A Gift Upon the Shore

by Wren, M. K.

  “But you would. Luke says you would.”

  “Does he? Well, meanwhile, I have work to do here.”

  Mary looked out at the horizon where the sun had vanished. “That was my work, too.”

  “But you believe you have other work to do now, don’t you?”

  “I must do it if I’m capable of it. What else can I do?”

  “So, I don’t see that there’s a problem.”

  “The problem is . . .” The muscles of her jaw were tense to the point of pain. “I don’t want to leave you here alone.”

  “Why not? Don’t you think I can manage alone?”

  “Of course, you can. Rachel, I . . . love you too much to leave you.”

  Rachel reached out and rested her hand on Mary’s where it lay clenched on the arm of the chair. “But I must do what I believe is right, just as you must.”

  Mary put her other hand over Rachel’s, felt the warmth and strength under the brown, parchment skin. “Luke said we can come back in the spring to see you. And it’s only four days to the Ark. He’ll tell you how to find it.”

  “Well, I’ll be glad to know exactly where you are. But I’ll be all right. I’m more worried about you. Childbirth is always a risky undertaking. I’m glad the Doctor is actually a physician.”

  Mary hadn’t considered the risks to herself in her decision, and she couldn’t muster a shred of fear now. She remembered lying naked to the sun in Luke’s arms, wondering if by some stroke of luck she might have been impregnated. She had counted the days and knew it wasn’t probable, only possible. But the day would come when it would not only be possible but inevitable.

  I am doing what I must. I am doing the right thing.

  “I’ll be fine, Rachel. Don’t worry about me.”

  At midnight Mary lay awake with bars of clouded moonlight crossing the sheet that covered her, and she listened to the murmur of the breakers and remembered the first time she had heard them at Amarna. I am here . . . I am always here. . . .

  The door opened. She saw Luke framed in the shadows. At times she had doubted he would come, yet she wasn’t surprised to see him now. She sat up, waited for him to take her outstretched hand.

  He had questions, but again she didn’t want to talk. She pulled him close until she could kiss his mouth, until she could whisper near his ear, “Make love to me, Luke.” That was what she wanted, and what she had, the two of them in the moonlight on white, smooth sheets, smooth skin warm and damp and musky with effort as they panted toward culmination. Mary lay open-eyed, gorging on sensation, arching her back and whimpering on the razor’s edge between pain and pleasure, while she watched the moon haloed in iridescent clouds, while she waited for his spasm of ejaculation, and laughed, holding at the center of her body and her being the potential of life.

  The right thing. Yes. This is right.

  But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma . . . and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes.

  —JOHN ADAMS, THE LIFE AND WORKS OF JOHN ADAMS (1851)

  And on her lover’s arm she leant,

  And round her waist she felt it fold,

  And far across the hills they went

  In that new world which is the old.

  —ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON,

  THE DAYDREAM (1842)

  Yesterday Little Mary brought a frog to school, which led eventually to the subject of cold- and warm-blooded animals, which led inevitably to the subject of the evolution of those diverse solutions to the problems of surviving extremes of heat and cold.

  Evolution. That seminal, magnificent concept that always fired literalists with manic zeal. Or fear, really. I had often touched on the subject of evolution, and certainly yesterday wasn’t the first time the children had heard the word.

  But Miriam warned me two days ago that she would not let her children be taught “evil.” And three days ago I surrendered on the issue of teaching human reproduction.

  I knew better. But Jerry wanted to keep peace in the family.

  Today I was aware even at breakfast that Miriam’s children were quiet and uneasy, but I didn’t know why. Until now. It is the appointed hour for school, but when I enter the dining room, I find only Stephen and Little Mary waiting for me. On the table near Stephen’s right hand is a hapless garter snake imprisoned in a glass jar.

  “I see you brought us another example of a cold-blooded creature, Stephen.” He nods, but says nothing. Mary is atypically still, hands folded in her lap. “Where are the other children?” I ask.

  Stephen looks up at me, and his reluctance at being the bearer of this news is obvious. “They’re out in the garden.”

  I am abruptly consumed with anger, wrenchingly intense, and it must be apparent in my face. As if in defense of his schoolmates, Stephen adds: “Miriam told them they had to help in the garden.”

  Stephen knows that order has nothing to do with a need for help in the garden; fear is hidden in his eyes. His world has been shaken with a temblor he doesn’t understand. Mary understands it even less, and her eyes, pale against her dark skin, shine with pent tears.

  I manage a smile. “Wait for me. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  I go out the backdoor without slamming it, walk up the grassy slope at a measured pace, and all the while my pulse is pounding, my chest tight. Damn her.

  All the women except Bernadette are in the garden, and all Miriam’s children are there. They stop their tasks—hoeing, watering, weeding—and watch me silently as I make my way to the gate, open it, and step inside.

  Miriam stands near the gate, regal in triumphant self-righteousness. Deborah clings anxiously to her arm. A short distance away Isaac kneels in a row of broccoli, hands full of uprooted weeds, and looks guiltily from me to Miriam. Near him, Jonathan, sober and uncertain, leans on a hoe.

  My voice is steady when I speak, and that surprises me.

  “Jonathan, Isaac, Deborah . . . you’re late for school.”

  They don’t answer me. I don’t expect them to. Miriam says coldly, “They aren’t going to school—not today, not ever again!”

  My voice is still steady. “Didn’t Jeremiah tell you that one condition for your staying at Amama was that I would teach the children?”

  “He may have agreed to that,” she retorts, her chin coming up, “but I didn’t. I didn’t agree to have my children taught blasphemy!”

  Stalemate. For now, at any rate. I can’t ask the children to make a choice between me and their mother.

  But I smile and ask, “Blasphemy? Have your children asked you more questions you can’t answer, Miriam?”

  Her cheeks redden, but there is about her now an aura of power, and I recognize at this moment that it’s quite possible her power is not illusory. She says, “We’ll settle this Sunday evening at the family meeting.”

  Poor Jerry. So much for his longed-for peace in the family.

  The gauntlet has been thrown down, and the family may not survive this rupture of its peace. Miriam is willing to risk that for the sake of her convictions.

  But so am I. Stalemate, indeed.

  I glance once at Esther, whose children are waiting for me in the house. No doubt they are there because their mother made a hard choice to stand up to Miriam, and I’m grateful. That’s why I say nothing to her now. I don’t want to remind Miriam of her mutiny.

  I turn away and start back to the house. No one bids me goodbye.

  In the afternoon, after a midday meal marked by uneasy silence—which Jerry seemed to find annoying, rather than ominous—the cloudy sky delivers a soaking rain, and I sit at the table in the living room and watch the rain marching in off the ocean, hanging its beaded curtain from the roof. Enid occupies the other ch
air. I’m waiting for Stephen, and she’s taking time for a cup of tea before she goes to her loom. Her bony hands are tensely clasped around her mug. “Well, I’m sure we’ll work everything out at the family meeting Sunday.”

  Sunday is the day after tomorrow. It seems a long time away.

  “What an optimist you are, Enid.”

  She stares at me. “Of course, we’ll work it out. We have to, Mary.”

  I don’t argue the point. Gentle Enid, she doesn’t smell disaster in the wind. She is as irrational in her beliefs as Miriam is, yet I tolerate that in Enid because she tolerates my beliefs, even if she doesn’t understand them. Tolerance is a rare quality, and it is one with Enid’s capacity to love without question. She loves the children, she loves the adults in this family, she loves me.

  But I wonder, will she love me when I am called a heretic, a blasphemer, an abomination before the Lord? When everything that has given my life meaning lies broken at my feet?

  “Sister Mary? Oh, dear—what’s wrong?”

  I’m taken off guard by the concern in her voice. “What?”

  “You . . . you’re crying.”

  And so I am. I wipe away the telltale tears. “Must be old age creeping up on me.”

  She tries to laugh at that, but she’s distracted by Stephen. He approaches hesitantly, as if he isn’t sure he should interrupt us. Enid smiles at him as she rises. “Well, I’d best get to work. Stephen, have you seen Little Mary?”

  “She’s waiting for you in the workroom.”

  “Oh, my, I really must get to work.”

  She hurries away, and Stephen sits down in the chair she has vacated. He looks out at the rain and finally asks, “What’s going to happen, Mary? I mean, with school and . . . and Miriam.”

  “I don’t know, Stephen.”

  He considers that. “Sometimes I think Miriam does hate you, but I don’t know why. You’ve never done anything to her. Except maybe . . .”

  His eyes are downcast, and I have to ask, “Maybe what?”

  “Well, when you wouldn’t let her finish the whipping.”

  Does he think all this is somehow his fault? Oh, my sweet child, not-yet-man. I reach out and take his hand. “It goes much deeper than that. But don’t worry. We’ll resolve this one way or another.”

  He studies me intently, and perhaps he realizes how little real comfort there is in that assurance. Then he looks at the diary on the table. “Maybe you’d rather not have a lesson today.”

  “Why not?” I ask, surprised. And I wonder if Stephen and I will be allowed more of these lessons after the family meeting.

  “No reason,” he says, and means no reason he can explain. “Besides, maybe this is a good time for you to think about happy memories.”

  “Happy memories?”

  “I meant . . . well, you and Luke that summer at Amama.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course.” I suppose my memories of that time are happy. Luke and I were in love. What an amazing state of mind that is. I think it’s similar to Miriam’s state of mind where religion is concerned. There is an extravagant exultation in being in love, living always at the extremes of emotion. The problem—which is never evident to the victim—is that this exultant state induces mental tunnel vision.

  “Weren’t you happy when Luke asked you to be his wife?”

  I hear the clack-clack of Enid’s loom, her patient instructions to Little Mary. “Yes, I was happy, Stephen.”

  “And Rachel? Wasn’t she happy for you?”

  “Yes, she was happy for me. And I thought . . . but, of course, she wasn’t in love. She didn’t suffer from tunnel vision.”

  He looks perplexed. “From what?”

  “I just mean that I only saw what I wanted to see. I thought Rachel was as happy as Luke and I were. But in fact she had nothing to look forward to but hard labor eking out a living here, spending any remaining time and energy on the books—all in absolute solitude. In loneliness. But I was incapable of envisioning that future for her. And I was doing what I thought I had to do, what I thought was right.”

  “But wasn’t it right? I mean, if you could have children . . .”

  In his world, where there are so few people and new life is so precious, my doubts make no sense.

  “That summer it seemed right, Stephen. And it was a happy time for me, and a busy one. Luke and I were determined to see that Rachel was well prepared for winter. The three of us harvested and stored most of the crops, split wood, cut and baled hay, and Luke shot two deer and smoked the meat. We canned vegetables and made jams and applesauce, harvested honey, made cheese. And Luke finished the vault. On that day I know Rachel was happy. It was the last day of August. We carried all the books we’d already sealed to the Knob and stacked them in the vault, then we opened a bottle of our mead and celebrated right there.”

  I don’t add that we opened more than one bottle, and we were all a little drunk. We laughed and sang until the sun set and the shadow of dusk fell on the sea. The last song was “Auld Lang Syne.”

  “Well, after that, Luke felt his work at Amama was finished. There were a few odds and ends to do to prepare Rachel for winter, but that only took a few days. On the sixth of September Luke and I left Amama. We set out on foot, each of us carrying a backpack. Rachel offered us one of the horses, but Luke said there were plenty of horses at the Ark, and we wouldn’t need much in the way of worldly goods. All we needed would be provided for us at the Ark. . . .”

  Rachel walked with us as far as the east gate. I held her for a long time, and I remember feeling a sudden fear, a sense of loss as urgent as panic. But Luke called to me to come along, and the panic vanished. I was smiling when I turned and waved my last goodbye.

  By then I was too far away to see if there were tears in Rachel’s eyes.

  The great question which, in all ages, has disturbed mankind, and brought on them the greatest part of their mischiefs . . . has been, not whether be power in the world, nor whence it came, but who should have it.

  —JOHN LOCKE, AN ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING (1690)

  This had once been a state campground. A paved road, tufted with weeds, veined with blackberry vines, still wound through the trees. Luke led Mary to a campsite that was separated from the beach only by a sloping, salal-covered bank six feet high. To the south a creek tumbled over a rocky bed until it reached the sand, where it sprawled in a weave of shallowing channels toward the sea. Two spruce trees, bent by winds into a canopy, dappled the ground with shade. The concrete table and benches were intact, as well as the firepit.

  Mary sagged down on one of the benches, backpack and all, her feet and legs aching. Luke had insisted on starting out this morning as soon as there was light enough to see. Yet now he insisted on stopping, and the sun was still thirty degrees above the horizon. He was standing by the stream, his back to her. When he turned, he smiled as if he were about to divulge a secret he could no longer keep.

  “We’re only about five miles from the Ark, Mary.”

  She felt a tingling at the back of her neck. “Then why are we stopping here?”

  Without responding, he came over to the table, turned and rested his pack on it while he unbuckled the straps, then helped Mary out of her pack. “This is a nice place, isn’t it? I’ve camped here when I was out with hunting parties. There’s good fishing off those rocks to the south.” He delved into his pack, found the collapsible fishing rod, and began putting it together. “And I’m not looking forward to jerky and pemmican for supper. I’ll see if I can’t catch something tastier.”

  She walked with him as far as the beach, then began searching above the high-tide line for driftwood, while he strode toward the small headland to the south, and she wondered why it had apparently always been the lot of women to gather firewood.

  In the next hour she accu
mulated a substantial stack of wood and kindling; she laid a fire ready to be lighted; she gathered two cupfuls of wild huckleberries from the bushes growing along the road; and finally she sat down on the concrete bench with the sketchbook that had been Rachel’s parting gift to her.

  She opened it to an ink drawing of the Knob. Rachel had added a few strokes to suggest the vault. On another page, a magnificent stump lying on the beach, roots flung skyward. On the next page, a dark, textured arch: the base of the tree. Then a montage of cats; she recognized Trouchka with his odd spots. Then Shadow in various poses—Shadow whom she knew she would never see alive again.

  She looked out at the ocean, squinting into the double glare of sun and reflected sun. Luke had offered to put Shadow out of her misery, as he put it. But Rachel had refused him. She would take care of Shadow to the end.

  Mary could see Luke in minuscule silhouette on the headland. She wondered if the changes she felt in him in the last four days were real or only figments of her own anxiety. Sometimes she imagined the Ark as a magnet that wrought subtle alterations in his emotional and mental charge as it drew him into its field of influence.

  From the first night, when they camped in an old bum where charred firs loomed over the new growth of alder, they slept in separate sleeping bags, although they might have zipped the bags together and, if nothing else, shared the warmth of their bodies in the chill September nights.

  And at the end of the second day they unwrapped the last of the baked chicken they’d brought from Amarna, and Luke clasped his hands in prayer, as he always did before eating. But this time he spoke aloud, and when he came to the amen, he added, “Say it, Mary. Amen.” And she was too startled not to.

  That night, as they watched the campfire burn down to coals, he gently stroked her hair, and she closed her eyes, appreciating the affection she read into that gesture. Then he said, “You’ll have to let your hair grow out. Women don’t cut their hair.”

  Annoyed, she retorted, “If you’re any example, men don’t cut their hair, either, where you come from.”