'I said, what are you talkin' about?' Aaron repeated.
It was now or never. 'I'm talkin' about you and Mary.'
The silence in the room was broken only by the tick of the pendulum clock on the kitchen wall. 'Me and Mary?' Aaron asked it in a quizzical way, as if he weren't sure he'd heard the question right. He didn't look at her, but he sensed her awful stillness, and it cracked the outer layer of his disbelief. 'Before either of you say anything, I got to explain-' 'Christ almighty! Explain! If I understand what you're asking, you got more than explaining to do. You got some apologizing!' Aaron was on his feet now and leaning toward Jonathan across the table. 'There's nothing between Mary and me. Nothing! Do you hear me, brother?' 'I know…' was all Jonathan could get out before Aaron raged on. 'Mary's your wife, man! Your wife! You'd best look at her and see what you've done in the last minute here.' Aaron pointed a shaking finger at Mary. She sat staring at Jonathan with enormous eyes, her mouth working.
And Jonathan knew he need not plumb too deeply to see how he'd hurt her. 'Why, Jonathan?' she asked at last, and her voice was a quiet croak. 'I want us to have a son, and I give up hoping I could father one. It came to me that you and me had those mumps together, Aaron, but you being those four years younger than me, well, they didn't go down on you like they did on me, and I figured-'
But Aaron cut him off again. 'Oh, no, you don't! You don't lay the guilt on me, Jonathan. Yes, we suffered side by side and you came out of it worse off than me, but that doesn't mean I owe you this that you're asking.' 'I didn't mean you owe me. You know I'm not handy with words. But I thought about this plenty over the whole winter, and it appeared to me you and Priscilla were getting mighty close, so before you up and married I thought-'
Once again he was cut off, this time by Mary. 'Oh, Jonathan, you thought of it all winter? You planned on asking us all that time?' There was such hurt and bewilderment in her eyes that both men looked away rather than see it. 'Aaron's your brother. I'm your wife. The asking aside, did you think of the sinfulness of it? Did you think of that?' 'I did. And I've done some praying over it, and I'll gladly take the sin onto myself if there is sin. But there's nothing between you and Aaron. You said so, Aaron, and I could see that. Maybe the sin lays in the coveting, like the command- ment says.' 'You can't just bend and twist the words to suit your needs! You took those words and you chiseled off all the corners till they fit some hole in your scheming head where you wanted them to fit, and that makes it right?' 'I said I'd accept the blame, Aaron.' 'Accept, hell! You'll accept nothing because there'll be nothing to accept! No blame! No sin! No baby! It makes me laugh to think you even believed we could get by with it. Just how do you think the fine women of Moran Township would take to one of their own showing up at church with a bastard son in her arms? Have you thought of what they'd do to Mary?' 'They'd never know it wasn't mine, Aaron. Look at us. You know how much we look alike? The child would have the looks we both got from Ma and Pa. Nobody could look at it and say it's yours, 'cause if he looked like you, he'd look like me, too. And I'd call it mine. It wouldn't be no bastard.'
Aaron still stood leaning on the table, glaring across at his brother.
'I think the only bastard here is you!' he shouted.
Mary leaned toward him and touched his arm, firmly but quietly demanding, 'Sit down, Aaron. There's been enough hurt done here already. We'll not add more by saying things we'll all regret later.'
Aaron sat down, but the black look of rage stayed on his face. 'Jonathan,' Mary said, 'I never complained about there being no babies, and if I acted like I held you responsible, I'm sorry. But what you're asking is wrong. It's wrong for Aaron and me, and it's wrong for you. How could you ask such a thing?'
Jonathan swallowed a great lump of love for her that welled up in his throat. He needed to make her see that he'd asked it out of love, but his wooden tongue was not easily commanded. 'Mary,' he began, but the words were so hard to place between them, 'Mary…I…it was a thing I wanted to give you, like I couldn't give you a baby.' 'To give me, Jonathan?' 'Every woman should have the chance…I couldn't see no other way to give it to you.'
Tears welled up in Mary's eyes, and a confusion of feelings tightened her chest. 'There's nobody else I'd ask except Aaron,' Jonathan went on, 'I thought maybe he'd see it my way, like maybe some deed of goodness he could do you…and me, too.' 'But Jonathan, there's got to be love before…' Here Mary looked at Aaron, and for the first time she became embar- rassed. His anger was partly under control, and with its going she had no de- fense against self-consciousness. 'It's not as if there's no love at all,' Jonathan said. 'And I can see the need in you, Mary. I can see you need what nature intended. Would it be unkind if Aaron could give you that?'
She could see that Aaron's jaw was tightly clamped shut, the muscles quivering as he kept his silence. Suddenly the things they'd said last night, those confidences exchanged so innocently, became laden with meanings neither Aaron nor Mary had intended, and her eyes flashed quickly away from his when she sensed that he was thinking the same thing. 'And for myself,' Jonathan was going on, 'well, there'd seem more purpose to working the land with a son to take it on one day. He could even tie this place together again-the whole place might be his-not split apart like Pa left it to us two.'
Aaron leaned his elbows on the table and folded his knuckles together, pressing them against his chin while he scowled at Jonathan. 'You weren't kidding when you said you'd thought about this all winter, were you? You damn near planned the whole future for us, didn't you, Jonathan? Only you never said how we're all supposed to live with this when it's over and done. That's it! It'd never be over and done. It'd be a guilt we'd carry forever, can't you see?' 'I can see it could be that if we let it be. But it could be a blessing in many ways.' 'Jonathan, you're being a self-righteous hypocrite, and you've never been before. I can't be lieve what you're saying.' And Aaron shook his head, as if doing so would negate all that Jonathan had said. He covered his face with his hands and listened to his brother. 'I'd just ask you both to think about it, and consider if…' But his words faltered at last.
With his face still in his hands Aaron said, 'Jonathan, you realize that you're sitting in my house and what I'm consid- ering right now is asking you to get out of it?' Then he rubbed his hands downward, as if to wipe away his weariness and clear his eyes. When he did, he saw Mary with her eyes on her lap, hands idle, and the look on her face made him instantly sorry for what he'd threatened. 'Aw, hell, I didn't mean it. For better or for worse, we're here sharing the place, and I'm not throwing you out, neither of you. Pa sure picked a hell of a way to split up this prop- erty, though.' 'I'm sorry,' Mary said then, and Aaron realized she was frightened. 'Mary, I didn't mean that like it sounded. You belong here as much as Ma ever did, and you've got every right to be here. It's your home whether it belongs to Jonathan or me-that part doesn't matter. When I marry is time enough for us to change it.' Then, in an effort to dispel the over- whelming oppression around them all, he added, 'Right?'
No one answered. Just the ticking clock imposed itself on the quiet. 'It doesn't bear thinking about, Jonathan, and it never could,' Aaron said, 'whether I marry Pris or not. Suppose I do marry her? Then she's part of this, too. There's such a thing as faithful ness, and I feel it, whether I'm married yet or not.' 'I figured when you went to the city there were other wo- men.' 'What I did in the city is no business of yours! Any women I knew there have nothing to do with this or with Pris.' 'Oh, Jonathan, don't!' Mary cried, and there were tears on her face at last. 'Don't say any more. We are not things, not animals you can pen up together at mating time!' 'I said it all wrong, I know.' 'And you've said enough!' Aaron charged, pushing his chair back and rising in one angry movement. 'Just don't say another word. Not one more word.' And he slammed out the door, leaving Mary and Jonathan in its reverberations. But before the air had quite stilled he came back and stood just inside the kitchen door, looking across the room at Mary. 'I'm sorry, Mary,' he said. 'I had no part in this.' And she knew he'd felt it necessary to clarify that point after all he'd told her the night before. But he'd slammed back out before she could say, 'I know.'
She could not face Jonathan any longer, so she picked a jacket from the hook behind the kitchen door and went out, too, closing the door more quietly than Aaron had. But the click of the latch censored Jonathan as firmly as when Aaron had slammed the door.
Aaron took his anger to the barn. He stormed down the yard, flung the barn door open, and charged inside. It was clean and quiet, no work to be done. And nobody to listen to his arguments. In frus- tration he slammed his open palm against a wooden beam.
One would not guess it just then, but he was a man of easy temperament, usually slow to anger. His way was the way of light response, a word of jest. He was uncomfortable with anger and tried to avoid it.
How, then, had the last two days spawned such belliger- ence in him? Like mushrooms during long summer rains, the events of the last two days had sprouted out of nowhere, growing so fast they seemed to close around Aaron. He was angered because they'd grown out of his control.
It didn't help when Aaron recalled all the remarks he'd made last night to Mary, remarks that echoed now with im- plication he'd absolutely not intended. 'Nature's been giving me a hell of a time lately. It takes two to do a lot of things. A man's needs can sometimes be greater than his common sense.' Did I really say all those things to
