn't take the lantern up. She couldn't face Jonathan yet, even in the dim- mest lantern light.
She blew out the flame and made her way up the dark stairwell, hoping he would be asleep. But the house was old and dry, and it creaked, signaling to Jonathan she was com- ing.
He lay very still, with his arms folded under his head, watching her come in and change into her nightgown in the moonlight. She brushed out her hair and braided it, taking an endlessly long time. His heart beat out the minutes until she finally climbed over the foot of the bed to her place between him and the wall.
It had always been a spot where she'd felt such security, with Jonathan there on the outside, but tonight she felt trapped in it, held there by Jonathan's elbows, which loomed just above her pillow. She knew he wasn't asleep, but hoped he'd say nothing. When he spoke quietly in the dark, she jumped, realizing how tense she'd been. 'Mary?'
She didn't answer. 'Where'd you go?' 'Just walking.' 'You gave me a scare, being gone so long.' 'I didn't think you'd miss me if I didn't come back.'
She couldn't help saying it, even though she knew it wasn't so. She wanted him to know how he'd hurt her. 'You know that's not so, Mary. This is where you belong.' 'Yes. In your bed, not Aaron's.'
'You've been seven years in my bed, with no babies.' 'And you need one that bad, you'd send me to Aaron?' 'It was a way that come to me, Mary.' 'Well, it's no way at all.'
Jonathan inhaled deeply. 'I said it all wrong, I know. I meant to say it better, so you'd understand.' 'Oh, Jonathan, it doesn't matter how you said it, it only matters you did. There's no good way to ask a thing like that.' 'But don't you see? It's something I wanted for you, too. I see you going year after year and still lookin' like a child yourself…and everybody else has got more kids than they need. I can see the need in you.' 'But you had no right to ask it of Aaron and me.' In an impatient voice she continued, 'It's not a seed you just bor- row like a punkin seed, Jonathan. You might want a punkin like the one in your neighbor's punkin patch, but planting a punkin seed is different than a man's.'
He was quiet then, still lying with his head on his arms, looking at the ceiling. After a space he said, 'I had such plans for the place, you know, always thought of working it into something even better to pass on to a son.'
She lay, like him, staring at the ceiling. 'I was proud of all those plans, too, Jonathan. That sum- mer I came from Chicago to Aunt Mabel's-why, I had no intention of staying. I was only coming to help her out for the summer. When you came along in Uncle Garner's thresh ing crew and started talking about this place, I could nearly see it before you ever brought me here. You made me proud of all the plans you had, and I was willing to share them with you. But this plan now-there's no sharing it.' 'Are you sorry you came to this place with me, Mary?' 'I'm not sorry I came, Jonathan, only sorry about this…this obsession you have, about the baby.' 'Obsession?' 'You've got it in your head that without a son you're working for nothing. But that's not true. You've got…we've got…a lot. And yes, I'd like a child, too, but I'm not willing to sell my soul to get it. I'm not going to let the need of it change me like it has you.' 'Change me?' He turned his head to look at her beside him. 'Didn't it change you, Jonathan?'
He didn't answer. 'Well, then, how did you come to where you could ask what you did tonight?'
He knew she was crying then because she turned her face toward the wall. 'I did wrong, Mary,' he said, and reached out to touch her, not knowing much about comforting her, for he'd never had much cause to do so. 'Oh, Jonathan, how can we face Aaron in the morning?' 'We'll weather it, Mary.' It sounded hopelessly inadequate even to Jonathan, but he didn't know what else to say. 'How?' Her crying was audible now.
He patted her arm, leaning above her on an elbow. 'We'll weather it somehow,' he repeated. Her arm under the nightgown was warm, folded across her chest, and he could feel it rise and fall with her breathing. She never cried, and Jonathan realized what a feeling of concern those tears had evoked in him. She was such a child-and he hadn't thought to hurt her this way. How could he take away that hurt? 'We could try again,' he said, moving his hand onto her breast, feeling her stiffen at his touch. 'This way? And then you think this will wash away all the sourness of today like you wash away the clabbered milk from a pail? Well, it takes a while in the sunshine to air that sourness out, Jonathan. I might need a while of sun, too, before I sweeten.'
She made a shrugging push with her shoulder, nudging his hand off her breast until he retreated it to her arm. It was the first time she had ever denied Jonathan. 'What does that mean, 'sweeten'?'
She was exasperated that he could fail to understand the depth of her hurt, and her reluctance to quickly accept him again. 'Sweeten means sweeten! I mean I can't just so quickly forget what you would have me do with Aaron if you had your way. Now, here you are, wanting your way with me again. Well, which is it you want, Jonathan? I can't follow your change of mind fast enough.' 'You're talking nonsense. I only meant to comfort you.'
'Well, it was no comfort. The kind of comfort I need is the kind that starts with 'I'm sorry' and builds from there.' 'I didn't mean to hurt you by it.' 'But you aren't sorry. Are you, Jonathan?'
His hand squeezed her arm lightly as he answered, 'For the hurtin', yes. For the askin', no.' Then he lay back down with his hands folded beneath his head, as before. 'If you're not sorry, then we're in bad shape.' 'We been in bad shape, as far as a baby is concerned, for years. And you're getting where you're grabbing at even those ideas Doc Haymes has been putting in your head. But I've gone along with that, and it didn't work, either. It's just more proof I can't be no father, that's all.' 'But I believe what he says is reasonable, that a woman is…well…that a woman is prime on special days each month. We just haven't given it enough time.' 'Well, if it's so reasonable, then maybe it'd work in your favor with Aaron. It'd prove to me that Haymes was right.' 'Is that how you figured it? And then what about after- ward? Did you figure I'd be your wife again and we could pretend nothing ever happened between Aaron and me?' 'I don't know. I thought if he was to marry Priscilla, it might all work out.' 'You and I have to work things out and leave Aaron out of it.'
She seemed to be suggesting that maybe she was sweeten- ing a bit, but her next words belied that. 'I never turned you away before, Jonathan, and I know it's not right, either, but I got to have some time to mend my mind a bit. Let's just both drop off and work on that mending for now.'
She turned on her side, facing the wall, shutting herself away from him, and even though his caress had been meant only as a consolation to her, he found now that her cold, curled back raised a yearning he hadn't known was there. For, as she said, she'd never turned him away before.
