Becoming Mrs. Lewis(9)

“What hard things, Joy? I’m your friend.” She plucked a black-eyed Susan from the ground and stuck it behind her ear, the yellow petals bright against her dark hair.

I didn’t want to tell her everything; I didn’t want to complain. My thyroid was low again, pulling me toward a deep fatigue. Asthmas and allergies for the boys. Bill with hay fever, phobias, and threatening a nervous breakdown. Then the alcohol, always the alcohol. And deep down I suspected that again there were other women.

I searched her sweet face before I asked, “Do you ever feel that there is more, that life holds so much more, and somehow we’re missing it? I want to be part of the bigger world, make a difference, see it and feel it, engage in it. Don’t you feel that longing inside you?”

She smiled prettily. “We are making a difference—by taking care of what God has given to us in our children.”

“That’s not what I mean, Eva.”

“I know.” She touched my arm. “I know.”

“I want a life of my own—heart, mind, and soul, who I really am. I want my life to be my own, and yet I also want it to be my family’s and God’s. I don’t know how to reconcile.”

She laughed. “You want to figure it all out at once, don’t you?”

“I do.”

She shook her head. “Not everything is about logic, but you know that—I’ve read your poetry.” She paused. “It’s about surrender, I think.” She shielded her eyes in the sun with a palm over her eyebrows, called out for one of her daughters. “Madeline?”

“We’re in the lake, Mommy,” Madeline called in return.

Eva grabbed my hand. “Come on, Joy. Let’s go have some fun.”

C. S. Lewis:

My saddest moment, you asked me? Of course it is obvious—my mother’s death when I was ten years old. She withered away with cancer and it is the defining dreadful moment of my life, all stable happiness gone. It was as if the continent of my life sank into the sea. And by the by, please call me Jack, which is the name all of my friends use.

Joy:

Yes, don’t our breaking points thereafter influence our life? Mine? Maybe there are too many to count, but if you must make me choose, it is the day I saw a young girl commit suicide. My senior year at Hunter College I was studying at my desk and looked out to see her fly like a bird from the top of a building across the spring green quad. When she landed, askew and bloody on the sidewalk, I knew I’d never be the same. When I discovered the cause was her poverty and hunger, I believe it was my first impetus toward communism—the unfairness of it all.

And yes, by the by, I am honored to be considered a friend, and Jack it is. Please call me Joy.


“What do you dream of when you dream of more than this, Joy?” Eva asked as we ambled down the hill.

“When I was very young, and for years afterward, I had the same dream over and over.”

“Tell me.” Eva stopped midstep and lifted her sunglasses.

“I’m walking down a road. It always begins in a familiar neighborhood, but as I continue, I round a corner onto a grassy path and suddenly I’m on unfamiliar ground. But still I walk and walk. I know I’m lost, but for some reason I’m not afraid. There are willow trees and oaks lining the walkway with high limbs that protect me. There are daffodils and tulips bright, just like my childhood parks. The grass is thick and emerald. It’s too lush and familiar for me to be afraid. I continue onward until the path opens.”

“And then what?” Eva was now interested.

“Doesn’t just that image of the path make you long for something wonderful? Like I’m about to tell you the best story you’ve ever heard? One that will satisfy your heart?”

She laughed. “Yes, it does. Go on.”

“The path opens into a woodland everlasting green with grand rocks and a forest floor full of small mushrooms and flowers,” I said. “It’s a place I call Fairyland. And when I arrive there, I feel that my heart is going to burst with happiness. Far off over the hill there is a castle, and its spires rise into the clouds. I’m not there yet, but I already know it’s a place where there is no hate, no heartbreak. Anything sad or terrible is only a lie. All is well. Peace reigns.”

“Do you ever make it there?” Eva asked. “In your dream?”

“No.” I shook my head, and the old disappointment that often filled me when I woke from that dream returned. “I always wake up before I arrive. All I can do is see it there.” I paused. “I told Jack this dream too.”

“Lewis? You told him that? I didn’t realize you two were so close.”

I laughed. “We haven’t even met, but yes. The amazing thing is that he has imagined the same place. He wrote of it in his Pilgrim’s Regress, this Fairyland. Well, he calls it ‘the Island,’ but it’s the description, the idea of a place where longing is fulfilled.”

“We all want to believe something perfect lies ahead. That’s heaven, Joy.”

“I know. But here’s the difference—I dreamt this when I didn’t believe in anything greater than what our eyes can see. It was Jack’s book that revealed to me what my dream truly meant.”

“Does his pilgrim ever reach the island?” she asked as if this were the most important thing to know, and maybe it was.