Becoming Mrs. Lewis(76)

I heard Douglas’s voice float over the air.

“Mommy said I could ask you something.”

“What is it, son?” Jack’s walking stick clicked against a rock and he stopped to face Douglas, just as I imagined he would a graduate student with his thesis.

“Is it true that your gardener is Puddleglum?”

Jack’s laughter startled Douglas, and he jumped. “It is true only that I made Puddleglum very much like Paxford. But Paxford is just Paxford. Wonderful in his own way.”

Warnie and I lagged behind and talked of his Sun King book, the help I’d given him with the appendix, and how much we had left to do.

“It must be the travel and the getting settled into a new life, but I’m exhausted,” I said. “Look at them up there, practically running.”

“You’ve been through so much, Joy. Be gentle.”

I smiled at him, and we continued in amiable silence as if I’d never left, as if it were another day of many we’d been together. In my mind, London and Oxford pitted themselves against each other, the war-torn remnants of London still as yet unmended while Oxford’s nature and hills shimmered in their wintry mix. We made our way toward Magdalen campus, and my heart hammered in my chest.

Davy and Douglas, red-faced and full of laughter, ran to my side.

“Mommy,” Douglas said, and pointed to the sky and Magdalen tower as we drew closer to campus. “Mr. Lewis said we could climb the tower to the very top. You must go with us.”

“Must I?”

“Yes, you must,” Jack said.

Warnie stayed below, and the rest of us climbed a narrow staircase with marble stairs smooth as silk. We walked in a single line, and still the stone walls were close. Jack climbed ahead of me. I would only have to reach forward and touch his hairline at the back of his neck to know what his skin felt like on my fingertips. I couldn’t stop the first thought, but I could stop the second, or whatever came next. And I did.

We reached the top, out of breath, only to find a little ladder that still must be climbed. Gingerly, step-by-step, up the ladder until we reached the top overlooking all of Oxford. Warnie stood below us on the lawn peering up with a smile.

“Hello down there,” Davy called out.

Warnie couldn’t hear, but waved as if trying to take flight. The boys then pointed outward at the expanse of grass rolling toward the river.

“What is that?” Douglas asked.

“The deer park,” I told him.

“Deer park? Deer live in a park?” Davy placed his little hand over his brows to squint into the winter sun.

“Yes,” Jack said. “They are fallow deer and will come right up to you.”

Douglas nearly jumped a step closer to Jack. “They will come right to me?”

“Yes, they will.”

“Let’s go!” Douglas was already moving toward the ladder down.

“Let’s stand here for a moment and look out,” I said. “Make it worth the climb.”

“Oh, Mommy,” Douglas said, as if I were the child. “We can just climb right back.”

Jack glanced at me, and together we laughed heartily. “Yes, Douglas, we can just climb right back,” Jack said.

Yet off they ran, my sons, around the tower to view the campus from every angle: the river as it curved to give the illusion that one was standing between two rivers, Addison Walk and the scrolled iron gates. Puffs of cold breath came from the robed professors bustling through the grounds, as if from invisible cigarettes. My sons craned their necks to spy each stone gargoyle and angel that bolstered the grand buildings. The other colleges appeared as miniature countries, each with its own castle and tower. Far off in the distance, the Headington hills rose and undulated like waves in the sea we’d just recently crossed.

Jack and I were alone for the first time. “Your letters,” I said. “They gave me both sustenance and courage.”

“Yours do the same for me, Joy.”

“From the very beginning; from the first one.” He lowered his eyes. Such raw emotion always a thing he looked away from.

“Are you writing now?” Jack asked as the boys passed us for the fifth time.

“Between the move and the boys underfoot and finding a decent place to live in London, I haven’t had much time for the writing itself,” I said. “I was just talking to Warnie about helping him with the index for his Sun King. But first I must get the children settled.”

“Dane Court, you decided?” Jack asked.

“Yes. I’m hoping to find enough money from Bill when I return to London in a few days. Thank you for your suggestions. I chose the school partly because it’s the only one that doesn’t whack the children. Not that I haven’t whacked them a few times myself.” I smiled with a tinge of regret.

Jack laughed as the boys whizzed past us one more time, this time grabbing at my coat to pull me toward the ladder. “The deer!” Davy said. “Let’s go see the deer.”

“I cannot imagine how anyone could become aggravated enough to whack these boys. They are full of beans.”

“Exhausting, aren’t they?” I asked.

His smile and a tip of his hat was his only reply.

Together we walked down the winding staircase, and instead of taking my breath, this time the stairs slaughtered my knees, but our voices continued in conversation.