The Charmers: A Novel(68)

“I was hoping you wouldn’t,” I replied.





57

Mirabella

It was much later, and we were still in my room, in the bed where we had made love. Chad took my bare hands and held them flat in his. He inspected the shriveled skin that without the gloves pulled my fingers down into the palms. My nails were perfect, but my hands curved like claws. I was ashamed all over again and I began to cry.

“Tell me about it,” he said.

In all the years since the accident I had never spoken to anybody about it. Not even the psychiatrist who assured me I would be better, “cured” I guess he meant, if I unburdened my soul.

I did not then, or ever, but now I wanted no secrets between my lover and myself. He had to know what happened.

“I was twelve years old,” I said. “I’d gone with my mother to a friend’s farm. We were playing in the barn, as kids do, hiding behind bales of straw stored for winter feed for the cows. They had only a few cows, three in fact, but they were looked after like children, brushed until they shone, picked-up after like they were thoroughbred racehorses, so beautiful with their liquid brown eyes and long straight lashes. I was a city girl, I didn’t know about farms and machinery. It was a playground for me. I climbed up into the rafters, you know the big king-beam a barn has, and all the others coming from it. Well one beam stuck out right over where I was hiding.

“There was a round metal machine at the end of it, sort of rusty looking, obviously something that had not been used in years. So of course, daredevil me, I had to give it a try. I thought I’d just grab onto the rope, swing out over all the kids below, and push the machine in front of me. Well, that’s exactly what I did. The rope was old. The machine was old. Everything broke and I fell. I clutched at the rusty apparatus for some reason, trying to save it, I suppose. I landed on a cow. It probably saved my life, but I broke its neck. I was distraught. I had killed a helpless trusting animal. Don’t worry, people said to me. Thank God you’re alright. It was just a cow. Besides, look what it did to your hand. Of course the cow had done nothing, it was all my own fault. And yes, silly though it might seem, it has left a scar on my memory. I love animals, I take in stray dogs and cats, I help at the local animal shelter, I do all I can for them.…”

“To atone for the cow,” Chad said.

“Oh, Christ, can you believe how ridiculous that is? All those years ago and I still can’t forgive myself. My arrogance and stupidity.”

“That’s all it was?”

I could see he did not believe me. I had to tell him. “I also landed on my friend. She fell off the hay bale. I thought she had died. I screamed to them to come help. She did not die but she had broken both legs and it was over a year before she could walk again. Years later, I was a bridesmaid at her wedding. She was still limping. ‘You see, I’m walking on my own two feet,’ she said to me with a big loving smile. It was then I learned about forgiveness.”

Chad said, “And now it’s time to learn to forgive yourself. Mistakes are made. We all make them. There are times when I feel I could have done more for my poor children out there in the wilderness, that I should have done more for them, should not come back here and left them alone. Then I remember who I am. I do what I do, all I can do. I have my own life to live, my own world to live in. And so do you, my poor Mirabella. Can you leave it all now, and go forward? With me?”

It was the best question any man ever asked me. Apart from saying will you marry me, of course. But that came later.

And, wouldn’t you know it, the canary sang.





Epilogue

When I think about Jerusha, I recall her sad story, but I remember also the joyous times she lived through and the success and the happiness that was hers, until it was all taken away from her.

I like to remember her as a lovely, smiling young woman, glad for the love she had, and glad to give that love. She was a true star in the firmament of life.

Now, Chad and I are able to enjoy the beautiful home she built with such hope and care. We think of her when we hear a voice echoing from the beach, or the great splashing roar of winter-night waves against the rocks, or smell the elusive scent that still sometimes lingers. We remember her, and thank her. She will always exist not only in our hearts, but in the way of life that she helped create, for those who came after her.

We would like you to know it was not for nothing, Jerusha.