Becoming Mrs. Lewis(86)
“Yes,” I said. “But freedom . . . a blessed release.”
“Freedom,” he echoed, and beamed at me as if we’d just decided to jump into the pond on the first day of spring, a mischievous look. “Think of your new life, Joy. Courage has brought you to a new place.”
“My sons and me.”
“Speaking of your sons, talk to me about Davy and Douglas. How was your visit to Surrey yesterday?”
A new energy rushed through me. “Simply wonderful,” I said. “I saw them play cricket and I met some more of their teachers. Davy is getting personal tutoring in math. It’s honestly more than I could have hoped for. Someday I’ll pay you back.”
Jack stood and held out his hand to lift me to stand. “Let’s take a walk. A slow bimble to the park? It’s finally warming.”
I allowed him to pull me to stand, and then he released my hand. The dull ache in my left hip sent me to quickly sit again. It was one of my favorite things to do—walk with him, ambling slowly through gardens, but I couldn’t. “Jack, I’m so sorry. My hips are acting up again. I have no idea why. Rheumatism, they say. I’m hoping it will clear whenever the everlasting rain leaves us.”
“There is no need for apology.” He smiled. “It’s nice to sit still for a while.”
“I’ll make us more tea and bring out the stories we started to read yesterday.”
“No need for stories today, Joy. If we want to read some jolly good fiction we could just reread the divorce decree.” He laughed that hearty laugh and patted his breast before removing his pipe.
I laughed in return so fully that we both bent forward to clasp our knees, leaning toward each other face-to-face. It was there we paused, close, only inches. It would only take one of us to close the gap, and finally our lips would touch. But for now, it was only our smiles that met across the inches of space between us.
How, I wondered, does one make oneself not fall in love? Not destroy the most sublime philia?
As usual, I didn’t have the answer.
CHAPTER 38
Do not be angry that I am a woman
And so have lips that want your kiss
“SONNET XXXIX,” JOY DAVIDMAN
August 1954
“Warnie had the most awful binge.” Jack said this with the twist of pain in his voice. “He’s off to treatment, and that means I’m with you and the boys for a couple weeks. You must tolerate my company also.”
Jack and I sat together in the Bird and Baby, which was as stifling inside as the August weather that simmered across Oxford. It was finally summer break and we had come—my sons and I—to spend a month at the Kilns. A month!
“Tolerate?” I laughed and shook my head at him. “That’s not the right word. I’m sorry about Warnie. You know how much I love him, and I wish I could help. But by golly, I’m happy you’ll be here with us.”
He lifted his beer in salute.
“Is it over?” Jack asked quietly. “Are you legally divorced?”
“Yes indeed. I’m single.” I allowed the simple statement to shimmer between us, watched carefully for the change those two words might bring, but found only the same kind smile. “And do you know what Bill did? He married the very next day. He married Renee the very next day.” I shook my head. “But how could I have expected any different? Where we start is where we end, or so it seems.”
“How do you mean?”
I cringed and, feeling peevish, told him what I never had. “Bill was married before me. He didn’t have children, and it wasn’t very real as far as marriages go—that’s what he told me at the time. He married me only days after that divorce was final. How could a tiger ever change his stripes?”
“Well, it’s over,” Jack said and lifted his house cider, as yet untouched. “Here’s to the forgiveness of sins.”
I smiled and lifted my own cider. “And here’s to Bill and all the pleasure he may find.”
We clinked glasses, and our eyes met and held. He hadn’t believed a word written in that lie-soaked decree. He knew my heart and my mind; he understood the harsh and the cruel, the soft and the vulnerable.
“How is Warnie doing at the hospital?” I asked when we set down our glasses.
“Not very well, Joy. I’m worried near to death. This binge was the worst yet. The doctors believed he might not make it, but he’s recovering.”
“I know the pain of watching someone you love destroy himself with drink. It seems there must be something to do, but then they off and binge again, breaking your heart. Breaking their own hearts. You know I’ve been through this, Jack. If you’d like I can tell you some of the AA steps and theories. They really do work. They are very spiritual, all about surrender to God.”
“Thank you.” Jack lifted his own glass of cider. “Of course drinking itself isn’t a sin. It’s the too much of it all. It’s temperance. Going the right length and then not any further than that.”
“Mere Christianity,” I said. “You said that in there.”
“Did I? What a fool, repeating himself in a bar. Ignore me. I’m knackered.”
We talked a bit more of Warnie and how to help him. I suggested bitter ginger at the end of the night, which tasted like liquor but was not.