Her hand makes an involuntary movement, knocking into the little table between their two chairs so it totters without quite falling, the sound overloud in the silence. There are women, Wendy knows, in St. Bernadette’s who are here for no other reason than loving each other as Henry and Ned loved. It sickens her that the world could be so cruel, and yet she knows many of those same women, in secret, found their freedom here, making wives of each other in their hearts, in their minds, in every way that matters, away from the world’s watchful eyes.
Wendy looks for hope in Mary’s expression—holding equal parts hope and dread of her own—but finds no weight of expectation there. Relief floods her, and it feels like the same fluttering she felt when Ned spoke of wanting a child. She loves Mary, of this much she is certain. And she is growing to love Ned. But as for being a wife, to anyone, it is not something she can do in more than name only.
The realization falls into place with a dull thud. If Wendy speaks her heart aloud, will she lose Mary? Will she lose Ned? At the same time, she cannot imagine keeping silent. She can’t share Ned’s secret with Mary, but she can give her own.
“I don’t think…” Wendy hesitates again.
She has no words for what she wants to say. She knows there are many men like Ned, many women like those in St. Bernadette’s, called sick and sinful, mad and wrong. But out in the world, all she sees are men and women, happy husbands and wives, or at least husbands and wives giving the illusion of happiness. Families. Children. Like her own family—mother, father, herself, Michael, and John.
Only her mother and father are long gone now, and Michael is gone as much as he is here—his body returned from war but as a home for ghosts. She wants what they had before all that, a family, a house full of joy and laughter, people who care for each other. If Mary can accept the possibility that Wendy might want a wife, if Ned’s heart can belong to another but he can still feel a kind of love for her, then perhaps this is possible too.
Wendy closes her eyes. She is a child again, standing on the window sill, her hand in Peter’s hand. The sky stretches before her, and she is about to take a step, to fly or fall. Her heart is overfull, ready to burst. Every instinct in her screams at her to be silent, but if she doesn’t speak, she will never know anything even close to happiness again.
“I don’t think I’m made for that sort of love.” Wendy opens her eyes, swallows. Her throat aches. It’s hard, saying the words aloud. “Not the sort of love most people think of when they think of a marriage.”
The words tangle in her throat, and Wendy swallows again.
“But.” The words still remain halting and unsure, but she forces herself to go on. “I believe… that is… I think there are more kinds of love in the world than most people speak about out loud. I love you.” She meets Mary’s eyes, hoping desperately she will understand. “And I could love Ned in time. I want… I want us to be all together, like a family.”
She searches Mary’s expression frantically for any sense of what her friend is thinking. The world is no longer beneath her feet. Wendy is free-falling, and she no longer remembers how to fly.
“I want you with us, but more than that, I want you to be happy. I want you to have whatever it is you want, even if that’s a life apart from me.” Wendy finally runs out of words.
She feels on the verge of tears, and at the same time, wrung out, hollow. Perhaps she does belong here after all. Perhaps she is mad, but not for the reasons John and Dr. Harrington thought. It’s strange, perhaps not what she was raised to believe, but she can understand men loving men and women loving women. But not loving anyone at all? At least not being in love with anyone? Not feeling that desperate flutter, the skip and beat in the pulse so many poets speak of?
She’s afraid to look at Mary now, and turns her attention to the window instead. With the chill in the air, no one is outside, but if she allows her eyes to lose their focus, she can easily conjure herself and Mary, running across the lawn. In her mind, she wills the wall and the hedge and the fence to vanish so the two figures can run forever, dwindling to black smudges against an endless horizon.
“You’ve told your husband about me?” Mary asks.
Wendy risks a glance back at her.
“Some. Not…” She waves her hand vaguely. “Not everything I said just now. I suppose I hadn’t realized until just this moment exactly what it is I want. I’m still not entirely sure I do know.”
Warmth colors Wendy’s cheeks and she resists the urge to put her hands against them to cover the blush. Why is this so difficult?
“I still want to open a shop,” Mary says. Her words are careful, considered. Wendy glances at her again and sees the light gleaming in her eyes. It reminds Wendy so much of the expression Mary would get when they planned their escapades of old that it almost undoes her. Only now they aren’t planning a theft, or an impossible escape, but their futures, real ones.
“Do you think you and Ned might help me?”
“I…” Wendy opens her mouth, but no words follow the first.
The question catches her off guard, almost
