there's an important item.' 'What is it you want me to say?' he asked. 'Whatever you want. Just say something.' 'All right.' He paused, searching for the words. 'I'm happy about the baby.' 'How can you be happy, Jonathan?' she asked. 'Well, I reckon I'm happy 'cause the Lord saw fit…' 'The Lord! What about you, Jonathan?' She sat up and pounded her fists into the eiderdown.
Jonathan was unprepared for her sudden burst of anger and didn't know how to deal with it, coming as it did so suddenly. Not knowing what she expected of him, he re- peated her question, confused, 'What about me?' 'Don't you want an explanation, an apology?' 'I figure it's best we don't talk about it,' he mumbled. 'But Jonathan, what I did was wrong. I wronged you. Why don't you blame me for that?'
'I said once I'd take the blame myself, and it's between me and the Lord to straighten it out.' 'Leave the Lord out of this, Jonathan! This is about human beings and their feelings-yours and mine.' 'All right, Mary, but you're making yourself too upset.' 'I am upset. I'm upset because my husband doesn't care enough about me to be jealous.' 'Jealousy is a sin, Mary.' 'So is adultery.'
A verse from the Bible entered his mind then, but he wasn't going to bring the Lord into this again. She was too worked up, and she had him confused, so he remained silent.
But she was insistent, demanding a response. 'I said, so is adultery, Jonathan.'
He didn't understand the reason for her anger. 'I heard you, Mary. But I don't know what you want out of me.' 'I want some jealousy, some reaction, some sign that you care. I want to talk about it.' 'The time for talking is past. Now it's time to make plans.'
She sat, still and silent and angry, not knowing how to elicit from him feelings he apparently didn't harbor. 'You know, Jonathan, that's always been our trouble. We never talked about anything. I mean anything important. Like how you felt about needing a baby so bad. I knew it, but why couldn't you say what you felt? And I wanted so many times to talk about what Doc Haymes says, but you'd get silent as a fence post if I'd bring it up. That's not right. In order for two people to know each other, they've got to talk about the things you can't see, not just those you can-like bulls and crops and fences and new barns! Don't you see?' 'No, I don't. You want me to talk about bein' jealous when I ain't, and about wantin' a child when we're gonna have one. You don't make any sense. Besides, I'm not much for talkin', anyway. You got Aaron for that.'
She couldn't believe he'd say a thing like that now. Rather than try to work out an understanding, he'd go on as if nothing had changed. 'You're my husband, the one I ought to talk with.' 'Well, we been talkin' here, haven't we?' 'Yes, in circles.' 'I don't think you're acting like yourself tonight. Maybe it's being pregnant does it to you.'
She couldn't help it, she burst out laughing. Only it wasn't amused laughter, it was harsh, dry, hurt. But Jonathan didn't even seem to understand her laughter. He reached up and pulled at her shoulder, saying, 'Come on, lay down here and let's forget it,' and she let him pull her back to her pillow and take her in his arms. Her anger was gone, and she was wondering what to do with the big, aching emptiness that was left in its stead. Jonathan's hand on her breast did nothing to fill it. She lay still under the big, moving hand, waiting for some sweet, flooding emotion to begin at his caress, but none came. His petting gave her a feeling of vague revulsion, and she swallowed hard and made a soft sound behind her closed lips, which he mistook for passion.
Mary lay waiting. Waiting to discover whether she thought Jonathan did too much or not enough. His sudden mounting seemed no longer enough, yet it was more than she could bear. While his body worked against hers, she did what she'd vowed to herself she would never do, she imagined he was Aaron. She remembered the swirling, velvet releases of her climaxes with Aaron, but when her husband withdrew from her body, she was left with only that memory and a throb- bing emptiness. She was afraid to ask herself if she desired that fullest draught of passion with Jonathan. Her answer might be that it was a pleasure she wanted only from Aaron, and from no other man.
16
Aaron could see his breath this morning, and the chill Oc- tober air made the ax handle cold. Autumn was his favorite time of year, and he hated the thought of leaving these radi- ant, rolling hills for the flat, colorless prairies of North Dakota. Minnesota was a myriad of changing colors, at its best now in the full flush of fall. It even smelled better this time of year. It smelled of tucking in, of getting ready, like the squirrels were. They were all getting ready. Mary was getting their clothes ready, he and Jonathan were getting the wood ready…and I'm getting ready to leave Mary, Aaron thought.
She was coming out of the house with the clothes basket slung on her hip. Her hip didn't jut out anymore. She was bigger already. He wondered if the child moved inside her yet and what it felt like when that happened. How he wished he could ask her. Sometimes, thinking of her, his unasked questions made his throat ache. The forced restraint made him seek out the hardest physical work. But wood-chopping was a cold substitute for shared intimacies.
Mary was wearing an oversized red plaid
jacket, and he watched her hang clothes while he chopped. He thought of how it would feel to slip his arms inside the jacket and hug her, feel the baby between them. She hung the last wet shirt and blew on her hands to warm them. He kept up the wood-chopping, wishing he could go to her, open his shirt, and warm her fingers against his chest. She dropped the basket beside the path and headed for the out- house. As she walked along, the plaid jacket blended with the scarlet sumac and she became a part of the fall foliage. Sometimes at night he'd hear her get up and go out there, and he wished he could get up and just walk with her, wait for her, and walk her back in, ask her if the baby made her uncomfortable. He didn't think she'd been sick, but he knew there were lots of discomforts involved with pregnancy. He wished he could share them with her, if only by talking about them.
When she came back down the path, he shouted in her direction, 'Don't lift that wash water, Mary!' 'No, I won't, Aaron.' He could see her breath as she called across the October morning.
The depressive moods of her first pregnant months had gone away weeks ago, but Mary was having difficulty keeping the lump from her throat this morning. The letter with the Enderland, North Dakota, postmark had arrived yesterday afternoon. The men had delayed leaving until today to give Mary a chance to get their things ready and also to allow them time to get a load of winter wood into the yard and chopped. They had cut the timber in the woods and spent the day since the potato harvest sec tioning it with the crosscut saw. If it was to dry, it needed chopping, but it looked like winter would catch them before they finished the job. Whether or not the wood supply ran out would depend on how long they stayed in North Dakota. If Mary got low, she could ask a neighbor to chop a supply for her. Thank heaven for neighbors, he thought. He'd miss Mary, but he needn't worry about her.
The morning warmed quickly, and the day promised to be a beauty. Jonathan headed the horses in with the last load of wood and stopped at the near pasture, where Vinnie would stay until the winter snows pushed him into the barn. The bull approached the fence and stopped full-face to Jonathan. 'Howdy, big boy.' The clean, cylindrical lines of the bull were already nearing maturity. His smooth black coat gleamed in the sun. His red eyes gleamed from his dished face. Looking at the beautiful creature who represented so much of Jonathan's hope for the future, the man found good reason in leaving his farm to work on another man's land. 'I'll be bringing home money to buy you a missus. Now what do you think of that?'
The red eye blinked. 'No. You wouldn't yet, but come next spring when your sap is up you'll thank me.'
The eye didn't blink this time. 'Sure hate to leave you, Vinnie. You'll do fine, though. Plenty of pasture time left before winter.'
Again it was between the man and the bull as if they talked the same language. Vinnie made a snuffling, low noise. 'I'll miss you, too. But just think about growin' up, and by the time I get back you'll be a little heavier.' Then he added, 'So will Mary.'
His thoughts of the future held the image of his son and Vinnie's sons growing together on the land. It made his leaving easier. Turning his back on the bull, he hoped for no unseasonably early snow this year. No one would be here to put Vinnie in the barn while they were gone. Checking the azure sky of October, he felt the weather would favor him. Vinnie'll do fine, he thought, making his way up the lane toward the yard with the last load of wood.
The house had a curious stillness to it, as still as the au- tumn air that scarcely stirred the wood-smoke away
