And so I was afflicted by Jonathan’s curse, caught up in his terrible attraction, and both of us were doomed to suffer for it.
THREE
A friendship progressed between us-Jonathan and I-in this way through childhood. We met after services on Sundays and at social events such as weddings and even funerals, whispering together on the fringe of the mourners, or giving up on propriety altogether and wandering off to the woods so we could concentrate all our attention on each other. Heads shook in disapproval, and without a doubt, some tongues gave in to gossip, but our families did nothing to stop our friendship-at least, I was not made aware of it if they had.
It was during this time that I realized that Jonathan was lonelier than I had imagined. The other boys sought his company far less than I’d assumed and, for Jonathan’s part, when a group approached us at a social, he often skirted them. I recall one time, at a spring church gathering, that Jonathan steered me to another path when he saw a group of boys his age heading in our direction. I had no idea what to make of it and, after a few minutes of anxious contemplation, decided to ask.
“Why is it that you choose to walk this way?” I asked. “Is it because you are embarrassed to be seen with me?”
He made a derisive sound. “Don’t be daft, Lanny. I am seen with you now. Anyone can see us walking together.”
That was true enough, and a relief. But I could not give up my inquiry. “Then is it because you don’t like them, those boys?”
“I don’t
“Then why-”
He cut me off. “Why are you questioning me? Take my word for it: it’s different for boys, Lanny, and that’s all there is to it.” He began to walk faster, and I had to lift my skirts a bit to keep up with him. He hadn’t explained what the mysterious “it” was that he referred to:
“I wish I were a boy,” I muttered, nearly out of breath from trying to keep up with him.
“No, you don’t,” he said over his shoulder.
“I don’t see what-”
He whirled on me. “What about your brother, Nevin, then? He doesn’t much like me, does he?” I stopped, dumbstruck. No, Nevin didn’t like Jonathan and hadn’t for as long as I could remember. I remembered the fight with Jonathan, how Nevin had come home spangled with a crust of dried blood on his face, and how Father was quietly proud of him.
“Why do you think your brother hates me?” he demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve never given him reason, but he hates me just the same,” Jonathan said, straining not to betray the hurt in his voice. “It’s that way with all the boys. They hate me. Some of the adults, too. I know it, I can feel it. That’s why I avoid them, Lanny.” His chest heaved, tired from explaining it to me. “There, now you know,” he said and then hurried away, leaving me to stare after him in surprise.
I thought about what he’d said all week. I could have spoken to Nevin about his hatred of Jonathan, but to do so would restart an old argument between us; he couldn’t stand that I’d befriended Jonathan, of course, and I knew the reasons well enough without having to ask. My brother thought Jonathan was proud and arrogant, that he flaunted his wealth, and that he expected, and received, special treatment. I knew Jonathan better than anyone outside his family-perhaps even within his family-so I knew all of this to be untrue, except the latter, but it was hardly Jonathan’s fault if others treated him differently. And, though Nevin wouldn’t admit to it, I saw in his hateful eye the wish to spoil Jonathan’s beauty, to leave his mark on that handsome face and bring down the town’s favorite son. In his own way, Nevin wanted to defy God, to right what he saw as an injustice God had deliberately meted out to him, that he should have to live in Jonathan’s shadow in every regard.
That was why Jonathan had rushed away from me at the church gathering, because he had been forced to share his shame with me, and perhaps he thought that once I knew his secret I would abandon him. How strongly we hold on to our fears in childhood! As if there was any power on earth or in heaven that would stop me from loving Jonathan. If anything, it made me see that he, too, had his enemies and detractors, that he, too, was constantly judged, and that he needed me. I was the one friend with whom he could be free. And it was not one- sided: to speak plainly, Jonathan was the only person who treated me as though I mattered. And to have the attention of the most desired, most important boy in town is no small thing to a girl nearly invisible among her peers. How could that help but make me love him even more?
And I told Jonathan as much the following Sunday, when I went up to him and slipped my arm under his as he paced about on the far side of the green. “My brother is a fool,” was all I said, and we continued walking together without another word between us.
The one thing I did not take back from our conversation at the church social was that I’d rather have been born a boy. I still believed that. It had been drummed into my head, by the things my parents did and the very rules by which we lived, that girls were not as valuable as boys and that our lives were destined to be far less consequential. For instance, Nevin would inherit the farm from my father, but if he hadn’t the temperament or inclination to raise cattle, he might be apprenticed to the blacksmith or sent to work as a logger for the St. Andrews-he had choices, albeit limited ones. As a woman, I had fewer options: marry and start my own household, remain at home and assist my parents, or work as a servant in someone else’s home. If Nevin rejected the farm for some reason, conceivably my parents could pass it along to one of their daughters’ husbands, but that, too, would depend on the husband’s preferences. A good husband would take his wife’s wishes into consideration, but not all of them did.
The other reason-the more important one, in my view-was that if I were a boy, it would be so much easier to be Jonathan’s friend. The things we could do together if I were not a girl! We could ride horseback and go off on adventures without chaperones. We could spend lots of time in each other’s company without anyone raising an eyebrow or finding it a fit topic to remark upon. Our friendship would be so banal and so ordinary that it would merit no scrutiny and would be allowed to proceed on its own.
Looking back, I understand now that this was a difficult time for me, still caught up in adolescence but stumbling toward maturity. There were things I wanted from Jonathan, but I could not yet put a name to them and had only the clumsy framework of childhood to measure them against. I was close to him but wanted to be closer in a way I didn’t understand. I saw the way he looked at the older girls, and that he behaved differently with them than he did with me, and I thought I might die of jealousy. Partly, this was due to the intensity of Jonathan’s attention, his great charm; when he was with you, he had a way of making you feel that you were the center of his world. His eyes, those bottomless dark eyes, would settle on your face, and it was as though he was there for you and you alone. Perhaps that was an illusion, perhaps it was merely the joy of having Jonathan to oneself. In any case, the result was the same: when Jonathan withdrew his attention, it was as though the sun slipped behind a cloud and a cold, sharp wind blew at your back. All you wanted was for Jonathan to come back, to enjoy his attention again.
And he was changing with every year. When his guard was down, I saw aspects of him that I hadn’t seen (or noticed) before. He could act crudely, particularly if he thought no woman was observing him. He would display some of the rough behavior of the axmen who worked for his father, speak coarsely of women as though he was already acquainted with the full range of intimacies possible between the sexes. Later I would learn that by age
