“Do you want me to go?” he repeated, and this time it was she who turned her head, silently, left and right, left and right. And as she did, the sun repeatedly glanced into her cornflower eyes, again…and again…and again.
She saw him reach up and thought he took the toothpick from between his teeth. She thought he was moving toward her, but it was just the sun in her eyes creating the illusion.
“Then I’ll stay. I wanted to be here to take you to the wedding anyway,” he said. “Will you go with me?”
She was momentarily confused by something she’d expected, some other thing she hadn’t, and she questioned, “The wedding?”
“Priscilla and Willy’s” he reminded her. “Will you go with me?”
She wanted to say simply, yes, she’d go anywhere with him, but instead, she answered, “I don’t know what I’d do with Sarah.”
“Bring her along,” he said, and then more sternly, again, “Will you go with me?”
“Yes.”
And he moved away from the sun, leaving black spots before her eyes from its brightness, a heat in her heart from its fire, from him. But he never touched her, only said before leaving the house, “I like it when you tie your hair back and let it hang that way.”
Mary made up the ivory faille into a slim skirt that sheathed her hips, then flared to drift and swirl above her ankles. She ordered a new pair of high-button shoes. From the white organdy that Aaron had given her last Christmas she made a blouse of full sleeves, pointed collar, and tucked bodice, trimmed with black shell buttons. A black cummerbund completed the outfit, and she eyed herself with approval as she waited for Aaron on the morning of the wedding, late in October.
Mary hurried to gather the baby’s things. “Oh, Princess, aren’t we gonna dance?” she asked Sarah. “Your daddy loves to waltz—you’ll have to learn how, too. Here, let’s get your blanket…he should be here any minute.” Mary pulled it from the crib, added it to the stack on the bed. It was impossible to be patient, to keep her feet still, to keep from squeezing Sarah too hard.
Finally she heard Aaron pull into the yard and collected the stuff she’d readied, scooped the baby up in her other arm, and went down to meet him.
He had somehow acquired a new suit without telling her. It was sienna-brown serge with pale pinstriping. The smartly cut jacket lay open to reveal a waistcoat that hugged his lean torso. A golden chain spanned the open area, disappearing inside a hidden pocket. His round ivory shirt collar was the perfect contrast to his summer-tanned skin and burnished hair. He looked to Mary like some harvest god, his coloring so like the colors of the season. She swallowed hard as she took in his flawless elegance.
Aaron drank in the vision before him. In ivory and white, she could have been the bride of the morning. Her hair was lit by the morning sun, its simple, pristine lines more alluring than any elegant tresses would have been. He recognized the white organdy he had given her, felt a tingle of appreciation at how it looked on her narrow shoulders and rounded breasts. Through the opaque lightness of the blouse a hint of skin was discernible, and he could almost smell it, remembering lavender mixed with her own scent.
Suddenly Sarah demanded attention. Aaron swept an elegant bow to break the electric silence that lay between them.
“You shall be the most beautiful woman at the wedding, and I shall be the luckiest man,” he bantered in a theatrical voice.
She came out of her reverie, lifting her skirts in a curtsy. “Then let us away!”
The morning was brisk but warming, an autumn stillness enhancing it, for most birds had left, save the crows and the hidden pheasants that now and then carped their barking cry. They savored the ride to church, knowing it could be one of the last pleasant jaunts before winter.
They took their accustomed pew and for a moment felt Jonathan’s absence from his familiar spot. But Sarah was there now, and, like all babies in church, took some managing. While they waited for the ceremony to begin, Sarah was busy looking at the unfamiliar surroundings and the faces of those in the pew behind. When she made loud, babbling sounds that resounded in the quiet, Mary and Aaron glanced at each other and smiled, the newness of this experience as exhilarating for them as it was for Sarah.
The organ music captivated Sarah, however, and she became a well-mannered lady as the service began.
When Mary saw Pris coming down the aisle, a knot came to her throat. Pris was radiant in white satin, smiling as she came forward on her father’s arm. Mary’s thoughts slid backward to a night long ago when she and Aaron had sat on the dark summer steps. She heard his voice again, saying it takes two to do a lot of things—to make love and to get married—and she wondered again about their intimacy, Aaron’s and Pris’s. Now here she was, more beautiful than Mary had ever seen her. Aaron’s eyes followed Pris, too, and Mary wondered, Is he sorry after all? But as if he divined her thoughts, Aaron’s russet head turned away from the aisle and his glance flickered over Mary, reassuring her somehow.
As the ceremony proceeded, Aaron thought of the mysterious tether that held him from marriage with Pris. What had held him was that he didn’t love Pris. He knew it for a fact because now he knew what it felt like to love someone fully. He was struck by the irony of his search for that love of his finding it in the place from where he started: at home. Hearing the vows, he knew he’d waited long enough, played the passive brother and acquiescent uncle long enough. Today was the perfect time to begin his suit. The public be damned. He’d wait no longer.
When the service ended and the congregation rose, Mary hitched Sarah onto her arm, but before she could struggle to her feet, she felt Sarah being lifted from her and looked up in surprise as Aaron held Sarah with one arm and reached his other to her elbow, helping her to her feet. She still worried about the delicate balance of propriety. But that balance was inexorably tipped when Aaron kept Sarah on his arm as they entered the aisle, further confused when he took Mary’s elbow solicitously on their way out of church. She didn’t pull away although her confused mind insisted on querying, What will people think? But Aaron’s lucid mind knew they would think exactly what he wanted them to—that the period of mourning was over!
In the buggy she affected a light tone, though her heart was unnecessarily jumpy. “You mustn’t be so…so polite and helpful, Aaron. People will talk.”
He just tossed his head up and laughed, undismayed. “Didn’t I tell you, you do that to a man, Mary girl?” he teased.
She didn’t know what to make of it, after all the careful months of avoiding the slightest scandal. He suddenly seems to be laughing at the wind, she thought. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear he’d been tippling.
He kept it up all through the day. Her heart did crazy things, and she knew she should still it, but couldn’t.
Aunt Mabel commented on how good Mary looked. Seeing the girl’s eyes seek out Aaron in the crowd, she realized why. At dinnertime he brought her a plate of food and took Sarah so Mary could enjoy her meal. In the afternoon he paid a young girl a half dollar to take Sarah off Mary’s hands for a while so she could further enjoy her day. When the line formed for the men to kiss the bride, he was in it. But when he had kissed and paid the bride her dollar, he scanned the crowd for Mary and found her watching him. He winked at her, and she dropped her head to attend to something Aunt Mabel was saying.
They both danced with many people. Sarah was asleep by then, and Mary was free to join in the revelry. Aaron asked her to dance and kept up the gaiety, teasing her about the others she’d danced with. The quarter moon was high before the festivities ended. A heavy chill crisped the air. As the rigs left, the voices that called goodnights carried across the autumn air, ebbing away as the night ushered them home.
In Mary and Aaron’s rig, it was quiet. Sarah slept on Mary’s lap. She was grateful to have the baby there asleep. It seemed a plausible reason for their sudden silence with each other. There was little time for thought. The ride home was too short.
Aaron
took Sarah from Mary before she could protest, and carried her upstairs to her bed. When he’d laid her in the crib he stood a moment, thinking of Mary downstairs, a pounding in his veins. He took off his jacket and hooked it with two fingers, slinging it over his shoulder. Drawing a ragged breath, he went downstairs.
Mary had lit the kitchen lamp, but she was in the pantry. He saw the hem of her skirt as he stood just inside the kitchen doorway. She moved then, knowing he stood there, and gazed at him from across the room. He still held the jacket slung over his shoulder, making no move to leave.
She became self-conscious under his steady eyes and dropped her gaze to the floor.
“I would like one more waltz with you,” he said in a disturbingly quiet tone.
“I…” But she couldn’t finish, seemed not to know what to say.
He crossed the room slowly and reached for her hand, led her across the kitchen and into the shadowed living room. He threw his jacket across the rocker, then released her hand and went to wind the graphophone. The hushed strains of the Strauss waltz glimmered in the room. She saw Aaron against the light from the doorway, saw his hand reach for her again.
She felt the silken back of his waistcoat as she placed a hand on his shoulder, then the rough texture of serge as he pulled her into his arms. They moved a few steps to the music, but it went on as they stilled.
She felt his hands at her hair, pulling the pins from it, but she stayed where she was, her temple against his chin. She heard the pins drop onto the floor behind her. Then his hands turned her face and he lowered his mouth to hers. Her arms came around him of their own volition, and her mouth slackened under his.
The kiss was as familiar to Mary as if she’d shared his kisses every day. But the surge of emotion pounding through her seemed as new as if she’d never been kissed before. Its warmth became heat. His tongue became a coal inside her, setting her afire with its insistence. He twisted his mouth over hers and clamped her body against the hard length of his own. His arm lowered from the small of her back to her hips, and he pressed his own hips against hers, lifting her to her toes.
He tore his mouth away then, and his shaking voice was at her ear. “I meant to go slow, darling, but I’ve waited so long, loved you so long.”
She grasped him against her, protesting in spite of her demanding body, “Aaron, we can’t do this again.”
“Don’t say it, Mary.” And he stopped her words with his mouth.
When he freed her lips again, she said unsteadily, “I’ve felt so guilty about what we did to Jonathan.”
“I have, too,” he said. “But Jonathan is dead, and we can’t keep him between us forever. We’re alive, Mary. You and I are alive, and it’s wrong to deny it any longer.” There was pain in his voice, and hunger, and longing. And as always, he made her do what he wanted because it was what she wanted, too.
There was no denying the shivering weakness that possessed her starved body as his hand slid to her breast and she leaned into his palm, groaning as he caressed her. She could no more stop what was happening than she could stop the turning of the earth. She felt him release her and begin to open the buttons of her blouse, up the back. With her lips still on his, she undid the buttons of her cuffs, behind his neck.
They parted long enough for him to pull the blouse from her shoulders. It was tucked into the waist of her skirt, but he let it drop over her hips, remain tucked in. He pulled the straps of the chemise over her shoulders and pushed the garment to her waist, his hands gliding down her warm sides.
Then he circled her waist with one arm, forcing her to kneel on the floor with him. She felt his mouth hot and wet on her breasts, and pulled his head harder against them, feeling his soft hair against her skin as he moved from one to the other. Her fingers were in his hair, and he felt them clutch and pull it as he licked a line down the center of her chest to her lowered chemise.
When he reached for the hem of her skirt, he touched her high-button shoes. Gripping her bare arms again, he pulled her to her feet, begging, “Take your shoes off, Mary, please.” He turned her toward the kitchen, and she clutched her chemise as she went away toward the lantern light.
He heard her searching for the button hook. After a length of silence she returned barefooted and stood silhouetted in the doorway, her hair forming an aureole around her. He had taken off his vest and shirt and stood barefooted. He raised his arms to her, and she padded noiselessly across to him, making a soft, pained sound as they touched.
“I love you so much, Mary,” he whispered. “I’ve loved you so long.”
“I’ve known it, and I’m so sorry I had to fight it,” she said softly, “but I promise I won’t fight it anymore. Aaron, oh Aaron, I love you.”
It was a kiss of rejoicing when their lips met again, magnified by the long wait they had both endured.
This time she tugged at him, pulling him down onto the hooked rug, taking his hands and placing them on her breasts as she knelt before him. But his hands lingered there only a short moment, then lowered to the buttons at her waist.
A pandemonium of pounding blood clamored through Mary’s head and pulsed through his body. When her skirt fell and he pulled her hard against him, she could feel him, hardened with desire.
“Touch me, Mary, love me, too,” he begged in a strained, throaty whisper, and her hands made their way to the band at his waist. She felt the buttons where they strained against his lean, hard body, and they opened beneath her fingers. The muscles of his buttocks contracted as she ran her hands over their firmness, pulling his trousers away as she smoothed his skin. Then she recognized the familiar heat against her belly as he clasped her to his manhood, her hand there between them. Still holding her so, he fell, pulling her down with him onto the rug. She could feel cold hairpins touch her warm side as he rolled her over, searching with his hand along the soft, warm skin of her inner thigh.
She uttered his name in faint, muffled tones against his neck as he explored and awakened her, finding that she had come to him in a heightened state, as ready for this as he was. He murmured to her, nuzzling her bare shoulders, his joy and passion mounting with hers.
She whimpered as he worked his loving magic on her, a magic remembered from so long ago. When her body trembled and arched, he rolled over her and entered her in silken strokes, grunting as the force built, answering her in sounds only she could understand. At last, fulfillment overtook them and he collapsed onto her, arms outstretched over hers.
In those first intimate afterminutes, with his body still warm in hers, she lay thinking that this was the highest accolade a man and woman could give each other and that words were insignificant in its wake. She felt rich with his gift, as if nothing greater could be afforded her.
But she was wrong. For the next thing Aaron said erupted inside her, lavishing her with an unbelievable plenitude.
He rolled her with him onto their sides, rubbed his knuckles lightly along her jaw, and said softly, “Mary, girl, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
He felt the muscles of her cheek shift as she swallowed. His heart hammered painfully when she remained silent, but Aaron heard her swallow a second time. As if his proposal lacked full import, he added, “And will you bring our daughter along and let me be her father?”
Her arms suddenly clung to him and his face was lost in her hair as she choked, “Aaron, oh Aaron, I thought you might not ask.” She felt like singing and crying at the same time.
He clutched her against his chest, rocking in a timeless motion of relief as his voice cracked. “And I thought you might say no.”
“You should know by now I can never say no to you.”
There was a pause. Then Aaron said, “I thought you might have changed your mind about me…with Jonathan gone.”
“I was afraid of what people would say, Aaron. I tried not to love you because it seemed we could never be allowed to without scandal.”
“I could see that happen to you, and it put me through hell,
girl. Seeing you every day in my house with my daughter and not being able to claim you both. Oh, God, Mary, it was hell leaving you two at night.”
“I did so well until I saw you hold Sarah that first day by the wagon. Remember?”
He chuckled ruefully. “I remember every day of these last six months. I remember choking to keep from asking to hold Sarah. I remember the pain in my gut from wanting to hold you.” He was running his hand again and again over her hair, as if stroking away the memory. “And when I’d come in the morning and see you waving from the porch, it was you I was coming to, not the work or the house or the farm. Just you—and Sarah.” He felt it was a miracle, their being together at last.
She turned her face to kiss the palm of his hand and confided, “Right after she was born, I thought you were sorry about her. I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter, but you wouldn’t even look at her. But even then I could never think of her as Jonathan’s baby, like we agreed. I looked at her and saw you.”
“The only way I could get through all the pain was to stay away and not touch.”
Mary knew what he said was true, that of all of them he had borne the most pain, and she wished she could change what he’d been put through. “Darling, I’m sorry for—”
“There’ll be no more regrets from now on, right?”
She shook her head, not trusting her voice at that moment.
He chose his words carefully, knowing they must be said to free them of Jonathan’s ghost. “Mary…I’m not saying Jonathan willed us together that first time. We had minds of our own. We made choices. But we can’t go on feeling guilty about Jonathan. If he could, I think he’d give us his blessing.”
In Aaron’s voice she caught a fleeting intonation reminiscent of his brother’s. And it seemed almost as though Jonathan had spoken. “I think so, too,” she said.
Sometime later, they became aware of the October chill around them. Aaron made a fire in the heater stove, and they opened its front grate so the flames licked lights across their faces where they huddled before it.
The Fulfillment Page 30
