Ten Thousand Charms

by Allison K. Pittman

  Gloria brought her other hand up and ran a finger along his jaw.

  “So are you.”

  They both laughed at that, and Gloria drew her hands away to fold them gingerly in her lap.

  “You had no right to…to do that to me,” she said, combing her fingers through the fringe of the shawl she'd thrown over her nightgown.

  “I'm sorry" John William said. “It was just a kiss. I didn't think—”

  “I'd mind?”

  He said nothing.

  “You think I've been kissed so much it wouldn't matter?”

  “I didn't think anythmV”

  “Because it does matter.”

  She wanted to say that his kiss bothered her in a way that no man's touch ever had. She who had earned thousands of dollars with hundreds of men, whose body had been wagered and won at gambling tables, felt violated by a simple kiss under a blazing noonday sun. The paradox drew a bitter laugh from deep within her.

  “It matters,” she repeated.

  “I didn't mean to hurt you,” he said.

  Another bitter laugh. “You didn't hurt me. You disappointed me. I thought you were different.”

  “Different," he said, blowing the word out in disgust. He stormed up from the sofa and walked to the window, turning his back to her. “I'm a man, Gloria. Flesh and blood. And you're a beautiful woman.”

  “You didn't kiss me because I'm beautiful. And 1 wouldn't care if you did. In fact," she leaned back against the arm of the sofa, “you could kiss me again right now. You could come on over and take me right here, and I wouldn't care. Because at least I'd know you were doing it to please yourself.”

  He turned, took in her pose, and averted his eyes. “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “You weren't acting out of lust this afternoon. You were acting out of pride.” Gloria got up from the sofa and stalked over to where John William stood. “You were kissing me for them. The more they cheered, the better it was for you.”

  She leaned closer and closer with each word, trying and failing to trap him into looking at her. She needed to see his eyes, needed to know that this was the man to whom she could entrust her life and the life of her son. But the more he evaded her gaze, the more he looked like every man who had ever used, raped, beaten, and sometimes even kissed her. She paused, silent, waiting for the kind word that would reassure that she was safe and wanted. Instead she got a downcast, shuffling mumbling mass of man. Just like all the others.

  “I'm just tired of the lies.”

  “Lies?" Gloria said. “You've handed me nothing but lies since you met me.”

  He took her arm in a grip that sent waves of bruising comfort. “What lie have I ever told you?”

  “You told me it didn't matter.” His grip demanded more. “You've always told me that it didn't matter who I was or what I did. You've said that I could be a new person, that God could make me a new person. That I didn't have to feel ashamed. That you didn't see me that way”

  “I don't.”

  “Yes you do!” She tore her arm from his grasp and stepped back, out of his reach. “And even if you didn't, it wouldn't matter. Because nobody will ever see me as anything different. I can put on a bonnet and play the little farmer's wife, but there will always be a Lonnie who will remind me of what I am.”

  “Who cares what Lonnie thinks?”

  “You care!” Gloria said, her voice too loud for the sleeping family. She hazarded a glance toward the doors leading off the parlor, then continued in a thick whisper. “You care, and don't try to deny it. You weren't defending my honor today you were defending your own.”

  John William's head snapped back more violently than it had when she hit him, his face registering first anger, then something else. He stepped past her, sat down in the willow rocker, and buried his face in his hands.

  “You'll never really be able to forgive me for what I've been,” Gloria said, gently now, following John William and placing her aching hand on his shoulder.

  “It's not my forgiveness you're needin',” he said, looking up. His face was an expression of desperation, a pleading that Gloria couldn't understand. He looked stricken, vulnerable, and she found herself so entranced that she forgot her anger. She felt his hands grasp her waist and allowed this embrace to guide her until she was kneeling on the floor, her face level with his.

  “I've got no reason to forgive you,” he said. His hands were now on her shoulders, his thumbs fairly digging into soft flesh. “I've got no reason and I've got no right. You've never done me any wrong, you see? Since I've known you, you've never done no thin’ against me.”

  “But before I knew you—”

  “I don't care what you were before. It's a new life you have with me. You need to put your past behind you.”

  “It's not that easy,” Gloria said. “I can't just forget what I've been.”

  “No, you can't. And neither can I. But God will, Gloria, if you'll let Him.” He softened his grip but did not let her go, and she found herself unable to look away. “You can't imagine what it feels like to allow God to forgive you, to know that there's no price left to pay for what you've done.”

  “Price?”

  “Yeah,” he said, releasing his grip entirely. “We pay for our sins. Shame, guilt.”

  “That's just it,” Gloria said. “I've never felt ashamed of myself before. Not really”

  “And you don't have to again.” John William's face broke into a smile of pure joy. “Because when Jesus died, He took all of that shame on Himself, you see? So God can take it away from you. So all that's left for you, darlin', is to ask Him to. Tell God you know you've done wrong. Tell Him you believe that Jesus died for your sins. Accept that forgiveness that He offers you.”

  “It can't be that easy.”

  “But it is, Gloria, it is. I spent so long hatin’ myself for what I done. Not just the men I killed—yes,” he stopped her protest, “killed. But when I think of the ones I hurt, humiliated. When I think of how many men took money meant to feed their families and used it to bet on the fact that I'd beat the other guy. There's no way I could go to each of them and say ‘Forgive me. I've changed now.’ The only way to have any peace with my past was to let God grant it for me. And He did, but not until I asked Him to. So you see,” he concluded with a shrug, “you don't need any-thin’ from me.”

  Oh, but I do." She reached up to take his face in her hands. “I need you to take care of my son. To raise him right, so he'll be as good a man as you are.”

  “You know I will.”

  “And I need to know that you'll protect Kate, keep her safe from men like Lonnie.”

  “Did you not hear anythin’ I just said?”

  “I heard you,” Gloria said, standing. “I heard you say that God can make me a new person, but you and I both will always know what I really am.”

  He closed his eyes. “God help me.” He opened his eyes and looked up at her. “If only you could see. If only you could see what God has to offer you. How He loves you. Then maybe you could see how much…”

  The little mantel clock ticked. And ticked. And ticked.

  “How much?”

  And ticked. He stood up, holding Gloria's full gaze. “I'm only goin’ to ask this,” he said. His voice no longer had the pleading passion from earlier. It now had an edge she recognized—the one that told her his patience had run out. “I'm askin’ you to stay With me. To be my wife.”

  “I can't. Not as your wife. That wasn't our agreement.”

  “Gloria—”

  “I'll never forget us in my little cabin and you telling me plain as day that you didn't want me for a—”

  “Enough about th—”

  “Good enough for that baby of yours,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper, “but not quite good enough for you.”

  Gloria felt a pounding in her throat and eyes. She folded her arms tightly across her chest and turned her back to John William. When she felt the slight touch on her shoulder, she took a ste
p closer to the window and rested her head against the cool pane.

  “That must have hurt you,” he said.

  Gloria concentrated on the feeling of her face against the glass.

  “But my wife had just died. I didn't want to be—”

  “Stuck with me?”

  “What's that?" She felt a tug on her arm and allowed John William to gently turn her around. “1 can't hear if I can't see your face.”

  “I said you didn't want to be stuck with me.”

  John William tossed his head back and laughed. “No avoidin’ that, now was there?” He brought his hands up to cradle her face and bent her head forward to place a tiny, almost imperceptible kiss on the blond curls at the top of her head. “But if you're not my wife,” he spoke into her hair, “I got no claim to you.”

  Gloria stepped out of his embrace and raised her eyes to meet his. “You can't claim me, John. I'm not a piece of land you can improve and own.”

  “That's not what I meant.”

  “Every place I've lived, all those houses were full of girls just waiting for some man to come along and make them a bride. Take them straight out of the whorehouse and down the aisle. But I never wanted that. It was never my dream.”

  “What was your dream?”

  His voice, so soft it skittered on the edge of hearing, asked a question no one had ever asked before. When she was young, she dreamt of a father who would show up at her mother's door and take Gloria to his home—a beautiful, three-story mansion with terraces and garrets sitting in the middle of a lush green meadow where a beautiful woman, his lovely wife, would throw her arms wide and welcome this battered little girl who would become her own child. Later the dream changed to an older gentleman in a quiet brick house full of lush carpets, pipe smoke and books, who relied on his long-lost daughter to provide him comfort and conversation in his old age. But never in the idle hours between men did she waste her time fantasizing about a husband. She'd spent her life in and out of beds giving men what was expected from a wife. What was her dream? To live a life free from the life she'd lived. To protect her son from the sins of his mother. To never again be a part of a man's desire; to never again be on the other end of a man's touch.

  That is, until she felt lips in her hair asking about her dreams, and absolute terror at not having the right answer.

  “Why did you marry Katherine?”

  “What?”

  “Did you want to claim her? Rescue her? Or was it mad, passionate romance?” She clasped her hands to her breast and fluttered her eyelashes, mocking the emotion. John William responded with a smile and a slight shake of his head.

  “She was a good woman,” he said. “She taught me about Christ, gave me a Bible. I guess some part of me thought that mar-ryin’ a good woman would make me a better man.”

  “So you think marrying me would make me a better woman?” A sly, taunting smile tugged the corner of her lip.

  “Well,” John William said, shrugging, “I don’ think it could hurt the cause.”

  Gloria emitted an exaggerated gasp of horror and punched his arm playfully—nothing like the blow she landed earlier. John William grasped his arm and staggered to a half-sitting, half-lying position on the sofa. Barefoot and in her nightgown, Gloria attempted to flounce past him and into her room, but his hand caught hers before she could get away, and there was something in his grip that kept her from taking another step.

  “Gloria, look at me.”

  She did, and as she did, their fingers intertwined.

  “I've got strong feelin's for you,” he said, looking at their hands rather than her eyes. “Feelin's that just aren't right without you bein’ my wife.” He looked up at her, briefly, then looked away again.

  “1 can't make you a better man,” Gloria said. “Making me a wife isn't going to erase my past. It isn't going to change me. Think about what I am, John, and tell me that it's something you want to claim.” She felt his grip loosen and let her fingers go slack, but the connection remained.

  “I'm leaving, John. Just after the harvest.”

  He smiled. “Now, darlin', we've been through this before.”

  “That was different. I didn't know then what kind of future Danny would have. But now.

  “What's changed?”

  “Look around. I'll always be able to picture him in this home, growing up, going out into the fields. With you.”

  “And Kate?”

  “That little girl owes her life to me, but I don't owe mine to her. Or to you. Good night, John.”

  She turned her back on him and padded away. She thought she heard him say her name one more time, but the rushing in her ears made her unsure if he had said “Gloria,” or “Good night.” She wouldn't acknowledge either.

  She crawled into bed with Maureen, who appeared to be asleep. She lay awake, waiting for the sounds of John William's settling into the bed in the room next door, but heard nothing.

  When the sky outside beckoned her to leave her bed—after an unnecessary rousing from Maureen—she half-expected to find John William still splayed out on the couch, and in her mind she reclaimed the dangling hand, brought it to her lips, and spoke to him the promises he'd asked for last night.

  But he was gone. The next time she saw him he was up— dressed and scrubbed—swigging coffee and slapping backs, ready to get the harvest under way.

  hile there had never been any discernible affection between John William and Gloria, they now took incredible pains to avoid each other. John William roused early, grabbed whatever cold food he could find in the pie shelf, hitched a team, and was well into the wheat before the rest of the hands had their first cup of coffee. Gloria begged off taking a noon meal out to the men, claiming the afternoon sun was too much for the babies and that she would be of much better use staying back at the house washing and slicing the vegetables from Maureen's garden in preparation for preserving and pickling. When the men came back at dusk, John William tended to the livestock while Maureen and Gloria served the crew a hearty supper. At his request, Maureen fixed a plate and took it to him in the barn.

  If anybody picked up on their avoidance of each other, nobody remarked on it. Maureen attempted a few worried questions, but neither would offer conversation. Big Phil made one joke about sensing an early winter on an occasion when Gloria and John William passed in the yard, but a withering look from John William stopped the comment from escalating into banter. The sheer rhythm of a farm in autumn, the harvest of the field and the bounty of the garden, provided a work-filled haven from idle conversation.

  Then came Sunday.

  During harvest, the idea of Sunday as a day of rest seemed unreasonable. Despite the perfect stretches of clear crisp days, there was always the threat of frost or storm—any agent of the God they worshipped that could take away a year's worth of work and profit in a day. So when Sunday morning came along, the men had to make do with warmed gravy over cold biscuits and no guarantee of a second cup of coffee, as Gloria and Maureen confiscated one team and a wagon to take themselves and the babies to church.

  “No argument this time?” Maureen asked as they bumped along the road.

  “Hm?” Gloria was mesmerized by the passing landscape.

  “I'm just remembering the last Sunday you went to church.” The cheerful chortle that lurked just behind all of Maureen's words grated on Gloria's nerves, just as it had all week. “You kicked up quite a fuss. Thought that man was going to have to hog-tie you to a pew.” She bubbled into full laughter that died out after a few self-conscious moments.

  “Just feels good to get away,” Gloria said after a while.

  “That it does. Those men might feel the need to work on the Lord's day, but not me. He gave me a day of rest, and 1 intend to take it.”

  Gloria glanced over her shoulder to the babies in the back of the wagon. Nearly six months old, neither Kate nor Danny would settle for being packed away in a blanket-lined basket as they had been for their journey from Silver Peak. Now the
entire wagon bed served as a traveling crate, the bottom made soft and smooth by no less than three quilts. Although Danny showed no interest in ever bringing mobility to his little body Kate had taken to grabbing anything she could get a grip of and pulling herself to stand on her stubby, sturdy legs. Gloria checked frequently lest Kate stand up and get bounced right out of the wagon.

  “They all right back there?” Maureen asked

  “Fine.”

  “Think they're warm enough?” There was a slight chill in the autumn morning. Both babies wore woolen pants and sweaters, gifts handed down from Josephine Logan.

  “I'm sure they're fine.”

  After a while, Maureen transferred the reins to one hand and reached the other over to cover Gloria's own.

  “Child," she said, and only that, while the occasional squeezing of Gloria's hand communicated with more warmth than her most cheerful voice ever could.

  Gloria broke the silence. “How long do you think it will take?”

  “To get to town? About an hour.”

  “To bring in the crop.”

  “Ah," Maureen said, withdrawing her hand to gain better control of the team before they veered off the narrow path. “When it was just me and Ed and a sickle, it could take nearly a month. And that was with only ten acres planted. But that was before there was anyone to help. Just every farmer for himself. Now that the country's growin', why there's all kinds of men here just to hire out as hands. Pocket full of cash, no responsibilities. Course, Big Phil's just being neighborly. He's got a place of his own, but he's takin’ to start an apple orchard, so he don't have a crop this year, except hay, and there'll be plenty of time for that after the wheat gets in.”

  “How long for this crop?”

  “I talked with John last night,” Maureen said. “He thinks they're about half through.”

  “Half?” Already?

  “Well, they got eight men working, two reapers, a team going behind each machine tying up the sheaves.”

  “That's just another week.”