Becoming Mrs. Lewis(104)

“He’s decided that he must lay down bricks for us to walk on from the house to the pond; he’s out gathering them from the old kilns and setting them into the deep mud.” Jack motioned toward the pond. “He’s down there.”

“Well, isn’t he turning industrious?” I laughed and squinted into the sun. “Building walkways. I wouldn’t have guessed it.”

“Joy.” Jack bent over and popped two green beans from their stalk and dropped them into the basket. “What made you buggered with Moira?”

“I assume jealousy.”

“Jealousy?” He made a tsk tsk noise, teasing.

“Yes,” I said quietly. “I know it’s wrong,” I leaned down and chose a ripe tomato from the vine, placed it in the basket. “Like with Ruth Pitter.”

“You’re jealous of Ruth Pitter?” He almost laughed, but my seriousness checked him.

“I’ve read her poetry. She’s a more gifted poet than I am, Jack.” I held up my hand. “There’s no use arguing that, but that’s not the point—she’s in love with you.” I bent to pick another tomato, but my finger pressed too deeply into the delicate flesh. Red juice trickled down my arm. I dropped the fruit to the ground and wiped my palm on the apron.

“That’s not the case, Joy. We are longtime friends. We’ve been writing to each other for years now. We discuss writing and cooking and gardening and poetry.”

I faced him, my hand shielding my eyes from the late-afternoon sun. I wanted him to hear what he had just said. In that sentence he could have been describing us as surely as he was describing her.

“What is it?” he asked when I didn’t respond.

“She’s not any different from me, is she—to you?”

“Ruth any different from you?”

“Yes.”

Jack pressed his hands together as if in prayer and shook his head. “You’re right. This is jealousy speaking. You are here standing in my garden, after answering my correspondence and editing my work. You are right here with me and we are heading to town for a beer. Tonight we will read and play Scrabble and Davy will beat me at chess. Douglas will fall asleep talking a mile a minute.” He paused.

I took in a long breath. “I see when my ego takes charge. I’ve come to realize how my past affects me now—criticism and cruelty mingled with attachment have proffered a neurosis I’ll spend the rest of my life overcoming.” I paused. “I can’t get this Christian thing right. How does one get it right at all?” I slapped my hands together in frustration.

“Get it right?” he asked quietly. “What exactly is getting it right?”

“Sometimes I forget to turn to him, and then the woman I have been for all of my life rises up and is no less damaging than she was before.”

“God is no magician, Joy.”

“Oh, how I could use some magic—it might take all of my life, what remains of it, to surrender fully.”

“All of this life, Joy, and maybe most of the next.” He winked but then drew closer. “As with our art, we must surrender and get ourselves out of the way if any good is to come.”

“Must I surrender again and again?” I paused for effect. “And again?”

“I believe all of us must.”

Our basket was full by then, the vegetables enough for dinner, when I told him, “The truth is I was already on edge—you see, I might not be here for long.”

His eyes widened. “What do you mean? Whyever not?”

“The British Home Office won’t renew my paperwork again. I’ll have to take the boys back to the States.”

“Joy, I’ll not let you be sent back home. We’ll find a way to make sure you stay.”

“There is only one way to stay, Jack. And that’s marriage. So unless I take myself over to the Globe Tavern and pick myself a good Englishman to seduce, it looks as if I will be packing for America.”

“You can’t leave,” he said. “I will not let you return to that terrible place.” He took my face in his hands. I dropped the basket, tomatoes and green beans scattering to the earth.

I placed my hands on top of his. “You don’t want me to go?”

Our faces were close now, his lips near mine, his eyes shadowed by sadness.

“No. I would miss you too terribly. I have come to depend on you, Joy.” He dropped his hands and placed them on my shoulders, drawing back a step.

My body trembled with the need for him, and I could feel the same from him—a thrumming below the words and the touch. He pulled me close and held to me, and I rested my head on his shoulder.

“You musn’t leave.”





CHAPTER 46


Now, having said the words that can be said,

Having set down for any man to see

“SONNET XLIV,” JOY DAVIDMAN



“I have something I want to show you.” Jack stopped on the Oxford sidewalk next to one of the ubiquitous red phone booths. August heat pressed upon us, and a woman pushing a pram strolled past, smiling at Jack in recognition.

“You do?” I asked, redirecting his attention to me.

It was only the day before that I’d told him about the British Home Office. He hadn’t said another word and I was nervous, reticent to bring it up again. Davy browsed through Blackwell’s, and Douglas ran off to find some friends to punt with at the Cherwell.