“Thank you,” she said again. I nodded, and was wondering when it would be appropriate for me to exit when she spoke up.
“Were you with him when he . . .” her voice trailed off as I acknowledged she needn’t finish the sentence.
“Yes. Yes, I was there,” I said softly. I hoped she wouldn’t inquire any further.
“How did it happen?” she asked, and immediately looked like she was frightened to know the answer to her question.
I remembered what Preacher Moore had once told me: “There are times when an answer is worse for the mind than a continual question,” and I knew this was precisely one of those occasions.
I hesitated a moment, as the memory of Johnny’s death rushed through my mind. I knew there would be no solace for her in the truth, and so I comforted her with lies.
“It was a cold March afternoon,” I began. Her eyes were fixated on me. “Well, it wasn’t that cold, but there was a wind that was slicing us to ribbons. We were approaching a farmhouse that we wanted to dry off in and take shelter in. I forget which town it was near, but it was somewhere on the Cologne Plain.” My mouth was dry from being nervous, so I stopped to take a drink of coffee.
“As we got close to the farmhouse, we started taking on enemy fire. The yard was surrounded by a thick, stone wall, so we rushed to get back to it. Well, everyone got back except for me. I got hit.” I pointed to the scars on my face.
“So I was lying in the mud and the slush, with bullets smacking the ground all around me. I thought I was going to die.” Maggie stared at me raptly, her hand over her mouth. The story was obviously very vivid to her.
“And then I heard someone splash his way toward me. Someone picked me up and started hauling me back toward the wall.” I paused. “It was Johnny.”
“Well, Jerry hadn’t stopped shooting at us, and so just as we were almost back behind the wall, Johnny got hit.” I could see the pain in her eyes, as though she was suffering vicariously.
“But he managed to drag me behind the wall, where I could receive medical attention, but him—his wounds were just too bad,” I said. Her emotion was contagious.
“I remember both of us lying there on the ground, looking at each other, eye to eye. He was like a brother to me. He wouldn’t last long, and I suppose he knew it, but before he passed away, he looked over at me and said, ‘Robert?’ And I said, ‘Yes, Johnny?’ He said, ‘Tell Maggie I’ll meet her under the maple tree.’” I stopped and wiped my eyes. “And then he was gone,” I finished.
Maggie cried quietly, but then she smiled through her tears as she wiped her face again.
“Under the maple tree,” she murmured softly, and she fell silent for a moment, her face telling me she was pondering something dear to her.
“You know,” she said softly, when her tears had been dried, “I never wanted to think about Johnny getting killed . . . but I always knew that if he did, he would die just like he did—a hero.” I felt my throat begin to tighten again. I smiled gently at her and said, “I guess you knew him well.”
She smiled back at me with trembling lips. “Yes,” she said wistfully, “he was so noble. Such—such a good man.”
“No,” I replied, my voice quivering with feeling. “He was great!”
We both sat quietly, as if observing a mutual moment of silence. She smiled faintly, as though thinking back fondly on Johnny. I was happy that in her eyes, he had died with dignity, an honorable man.
“Mr. Mattox, Joshua stinks,” Lizzie announced as she entered the room with Joshua in tow.
Maggie and I both laughed. I picked up Joshua and confirmed Lizzie had a case.
“I suppose I should change him before we leave,” I said. “I have diapers in the car.”
After I had Joshua cleaned up, we went back into the kitchen and were prepared to leave. For some reason, I felt reluctant to leave. It had been so long since I’d had good, adult conversation, and I felt a connectedness to Maggie.
“He’s such a sweetheart!” Maggie exclaimed, looking at Joshua. I couldn’t help agree that he looked like a handsome little man. Maggie picked him up and gave him a motherly squeeze.
“If it’s none of my business, tell me, but—” she halted, as though already regretting she’d opened her mouth, but felt compelled to finish, “—does he have a mother in his life? I mean . . . it’s just . . .” she trailed off, as though she felt she’d already said more than she should have. Had anyone else asked such a question, I would have thought they were prying, but I didn’t take it that way coming from Maggie.
“No,” I answered carefully. “His mother passed away this past summer.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she replied in a horrified whisper. She looked at Joshua with a maternal pathos and squeezed him tightly.
“He’s not actually my real son,” I blurted out, stunned that I had just volunteered such sensitive information. She looked at me, wide-eyed.
“It’s—it’s a long story. We really should be on our way,” I said, but made no move to act on my own recommendation.
“I have all day, and lots of coffee,” Maggie assured me kindly. “Why don’t you at least stay until supper?” she coaxed. It wasn’t hard to convince me. I simply wasn’t looking forward to going home.
“Alright, until supper then,” I agreed.
I sat back down, and we chitchatted as Maggie prepared supper. Conversation with her flowed easily.
After we had finished supper and done the dishes, we retired to the sitting room. I sat down on an ancient sofa, and she curled up on a faded old easy chair.
“So, tell me a story,” she said to me, and waited expectantly for me to begin speaking. I suppose she could sense that I wanted to tell her it, because she didn’t seem like the type to ask for a story for the sake of gossip.
So, I slowly began to tell her how the last few years of my life had unfolded. She listened, spellbound, nodding earnestly to encourage me when I related the difficult parts. Talking to her felt comfortable, natural, as though I didn’t need to hide anything from her. And so I didn’t. By the time I finished, we were both glossy-eyed. She looked at Joshua, who had fallen asleep in her arms, and then back up at me.
“You’re a good man, Robert,” she told me. I laughed.
“No,” I shook my head, “if you only knew some of the things I’ve done . . . no, I’m—I’m terrible . . . rotten to the core.” Maggie laughed lightly.
“But Robert, you’re an angel!” she teased. She smiled at me in a way that suggested genuine admiration.
“I think I’m entitled to my opinion,” she added adamantly. It made me feel good about myself, but also made me slightly ill at ease, so I quickly changed the subject.
“Enough of my whining already. How about you? How have you been?” I asked. The smile fled quickly from her face.
“Well . . . it’s been alright,” she hedged evasively. The brave face she was putting on hid the truth poorly.
“Really?” I asked, raising my eyebrows skeptically at her.
“Well . . . yeah, it’s been tough,” she admitted with a sigh. “Losing Johnny was just . . . well, I guess I don’t need to tell you how hard it was. How lonely it’s been.” I nodded. If she could talk to anyone that would understand, it would be me.
“And then trying to raise a little girl by myself and make both ends meet at the same time has been so hard. Johnny was always a good father and a good provider, but we really didn’t have much of anything when he got killed.”
“What about his life insurance?” I interjected. She frowned
“Johnny and his brother lost their business in the Thirties. Creditors took pretty much everything I got. We had a house, but I couldn’t make the payments on it with the money I make working as a seamstress, so I had to sell it and move into this rental. I also make some money cleaning, but it’s not a lot.” I could tell by the way she talked how burdensome things were.
“So I guess we’re doing alright. It’s just a little . . . tight
, that’s all,” she ended, trying to smile cheerily, but I saw fear and worry in her eyes, and her lip trembled almost imperceptibly.
“Tight? How tight?” I interrogated sternly.
“Um, pretty tight,” she admitted slowly. She looked at me, and the look on my face must have told her that her answer was unsatisfactory.
“I’m behind on some bills . . . OK, all of them, actually,” she said dejectedly. She looked down woefully.
“OK,” she finally said, as though coming clean, “we’re getting evicted.”
“Evicted?!” I almost shouted. “When?”
She hesitated.
“Wednesday,” she said meekly.
“Wednesday?” I repeated. She nodded.
“You mean this Wednesday?!” I bellowed.
“Yes,” she said, almost cowering now, as though afraid I was going to be angry at her. I was a little put out at her that she hadn’t told me sooner, but more upset that some coldhearted landlord would put a poor young widow with a child out on the street in the winter, and so close to Christmas.
“Where will you go?” I boldly meddled further. Maggie averted her eyes.
“I don’t know,” she said in a whisper. Now I was angry. My Sir Galahad complex had been activated, and I felt there was only one thing to do. I cleared my throat nervously.
“Maggie, I’m about to say something,” I began. “What I’m about to say may sound like absolute lunacy to you, so if it does, will you promise me that you’ll pretend I never said it, and we’ll continue the evening like it never happened?”
She looked at me quizzically. “OK, I promise,” she laughed.
I paused, trying to find words to carefully phrase what I wanted to say, but finally abandoned that futile effort and drove bluntly to the point.
“Will you marry me?” I blurted out, feeling my face grow hot as I heard myself speak. It sounded even more ridiculous to hear it out loud.
Maggie looked at me with a stunned look, as though what I had just said was, well, lunacy. I felt like such an idiot. When she recovered, she let out a sound that sounded like it came from somewhere in that narrow no-man’s-land between a laugh and a sob.
“Gee, Robert, I thought you’d never ask!” she said, but her words, tone, and facial expressions were so contradicting I couldn’t decipher if she was mocking me, serious, or somewhere in between. I felt like an even bigger buffoon.
“I’m sorry!” I apologized embarrassedly. “I—I just thought we’re both lonely, and have children to raise, and you’re—”
“Robert, shut up!” Maggie ordered me, but she was smiling. I shut my mouth and waited for her to speak.
“Robert, when I asked God to send me an angel today, I just hoped he’d send someone to lift my spirits and be a blessing to me. But I never, ever . . . wow . . . Robert, that was sweetest thing I’ve ever heard!” She was so emotional she could hardly finish her sentence. It took her a minute to compose herself enough to speak, and I still felt embarrassed, just in a different way.
“Yes,” she said, her eyes misty, “if you really meant it, the answer is yes.”
“Alright, it’s an engagement, then,” I declared. Things had happened so quickly it hardly seemed real.
“So—so you’re sure you want to marry me?” I asked, wondering if I’d jumped the gun and not given her enough time to make an informed decision.
“Yes!” she laughed.
“I mean, look at me,” I pointed to my face, “I’m ugly as hell! Can you see yourself looking at this for the rest of your life?” I wanted to make sure she wasn’t overlooking anything, so I turned my face to give her a good look at my scars.
She chuckled softly as she stood up. She laid Joshua, who was still dozing in her lap, down on the chair she’d been sitting on. She walked over to me and sat down beside me, nice and close, and rested her arm on the back of the sofa behind my head.
“Robert,” she said, looking into my eyes from inches away as she spoke, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Because you, are a very, very beautiful man, and I could look at your face for the rest of this lifetime and the next.” I felt the warmth of her breath against my face and wondered how her lips would taste.
“But do you think it’s right to get married for the convenience of it rather than love?” I argued, though not knowing why, since I wanted to marry her.
“Will you give me trust, commitment, and faithfulness?” she asked me.
“Yes, of course,” I replied.
“Well, I give you the same,” she vowed. “and how could love not grow in a soil so fertile?” I knew she was right.
I reached over and pulled her toward me. She came willingly, and fiercely planted her mouth on mine, as though hungry for something that had been denied her too long. I ran my fingers through her hair, took the back of her head in my hands, and pushed her lips against mine even tighter. She moaned softly, as though my kiss alone were an ecstatic pleasure. We finally broke apart, breathless and burning.
“Mmmm, Robert!” she sighed, running her fingertips over my lips and looking at me with the same sort of yearning I felt toward her. I felt such desire for her, and something rippled through a part of my soul that I had thought to be dead, the gentle awakening of a feeling akin to love.
I brought her savagely toward me again, kissing her at the base of the neck and working my way up toward her ear.
“Maggie,” I whispered, my lips gently brushing her ear, “I . . . I think I’m going to love you, so much, someday.”
She pulled away gently and looked at me, her eyes brimming with happy tears. “Me, too, Robert,” she whispered, “me, too.”
She giggled girlishly as I dragged her onto my lap and held her tight. It felt like she fit. It felt like she belonged there.
We punctuated our sentences with kisses as we talked about our future. We agreed that, considering her current predicament, the sooner we got married, the better. After all, neither of us had the time or desire to carry out an extended courtship, and we couldn’t see any benefits of one, anyway. It seemed getting married immediately would be advantageous to everyone concerned, and so we decided I would stay until the following Monday, and we would get married then. The part-time nature of my job made it quite flexible, so there was no interference in that regard.
We talked and talked, as though neither of us wanted to be the first to leave the other, but when the clock struck midnight, Maggie jumped up.
“Oh my gosh, it’s late! I’ve got church tomorrow!” she exclaimed. “Let me get you some blankets and a pillow,” she said, disappearing down the hall and reappearing with the bedding.
“I can sleep on the sofa if you and Joshua want to sleep in my bed,” she offered.
“Oh, no thanks, he can sleep on the floor beside me as long as he has blankets to lie on,” I replied. “Thanks, though.”
She folded up a blanket several times, laid it down on the floor beside the sofa, and placed Joshua gently on top of it.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked, scanning the room.
“No, I think we should be fine,” I said. “Well, I could use a goodnight kiss,” I teased.
She fluttered her eyelids coquettishly. “That could be arranged,” she flirted. She stepped over, bent down, and made my blood rush with her kiss, gently prying my willing lips apart with her tongue and driving me crazy with her taste.
“Good night,” she said, ending it abruptly.
“Hey!” I protested as she walked away. “That’s not fair! You can’t just stop now! That—that—” I sputtered “—that wasn’t a ‘good-night kiss,’ that was a ‘good-morning kiss!’ That was more like ‘Hel-lo!’”
She let out a full-throated laugh, and it was a beautiful, sensuous sound to me. “Well, I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy it!” she mocked me, standing in the doorway with a big smile on her face.
“I did enjoy it!” I almost shouted.
“Shhhhh, quiet!” she held her finger to her laughing li
ps as Joshua stirred.
“I did enjoy it!” I repeated in a hushed voice. “But it just seemed you might have promised more than you delivered.”
“Well, I can’t say I didn’t want to deliver more than I did, but I knew one of us had to stop before things got out of hand.” She chided me playfully. “And I was getting the feeling it wasn’t going to be you.”
“Bah, you didn’t even give me a chance!” I defended myself weakly. We both laughed, knowing that she was right. I looked into her eyes, and she looked into mine, and I saw in her eyes what I felt in my heart.
“I love you, Robert,” she whispered.
“I love you, too,” I answered, and nearly meant it.
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
I turned off the light and lay down. It was quiet, except for the sound of Joshua’s gentle snoring, and the occasional creak of the old house. It had been such a bizarre day, it felt like a dream. A beautiful dream. It had all happened so quickly, so spontaneously, as though Maggie and I had both been powerless to fight the fate of togetherness even if we had had the will to fight.
It was astounding that Maggie, whom I hadn’t even known a few short hours before, was on the verge of capturing my love, and had gained my trust and total confidence. The trust of me, a man who had just the day before believed with all his heart that he could never trust another woman! It all seemed as if everything that had happened had been predestined, beyond our control. We had just been characters in a beautiful story that the great Author was writing.
As I drifted off to sleep, I breathed a prayer of thanks, and longed to hold my Maggie.
~~~
“Oh, and he cooks, too!” Maggie exclaimed as she walked in the door after church the next morning.
I was just taking some roast chicken out of the oven, having opted to avoid adding any grist to the church gossip mill by staying home with Joshua and starting to pack up some of Maggie’s things.
Love is a Wounded Soldier Page 32
