Becoming Mrs. Lewis(17)
“Yes.” I sat and looked across the dark space between us. “There must be another way to live a woman’s life—make it our own. I want to find out who I am beyond all these expectations that fold us into a neat box. I want to unfold. How do we do that?”
“I don’t have any answers. I’m just trying to survive—and thanks to you, I might.”
“It’s not much better here, cookie. Bill is still on and off the drink. He wants me to be who I cannot be: a housewife, maid, and submissive spouse. He knew me when he married me. Now he wants someone different, as if marriage would turn me into a compliant doll. I don’t want to make you hate him, but he has said and done terrible things.”
“Has he hit you?” she asked in a whisper.
“No. It’s not like that. He hits other things—like the time he smashed his favorite guitar over a chair or threw his rifle across the room. Usually it’s just the screaming. The yelling. The irrational rage.” I stopped. “Renee, he told a friend that he’s not as successful as he could be because a writer needs two things, a typewriter and a wife—and they should both be in working order.”
“What an asinine thing to say.”
“I shouldn’t complain. It’s not as awful as your situation. My children are safe. No one is dying or ill. It’s not all that bad, it just feels like it sometimes.”
“I don’t compare, Joy. There are many ways to be miserable in a marriage. Claude hit us and threatened to kill us. He threw us around and almost drank himself to death. But there are other things that can happen to make you feel like you’re dying. At least you have your passion for writing. I have nothing.”
“It does help,” I said. “But, my dearest, now you have us, and your children have mine.”
“Yes, I’m here now,” she said.
As if she’d come to save us, and not the other way around.
CHAPTER 8
Yet I lie down alone
Singing her song
“SAPPHICS,” JOY DAVIDMAN
Weeks passed, and I wondered how we’d all done without each other: how the children had not rolled around together like puppies, or Renee and I hadn’t always sat up late playing Chinese checkers and drinking rum, talking of life and love.
It didn’t take long for my cousin to take over many of the household chores, and she did it smoothly, as if this was what she’d been sent for. Her natural impulses were always toward neatness and elegance, and I welcomed this as a gift. We laughed, sipped, and helped each other with the children, who often ran wild through the house and gardens. The radio I’d kept off, Renee turned on, and it murmured with news of the outside world. Britain announced it too had atomic weapons. Albert Schweitzer won the Nobel Peace Prize. Herman Wouk was awarded the Pulitzer for Caine Mutiny. Each time I heard about a literary prize, my old dreams awakened inside, stretching and breathing life into my work.
With another set of hands in the house, I wrote later and slept in more often—one of the things I loved the best after long nights at my desk. The children ate a hot breakfast instead of cold cereal, the laundry was finished and neatly folded, and food lined the refrigerator shelves.
Joy:
How does one keep obligations when the will has grown weak? It’s a virtue, I understand, and maybe it’s only through a higher power. A giving up? Or a giving in? Somehow the secret is hidden in this idea.
Jack:
Let me tell you about Janie and Maureen Moore. Have I mentioned them as of yet? They lived with Warnie and me for twenty-four years as I fulfilled an obligation and commitment—that is indeed a virtue, Joy, and it’s just as you’re doing with your cousin, your niece, and your nephew. You see, Mrs. Janie Moore and her daughter, Maureen, came to live with us because I promised my wartime comrade Paddy Moore that I would watch over his family if he were killed, which horribly he was. Maureen moved out a while ago, but Mrs. Moore—Janie—lived with us right up until last year. Right now she is in a rest home—she left us raging and furious—and has not long in this world. The last many years it wasn’t easy, in fact for a long while it’s been quite miserable. Her exit set both Warnie and me free from a grievous burden.
Joy:
I had no idea you had two women living with the both of you for so long! Jack, you are an admirable and kind man. But I love having Renee here—it is my commitment to Bill that is tearing away at the fabric of my virtues.
I banged at the typewriter one afternoon when Renee ambled into my office with a pointed question. “If you’re miserable, have you not thought of divorce? I can see that your heart is closed to Bill.”
“I’m trying to make it work; I do love him.” I pointed at my work. “I’m trying to keep these commandments here, cookie.” I attempted levity and winked.
“I’m getting divorced,” she said, her eyes as dry as her heart for Claude. “Is that wrong and ‘unbiblical’? I have no use for a religion like that, if one at all.”
“No,” I said with warmth. “Claude beat you. And the children. That is not my situation. My heart is troubled toward a man who says he loves me even as he berates me: a man I love and now fear. And, Renee, I’ve come to see that there is a difference between religion and God. A very big difference.”