Becoming Mrs. Lewis(6)

“I sure don’t know. But do whatever you want, Poogle. Write to him or not. I must get back to work.”




In my office, I shivered with the chill. If only our house were as full of love as it was books—now more than two thousand of them piled on shelves and tables and, when needed, on the floor. The house was drafty and again the coal had burned low. I would send Davy to bring more inside. Weeks before, we’d had to let the housekeeper go. I would write anything I could for the money just to get her back.

Things had to change and soon.

I held the letter in my hand and, pulling my sweater closer around me, settled into a threadbare lounge chair. I wanted my husband to understand the longing inside me, a yearning for the unseen world hidden inside the evident world. Lewis was seventeen years older than I—the experience and the searching well behind him. I wrote him seeking answers that would satisfy both my heart and my intellect.

I ran my fingers along the rise and fall of his words. The ink, obviously from a blue fountain pen, bled tiny lines from each character into the veins of the cotton paper. I lifted it to my nose and inhaled nothing but the aroma of cold air and dust. I slipped my finger under the sealed flap, eager to read every word, yet oddly I also wanted the expectancy to last—waiting and longing are often the cheap fuel of desire.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Gresham,


it started.

Thank you for your long and elaborate letter.


I smiled. Long and elaborate indeed.

My eyes quickly scanned to the bottom of the page to be sure.

Yours, C. S. Lewis


He had written to us.

Of all the hundreds of letters he received, he had written to me.





CHAPTER 3


I have loved some ghost or other all my years

Dead men, their kisses and their fading eyes

“PRAYER BEFORE DAYBREAK,” JOY DAVIDMAN



The day after Lewis’s letter arrived, I listened to the wind whistle its wintry call. A pile of sewing sat on the far chair, and yet I ignored it to stare out the window. I missed my rambling walks through our acreage and the apple blossom– tinged air of my spring garden that lay dormant beneath the frost. Spring would come again; it always did.

I returned to my work, to the black-faced keys of the Underwood, blank paper in waiting. I had blocked that afternoon hour for my poetry: a gift to myself.

The fires are in my guts and you may light/A candle at them that will do no good.

I paused, sipped my tea, and tucked stray hair behind my ears. With eyes closed I searched in the depths of myself for the next lines. All my life I’d written from the knotted places inside me with a hope for the unknotting.

“Joy!” Bill’s voice shattered the stillness.

The line of poetry was blown away by his voice, a fragile dandelion pod now empty and scattered.

“Up here,” I called just as he appeared and leaned against the doorframe, a cigarette dangling from his lips.

“Not in the house.” My words would do no good, but still I said them.

“The boys are at school.” He inhaled a long drag and then exhaled two plumes of smoke from his nostrils before asking, “Didn’t you hear the phone ringing?”

I shook my head, drew my sweater closer.

“Brandt and Brandt called. They want to schedule your author shot with Macmillan for the back flap.”

My agent calling about my publisher.

“Thanks,” I said, slightly annoyed I’d missed them and it had been Bill who spoke with them. “I’ll call back.”

“Are you okay?” he asked, walking closer and dropping ash into the trash can by my desk.

“I’m restless. And I can’t find my words this afternoon, or at least not any that make sense.”

“Why don’t you call Belle to come for a visit from the city? She always cheers you up.”

“She’s busy with her family too. And we’re both writing as much as we can. Phone calls must do for now.”

“This path we’ve chosen,” he said and drew his cigarette near his lips. “Being writers. Maybe we should have chosen something easier.” He was joking; it was a kind moment.

“As if we could have chosen anything else.” I looked to him. “I miss my poetry, Bill. I miss it terribly.”

“We do what we have to do. You’ll return to it.” He kissed my forehead as he held the cigarette high in the air. “Now back to work.”

He clicked on my little space heater and then shut the door. These acts of kindness eased the tension, reminded me of feelings that now felt like mere memories. I faced the typewriter again. But instead of poetry, I wanted to answer Mr. Lewis. It had only been a day, and though I didn’t want to appear anxious, I certainly was.

C. S. Lewis:

Your spiritual search is much the same as mine has been. It’s quite stunning to be pursued by the great Hound of Heaven, is it not? My first reaction was rage and terror. I wonder if you felt the same. I believe I have spent my years since that moment attempting to make some sense of it all. But are we to make sense of it? I’m not quite sure that is the reason for our encounter. Yet, still we try. It sounds as if you are caught in the mesh of His net—you have not much chance of escape.

It seems that my friend Chad Walsh has told you much of my life, do tell me about yours. What is your history, Mr. and Mrs. Gresham?