A Gift Upon the Shore

by Wren, M. K.

  Doubt. Was that it? But why? And I remember that he was oddly withdrawn in school this morning. I attributed it to the familial tension of which he and all the children are so intensely, so silently aware.

  No, this is something more, something new, but I’m distracted when Jerry asks, “Is that the letter?” He looks at it fixedly.

  I sink into one of the chairs, gesture toward the other. “Yes, this is the letter. Have a seat, Jerry.”

  He shrugs, nods at Stephen, who sits down beside me, while Jerry remains standing, arms folded in an attitude of mixed suspicion and uncertainty. Stephen is again looking out at the sea, as if he has no interest in the letter.

  I unfold it carefully. “It begins, ‘My dear Mary . . . I waited too long to find my courage. Now I can’t come to you, I can’t speak to you face-to-face, because there’s so little time left for me in this world. I am sending this letter with my son Jeremiah. He is my only son still living. I told him to find you, because I know how much he can learn from you. You were good and true, and I was blind to the truth, but the scales have fallen from my eyes, and I know I betrayed you and Rachel. I’ve known it for many years. Finally, before I die, I must tell you. I pray the Lord to give me the strength to finish this.’ ”

  I hear a muffled sound, look up to see Jerry’s lips compressed, grief straining at his taut self-control. I turn the first page over.

  “ ‘Mary, I wanted to go to Amarna many times, but never had the courage to face you. I think of you, and you are in my prayers every day. I see you as you were when we first met. In my mind you’ve never gotten old like I have. I see Rachel, too, and hope she lived in spite of her injury. When I count the years, I know she can’t be living still, but I hope she died in peace. I wonder about our child. . . .’ ” And I hesitate, refusing to look at Jerry, but aware of his gaze on me. “ ‘A child conceived in love, and I know it sustained him. Tell him his father was a foolish man, but he loved his mother.’ ” I slide the sheet under the last one, swallowing against the tightness in my throat. I think Luke stopped there, too. The writing changes, becomes more erratic.

  “ ‘That last day—I’ll never forget it. You said if the Ark was our only hope, we had no hope. You spoke the truth like a prophetess. The Doctor kept saying Rachel was a witch, and I saw then that the Lord’s grace had left him. She was a good woman, a woman of wisdom. But I didn’t stand against him. He sinned by his lies, and I sinned by my silence. The night after you and Rachel left, he had a stroke. Some thought it was a judgment. Others said it was a witch’s curse. I had to take over as preacher for a while.’ ”

  I turn the second, dryly rustling sheet, glance up at Jerry. His face is expressionless now, but the muscles of his arms flex intermittently. I study the page, read, “ ‘it was a bad time for us, but we came through it finally. The Doctor got over his stroke, except his left hand and leg were never strong again, and it was like all the power had gone out of him. Sometimes you could still feel the strength and love in him, but other times he was hard to be with. And sometimes he just couldn’t manage like he used to, and the Elders had to step in. But those were still good years. There were more babies. Mary, I had four children once, and three grandchildren.’ ”

  I put the second sheet behind the others, and I’m sure there’s been another lapse of time. The writing is getting difficult to read, the spelling degenerating.

  “ ‘Night again. Bernadette wants to take my paper and pen away. Doesn’t understand. Have to finish this. Brother Adam died today. He never believed you were evil. I was telling about the good years. Sixteen years, my sweet Mary, good crops and good years. But God sent a storm one night. Lightning hit the church, went down the steeple. You said we should have a lightning rod on that steeple, out in the open like it was, tallest thing around. A prophetess, yes. The church burned. Doctor was asleep in his room.’ ” I turn the page over, remember the first time I read these words. “ ‘He got burned so bad you couldn’t recognize him, but it wasn’t till the next day that he passed on.’ ”

  And I remember I felt at that moment a resurgence of the old desire for revenge, and it seemed at first satisfied by the Doctor’s painful death. I hoped that during the long hours he survived with burns so severe he was unrecognizable, he thought just once of Rachel, of the anguish she suffered, and finally understood what he had done. But I knew he did not. His death, even in agony, changed nothing.

  Jerry says, “Please, Mary . . . go on.”

  I focus again on the page. There’s been another time lapse; I can barely decipher the words. “ ‘Sun’s up. Been sleeping like Bernadette says. She’ll come down with fever, too. Has to rest. After the Doctor’s passing, we built a new church. Miss the bell. Half-melted, never rang true. We had two peaceful years. Seventy-eight souls here Christmas. Five came from near Eureka last October. Told you I saw smoke there. Good Christian people. Said there was fever where they came from, but they never had it. Maybe they brought this fever. Maybe God sent it. Only thirty-seven left.’ ” I look up at Jerry, see his eyes unfocused, haunted. He remembers.

  He says dully, “Brother Luke called it a judgment. Those were nearly his last words.”

  I don’t try to answer that, but turn to the next page. “ ‘I told the Flock to leave the Ark before they all died. Start new someplace else. No hope left at the Ark. Getting hard to write. Told Jeremiah how to find you. Others going south. Told him to redeem me to you. Teach him what I never could. And his children. Mary, forgive me. Pray for me.’ ” My voice has become as erratic as Luke’s writing, and I clear my throat before I add, “It’s signed simply ‘Luke.’ ”

  Jerry is looking south into the wind. At length, he says huskily, “My father was a good Elder, a good shepherd to the Flock, but it seemed like nothing he did helped when so much grief came down on us. I don’t understand it, why we had to suffer so much at the Ark.”

  “Jeremiah, the Ark was a great success.”

  His head comes around abruptly. “It’s deserted—dead! How can you call it a success?”

  “You didn’t live through the years right after the End. Rachel and I searched for survivors and found nothing but death and desolation. Luke found only a few survivors and even more desolation. Yet at the Ark people lived. You’re the second generation, and your children are the third. That two more generations came out of the Ark is a miracle.”

  His face is as transparent in its revelation of emotions as Luke’s was. I watch him run the gamut from grief to skepticism to amazement. He says softly, “Maybe we were driven out of the Ark for a purpose.”

  “Maybe. But purpose is a human invention. We need purpose, but we impose it on ourselves.”

  He ponders that, but makes no comment on it. He says, almost formally, “Thank you for reading the letter to me.”

  And I wonder if he regrets as much as I do that I didn’t read it to him sooner. “Jerry, I keep it in a drawer in my room. When I die, I want you to find it. It will be yours then.”

  He nods. “I’ll take good care of it.” He seems to want to say or ask more, but when he speaks, it’s only to say, “I have to get out to the north pasture.” He glances at Stephen, as if he’s forgotten why the boy is here, then departs without another word. I watch him until he disappears beyond the corner of the house.

  Luke, at least you gave your son something to think about—if he’s willing to face it.

  I fold the letter and slip it into my skirt pocket, then look at Stephen. He stares at my hands as if they still held the letter, a muscle tensing spasmodically in his jaw. I say, “Stephen, the story is ended now. There’s no more I can tell you.”

  “Isn’t there?”

  That question is so curt, so coldly adult, I am for a moment shocked and even angry. Stephen seems to realize, too late, the cold charge in his words. He turns away, holding himself rigid.

  And I chide myself for
my anger. I don’t know what’s preying on his mind, but it’s serious, and I must understand it. I study his profile, the tight, sculpted contours of his full lips, and I wait for him to speak, but he seems willing to outwait me. At length, I ask, “You don’t think the story is finished?”

  He rises, goes to the railing, keeping his back to me, and again I wait, for the first time afraid. When at last he turns, his eyes fix on me with a gaze so full of fear and doubt I’m hard-pressed not to look away.

  “Miriam told me something after morning service.”

  Miriam. Of course.

  “What did she tell you?”

  “She said Rachel was an unbeliever.”

  Rage is my first response to that, and I feel the chill of pallor in my face. How did Miriam know that? Has she been reading my diaries?

  I almost laugh at that explanation, at the thought of Miriam purloining my diaries, poring over them in secret, trying to decipher my writing, laboriously spelling out each word.

  No, the explanation is undoubtedly far more straightforward: to call Rachel an unbeliever was simply the worst thing Miriam could think of to say against her. She didn’t care about the truth or falsity of her accusation.

  And it is immaterial why she chose that particular blade to cut the bonds between Stephen and me. She chose her weapon well, however inadvertently. In these people’s lexicon, unbelief and evil are synonymous. I needed time to prepare him for this, to teach him that there are many answers to the question of the existence of a god. But Miriam has forced the issue, and the damage she’s done may be irrevocable. I can’t lie to Stephen. Not now, with his dark, seeking eyes fixed on me. He would recognize a lie.

  I ask, “Did you wonder why Miriam told you that?”

  “Yes. But it doesn’t matter, does it? I mean, if it’s not true.”

  “It matters. But not as much as what you feel about it. Obviously it bothers you a great deal. Does it frighten you?”

  He starts to answer negatively, then pauses to think about it and says, “Yes, I guess it does.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I thought Rachel—I mean, everything you told me about her made me think she was good and wise and brave, but now . . .” The chagrin in his voice almost overwhelms his words. “It isn’t true, is it? Rachel wasn’t an unbeliever.”

  He seems to be begging for a comforting lie. No, he is begging for a comforting truth, and I can’t offer it to him. I rise, take a step toward him, then stop, feeling his tension. He doesn’t want me to touch him.

  “Everything I told you about Rachel was true, Stephen. She was good and wise and brave. But there was one thing I didn’t tell you. I didn’t think you were capable of dealing with it yet. And I was right.”

  He stiffens, perhaps stung by that. “Then what Miriam said—it’s true, isn’t it? Rachel was . . . an unbeliever.”

  And finally I must answer, “Yes.”

  He is stunned by that syllable, staring at me as if I’d betrayed him, just as Jerry stared at me with incredulous accusation only a few days ago. But I can feel no anger for Stephen as I did for Jerry. I can only feel myself betrayed.

  “Stephen, what you believe about god is your concern. It is your right as a human being to believe anything that makes sense to you. And it was Rachel’s right to believe what made sense to her. If her beliefs don’t agree with yours, does that negate her goodness, her wisdom, or her courage?”

  He is as close to weeping as I am, but he won’t give in to tears. He stands facing me, rigid and trembling, his voice thick. “But if she didn’t believe in God . . .”

  “What? Does it follow inevitably that she was evil? That’s the way Miriam thinks, the way she wants everyone else to think.”

  “And you—what do you think? Are you . . .”

  He can’t speak the words. He wants to know if I’m an unbeliever, too. Oh, Miriam, how unerringly your blade has gone to the jugular.

  “Stephen, what difference does it make what I believe? I’ve never asked you to believe the way I do, any more than Rachel asked me to believe the way she did. I just want you to . . .”

  But he is past hearing what I want, what I hope for him. He stares at me as if he had never seen me before, and I know I’ve lost him.

  My scholar, my hope for humankind. My heir. As much my son as the infant who died in my womb. I’ve lost him.

  “I have to go help Jeremiah,” he says coldly.

  And I stand helpless, wordless, while he walks away from me.

  In the vacuum he leaves, I clutch the railing for support, and the pain I feel now is shaped like grief and is of the same substance.

  There have been times in my life when I knew that if dying were easy, if I had only to let go and slip into that sleep past dreams, I would do it. This is such a time, and age has eroded my will; I feel no resilience in body or mind. I am too brittle and fragile to withstand the shearing stress of this grief, of this defeat.

  But dying is seldom easy, and even at the nadirs of despair, I always had a compelling rationale to hold on to life. My aching hands grasp the railing, and behind my closed eyes I seek the rationale that will give me a hold on life, on hope, at this moment.

  What I find, finally, is stubborn pride. Will I spend my last years in defeated despair, or will I risk them for the shreds of hope?

  Will I surrender to Miriam?

  I straighten, look out at the sun-spangled sea, and I laugh, bitterly, on the edge of weeping.

  Miriam, you’ve won another battle, but I still will not surrender.

  That means I must begin my preparations for the next battle. My eyes are dry as I leave the deck and go to my room. I replace Luke’s letter in its box in my souvenir drawer. My pulse beats hard and slow in my ears, and I feel a hint of the familiar constriction in my chest.

  When I emerge into the greenhouse again, Bernadette is at her worktable transplanting seedlings into pots. She turns and studies me with narrowed eyes. “Stephen’s lesson over so soon?”

  I only shrug. “I’m going for a walk on the beach.”

  She presses dirt around a seedling with her small, strong fingers, nodding absently. “Take care, Mary.”

  When I leave the greenhouse, I call Shadow, then make my way down to the beach, with Shadow trotting ahead of me. I go south, but only as far as the old beach access where the bank is low, and I can make my way easily up to North Front Road. I follow it past the ruins of the Acres house back toward Amarna. Once I leave the remains of the asphalt, there isn’t much left of the road into Amarna. The gravel is buried in moss; alders and bracken fern encroach on the margins, leaving only the tracks of our wagon wheels. I pass the gate at Amarna quickly, hoping no one there sees me, and walk up the quarry road until I come to the trail that leads to the tree. It seems fitting that my preparations should begin there.

  At length, I reach the tree and sit down on the bench. I feel Stephen’s absence here, and I lock my hands together, accepting the pain to focus my thoughts away from him. I look up at the granitic column of the tree, savoring its monumental silence, gathering strength out of my memories.

  Finally I call Shadow from her explorations. She comes to me panting, plumed tail waving.

  “Shadow, speak!”

  She knows that command and responds with three sharp barks. They seem brazenly loud in this domain of quiet. I lean down to pet her. “Good girl, Shadow, good girl.”

  Next I pull the silent whistle out from under my collar. It wheezes softly as I blow on it, but what Shadow hears makes her dance with confused excitement. The whistle means come here, but she’s already here. I blow on the whistle again and say, “Speak, Shadow!”

  For the next two hours—what I judge to be two hours by the movement of the shadows around me—I continue the lesson, working with her for a few minutes, then l
etting her go to explore or find water at the Styx, which murmurs unseen in the jungle of elderberry and fern. Then I whistle her back, repeat the lesson, and before this training session is over, she not only comes for the whistle, as she always did, but I usually hear her bark before she appears. But she isn’t consistent, and I must have consistency in this. My life may depend on Shadow.

  At supper I sense a different pitch in the tension that makes all but the most necessary or banal conversation impossible. Stephen is distracted and quiet, his gaze seldom lifted above his plate. He hasn’t had a word for me, but neither has he spoken, except when questioned, to anyone else, and the questions haven’t gone beyond whether he wants another helping of chicken. No one has asked about our truncated lesson this afternoon; no one seems interested in that small change in schedule. We’ve all withdrawn into ourselves, and I can almost hear the hum of thought, but none of it is expressed aloud.

  And Miriam watches me, the cold fire in her eyes glowing perceptibly brighter this evening.

  After supper, the skim of high, curdled altocumulus clouds in the west colors splendidly, but I enjoy that display alone. The family is at evening service. I wonder what text Jerry has chosen for his sermon tonight. Before the cock crows, thou shalt deny me thrice?

  When the color fades from the sky, I go to my room and undress, put on my nightgown and robe, then take a book and my magnifying glass to the living room. I sit in the big armchair at the south end of the couch, ostensibly for the light from the oil lamp on the side table between the couch and the chair. But from this position, I have only to lean a little to the right to see the far corner of the dining room. The basement door is on the south wall of that corner, the backdoor on the east wall.

  When the family comes in from evening service, they aren’t surprised to find me here. I often read here by the fire and often stay up after the others have gone to sleep. Bernadette brings me my nightly cup of willow bark tea and sits down long enough to drink a cup of comfrey tea herself. She is never talkative, and tonight her terse conversation centers on Deborah, her apprentice. “Well, you were right, Mary. She does have a way with plants. Asks too many questions, though.” But when she rises to leave, she adds: “Maybe I’ll take her with me next time I go out for wild herbs.”