The Fulfillment

by LaVyrle Spencer

  Aaron was waiting at the dry-goods store when she got back. Sarah was grumpy after her long, unaccustomed outing.

  “Do you want a bite to eat before we head back?” Aaron asked.

  Mary remembered the ham dinner they’d shared together once, but wistfully declined this time. “Sarah couldn’t take it, I don’t think, and anyway, I had a sweet at the bakery.”

  The baby was spluttering noisily now, complaining aloud.

  “It sounds like she’s tuning up,” Aaron joked. “You’re right. We’d better roll.”

  The ride back went faster than ever, for they talked all the way. After getting away from the townspeople, once again a natural ease fell between them.

  “I splurged on a length of faille,” she confessed.

  “Oho!”

  “But I still save by making it up myself.”

  “You don’t need to make excuses, Mary. You can buy anything you want, and it’s okay with me.”

  “Yes, but I really have no need for it.”

  “You deserve it,” he declared, angling a half-smile sideways at her before adding, “Besides, needing it takes all the fun away sometimes.”

  She smiled at his impracticality. “You’re right, Aaron. I’m not going to worry about it or make excuses…just like you said.”

  “So what else did you do?” he asked.

  “I visited Millie Harmon at the bakery and ate a big, fat Bismarck, and gave a taste to Sarah.”

  “And what did she think of that?”

  “Oh, she loved it! She fussed when I wouldn’t give her any more.”

  He screwed his head around to glance at the sleeping baby behind them, smiling at the picture of Sarah eating Bismarcks. “See that you don’t give in to her and spoil her. Nothing worse than a spoiled kid.”

  It was the first confidence about child rearing they had ever shared. She marked it in her mind for future reference.

  “We went to visit Doc Haymes, too,” she said, changing the subject.

  A fleeting look of concern puckered his brows as he glanced at Mary. “Is something wrong?”

  “Wrong? Oh, no. I just had to ask him about feeding her…ah…other foods, that’s all.”

  “Already?” He seemed surprised.

  “Well, you know Doc Haymes. He never prescribes the usual thing. Sometimes I think he amuses himself by shocking his patients. He’s usually right, though.” Then, quickly shifting, she pulled a knee up on the seat and faced his profile, asking, “So what did you do?” Surveying his hair with a twinkling eye, she noted, “I see you got your ears lowered.”

  “That I did,” he laughed. “Also got ’em filled. According to the boys at the barbershop, we can be expecting another wedding around here.”

  “Whose?” She leaned toward him expectantly. But he hesitated and Mary thought he was teasing her again, so she grabbed his earlobe, pulling it. “If you don’t want this lowered some more, you better tell me and tell me quick!”

  He let her pull, feigning helplessness and pleading, “Okay, okay, let loose and I’ll tell!” But she held on until he revealed the names of the lucky couple: “Priscilla and Willy Michalek.”

  She released his ear then and quickly faced front again. He could sense questions forming in her mind. They were quiet for some time before she ventured, “How do you feel about that?”

  “I’m happy for them,” he answered without hesitation.

  “Nothing more?”

  “What else should there be, Mary? There’s nothing between Pris and me.”

  “But there was once.”

  “Yes, I won’t deny it. You know what there was between us because I told you.”

  “Well, it’s not a thing you take lightly, Aaron. I just wondered if you had any regrets about leaving her.”

  “None whatsoever, Mary,” he assured her. “Do you believe me?”

  She looked at him then, studying him momentarily before shrugging. “I want to.” Looking away again, she asked, “When is it supposed to be?”

  “Right after harvest, I guess, if you can believe all you hear in the barbershop.”

  “That’s a nice time for a wedding,” she commented.

  “It should give you a chance to wear that new dress you’re talking about making.”

  She cheered a little at the thought, and they talked of other gossip the rest of the way home.

  Sarah was still sound asleep when they got there. Mary turned to pick her up, but Aaron asked, “Could I carry her in to bed, Mary?”

  There’d be no harm in that, she thought. “Of course, Aaron.”

  It was turning dark when he left that night, acting as though he hated going. She walked down to the elms with him, twiddling some grass between her fingers, sorry he had to leave.

  “Aaron,” she said, looking at the blades she toyed with, “you’re awfully good to Sarah and me. Not just today, the trip to town and all. I mean…every day. I just wanted to thank you.”

  He steeled himself to keep from pulling her into his arms. “Hey,” he told her quietly, “I told you once there’s no need to thank me. You just somehow make me want to work for you. You do that to a man, Mary girl.”

  At his words a cherished, protected feeling stole over her. She crossed her arms and rubbed them under her sprigged muslin sleeves and for a moment imagined he held her. The words brought warmth, but she wished, too, for the warmth of his real arms around her.

  But seeing her full, swelling breasts where she hugged them, he left quickly before he gave in to himself.

  22

  Late summer eased its bountiful self upon the land, bringing harvest. For Mary and Aaron this was a healing season. The busy summer had worked to diminish the horror of Jonathan’s death. They still felt his absence, but time and activity began diminishing grief.

  Jonathan had requested Mary and Aaron’s first liaison, and had gone away to permit it. He was gone again, but this time his absence held them apart. The proprieties that they observed so strictly served to heighten their awareness of each other. Their relationship was all new.

  Sarah’s presence was an added dimension for them both. Mary became aware of Aaron’s wish to play a father’s part the night he asked to take Sarah to her bed. She realized the depth of feeling he had for his daughter and felt he had purposely hidden it. Propriety again!

  But after that night a subtle change was effected. It began one noon when Aaron came to the house for dinner to find Mary in the midst of making currant jelly. Dinner wasn’t ready. The table was lined with scalded jelly glasses waiting to be filled. A dish towel filled with boiled currants still hung suspended, like a punching bag, where she’d drained the juice. A large kettle of simmering juice sent fruit-scented steam billowing over the range. The baby was on the floor in the middle of the confusion.

  Mary threw him a harried look, apologizing, “I’m sorry, Aaron. This took longer than I thought, and I couldn’t let it overboil or it would be ruined. Your dinner’s not ready.”

  He didn’t seem to mind. He stood inside the door watching the steamy confusion, smiling at the mess. Actually, he was enjoying the scene before him. Mary’s hair had slipped its coil, so bits of it clung to her temples and neck in inviting tendrils. The heat from the stove had heightened her color, giving her a rosy hue. The fruity aroma filled the room like ambrosia.

  Sarah wasn’t pleased by it at all. She’d had enough of being ignored on the floor, and squalled in protest.

  “Aaron, will you pick her up so she’ll stop crying? My hands are full.”

  “So I see,” he chuckled and lifted the complaining Sarah saying, “C’mon, Corncob. Your mother wants me to spoil you a little bit.” He rested her on his suntanned arm, where the contrast of her whiteness captivated Mary. She watched him while she stirred the jelly. He took Sarah’s hand in his free one, smiling into her eyes. Sarah looked into his face in a steady, unblinking way, as if she were deciding something for herself. Then she made a spitty sound that came out, “A-bah,” an
d smiled up at the man who was her father in an enchanting, two-toothed grin. He gently pumped the delicate hand he held and said, “Hi, Sarah.” Then he realized Mary was watching him, and he turned to catch her gaze. She smiled at Aaron, and her heart seemed full enough to burst as he smiled back at her with the same wide smile Sarah had just used on him. “She’s beautiful, Mary. Isn’t she?” he asked.

  “Yes, Aaron. She is,” Mary answered, and the music in her heart could be heard in her voice. Wanting to give him more of what he’d missed, she suggested, “Why don’t you take her outside where it’s cooler? I’ll be done here in a minute, and we can have lunch out there.”

  When the jelly glasses were filled, Mary sliced ripe tomatoes, brought vinegared cucumbers from the buttery, added cheese, cold meat, and bread, and carried it out to the shaded yard on a wide breadboard.

  Aaron was lying on his side in the cool grass while Sarah braced against his chest to stand up. She was babbling and drooling and bobbing up and down on wobbly legs. He caught her when she lost her balance, stood her upright again with a “Whoa there, Princess!”

  “You talk as if she were a horse,” Mary teased him.

  “Well, I don’t know much about talking to babies.”

  “You’ll have to learn,” she said. His face was lit up with pleasure, and when Mary came, it made the circle complete.

  “Here comes your mother to take you,” he said to Sarah.

  “She’s happy where she is, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind.” It was the first time she’d charged Sarah to him, and there was a feeling about it of sharing her at last. They didn’t talk much but watched Sarah and laughed at her cub clumsiness, growing used to the togetherness it evoked.

  After that, he held her every chance he got. She was always awake at noon, growing out of one schedule and into another, in which she napped following dinnertime. Aaron would pick her up from the floor, out of Mary’s way, as soon as he came into the kitchen. Mary purposely delayed the meals, giving him time to play with Sarah while she set dinner.

  One day Aaron suggested, “There’s a high chair up in the granary rafters. Shouldn’t I bring it down for her?”

  “Oh, yes, it’d be a blessing. She’s always underfoot now that she’s outgrown her basket.”

  He took down the old piece of furniture and scrubbed it to get the years of dust from it, then set it in the sun to dry. The following evening after the day’s work was done, he painted it on the back porch while Mary and Sarah sat on the steps and kept him company. Mary waited until Aaron was at the house before she put Sarah into it for the first time. They made a little ceremony out of it, and Aaron was alight with pleasure. He brought the baby a piece of toast to initiate her into her new spot. After that, the high chair became a permanent fixture at the table.

  The day came when Mary knew she had delayed the weaning long enough. Doc Haymes’s orders were long overdue, and Sarah could hold her own at the dinner table now.

  She stopped nursing Sarah one morning and bound her breasts as tightly as she could. When Aaron arrived that morning, he noted her new, flat shape but said nothing. At noon Mary seemed quiet and moved more slowly than usual. By evening she was listless and said she was tired and wanted to go to bed early, so he left right after supper, worrying vaguely, unsure of what he could do for her.

  The night was endless for Mary, a fitful string of hours during which she dozed and woke repeatedly to the throbbing that increased as the hours wore on. She changed her bindings, and the new one added some comfort, but soon the aching beat through her breasts again. She felt fevered and hot and dreamed of great drafts of water. She awoke knowing she could drink nothing. She tried Lydia Pinkham’s medicine, but it did no good. The hours of the night crept on to dawn as her discomfort became gnawing pain. She dozed again, but even Sarah’s light stirrings awakened her. She lay listening to the sounds from the crib, thinking it was worth all this just to have Sarah, but distressed tears sneaked from behind her eyelids.

  When she heard Aaron come, she rolled to the side of the bed, but found herself completely milk-soaked again. She sat on the edge of the bed, clutching the heavy, wet bindings through her drenched gown, biting her lip to hold back the tears.

  Aaron saw the closed back door and ran the rest of the way to the house, leaping the porch steps in one bound. When he tried the back door and found it still locked, panic gripped him. He reached above the doorsill for the key they always kept there. He dropped the key in his haste and cursed at his inept fumblings before he finally worked the key and swung the door wide.

  The kitchen wore a morning chill that permeated his heart. Why wasn’t a fire lit? Where was Mary? He paused only a moment to scan the quiet, empty room, and then he was bounding up the stairs, fear pushing his legs in giant strides as he hollered her name in the stillness.

  Her bedroom door was open, so there was nothing to hinder his entrance, yet he stormed the doorway as if he’d smashed through a barricade to reach her.

  She was sitting on the side of the bed, clutching her wet, sticky chest, and he read the misery in her eyes immediately.

  “Oh, Aaron, it hurts so much,” she whimpered. He was at once relieved at her safety and distressed by her pain.

  “What can I do?” he questioned, coming to her side immediately.

  She shook her head, still holding herself, and his heart hurt at the sight of her.

  “Tell me, darling.” He knelt down on one knee in front of her. “Tell me what to do,” he entreated. “Here, you’re all wet. We have to get you a dry gown and some dry bindings. Where are they?”

  “I use dish towels,” she confided, “but I can’t get them tight enough by myself.” It was so good to have Aaron here that she gave in gladly, letting him insist that she wash while he gathered fresh towels for her.

  Sarah had awakened when Aaron made his noisy entrance, but she sat contentedly, watching this strange new scene in the bedroom.

  Aaron helped Mary, doing as she instructed, cinching the towels until they bit into the soft flesh of her armpits. It pained him to bind her so tightly, but she insisted, saying it felt better already.

  When she had her fresh gown on again, he pulled her hair from inside its neck, and as it fell free outside, he put an arm around her shoulders, guiding her toward the bed. “You had a wicked night, my love. Now maybe you’ll sleep better.”

  She began to object, “But Aaron, I have to…”

  He placed a finger on her lips, stilling them and ordering her, “You have to rest and let me out of here so I can take care of Sarah.”

  She spluttered, but he’d have it no other way. He nudged her again toward the inviting bed, and she acquiesced, sitting down. From there she looked up at him and asked, “What would I do without you?”

  He reached to push her hair behind one ear, saying, “Pray, love, that you never find out.” Then, cupping the back of her head in his hand, he leaned to kiss her mouth lightly, feeling her lips quiver beneath his.

  He went to the crib then and picked up Sarah, saying, “Come on, Corncob, you need drying out, too.”

  The day Aaron spent in the house put him a day behind in the fields. Threshing was starting earlier than last year, for the grain had filled out sooner. He not only had to make up the lost time but spent some days helping Dvorak get his crops in. The arrangement benefited both men, for Dvorak would help Aaron at threshing time.

  Those following days kept Aaron too busy to idle in the house. Until Uncle Garner came with the rig, he saw Mary and Sarah only at mealtimes, and those were hurried.

  Mary improved so fast it amazed her. It seemed her body was easily dissuaded and her comfort grew greater each day until, by threshing time, she wore her old shape, slightly filled out.

  She’d spent many hours remembering the endearments Aaron had spoken, recalling the way he had charged into her room, the concern on his face, and his kiss. But he hadn’t touched her again.

  The end of threshing wa
s approaching fast, and when she thought of Dakota, Mary got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Aaron hadn’t mentioned it at all, but she knew they couldn’t avoid talking about it much longer. She waited for him to bring it up, but when he didn’t, she knew she’d have to.

  It was a heavy, gilded morning with the sun slanting low through the east window and the kitchen door, backlighting the dust motes that ever hung now in the harvest air. Aaron had taken a kitchen knife and sliced a sliver from a piece of firewood in the woodbox to use as a toothpick. He was heading straight outside, but something made him stop and look back at her. She was standing with some things she’d gathered from the breakfast table; only she wasn’t moving, just following him with her eyes.

  “Is everything all right?” he questioned, stopping in front of the window.

  “You haven’t mentioned Dakota,” she said.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  The sun was at his back, on her face, and she couldn’t make out his expression when he spoke. His voice didn’t tell her much.

  “Are you going this year?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  “You’ve been thinking about it then?”

  “Yes. I never wrote Getchner about Jonathan. I suppose he’s expecting both of us.”

  “Oh.” The things in her hands got heavy and she set them down again on the table.

  “Do you want me to stay?” he asked, giving her the chance to keep him here with a single word.

  “I…I just wanted to know, because I’ll have to find someone to help around the place if you go.”

  His teeth were clamped tightly on the wood sliver and she could see the silhouette of his right jaw against the gold glow behind it, could see the muscles tensed, but he stood as if the rest of him were as pliable as warm butter, softened in that sunlight.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he said quietly.

  “Do we have to have the money?” she asked, and he made no comment about the way she now seemed to lump the money as both of theirs. Instead, he turned his head slowly, from side to side. As he did, indicating no, it made shadow, sun, shadow, sun, play across her face.