Becoming Mrs. Lewis(97)
The evening was cold when he and I stood in my backyard, bundled in our coats and scarves as he smoked a cigarette and talked about a meeting he’d had at Cambridge. Twilight fell across his face, lighting it aflame.
I turned my palms up and let the light puddle there on my gloves as if it were resting before disappearing. “Look at that,” I said.
“Patches of Godlight.” Jack touched my gloved hand as if he too could hold the twilight.
We paused, both of us seeming to hold our breath. He wrapped his fingers through mine and drew me closer as he dropped his cigarette to the ground. We were face-to-face, only inches between us. Neither of us spoke.
I was afraid to move, to speak, to break the twilight spell that held us both in its Godlight. With his other hand he touched my cheek, the fuzziness of his glove tickling my skin. I leaned into his palm just as Sultan had once done with me, and he allowed that tender moment before dropping both his hands and taking a step back.
My breath held, and the tremor of desire flamed below my stomach. “Why do you stop yourself, Jack?” I asked, my voice deep and quiet.
“Stop myself?”
“I need to understand why you stop yourself from kissing me, just when I believe you will.”
“Oh, Joy.” He hesitated. “I don’t want to cross over to eros and destroy the love we do have. I can’t lose you or this deep, abiding friendship. And the church forbids our union. In their eyes, you’re technically still married. And I’m an old man—too old to start again or change.”
I took his hand again, pressed it to my heart. “I’ve watched what’s happening to poor Princess Margaret. I see how the Church of England views divorce; I’ve watched from afar the abdication crisis of King Edward, how his love for Wallis made him choose between the crown and love. He chose love. Sometimes that’s what happens; love is preferred, but usually not. Usually the crown or the god or the family or the duty is chosen. I understand this, of course. Lives are altered. Completely settled, lovely lives can be altered by love. And who wants change? Hardly anyone at all.” Frustration crept into my voice. “But I don’t understand why you keep the most vulnerable pieces of your heart from me. Why do you draw near and then fall back? Because I can feel your love.”
“Joy.” He exhaled my name and took a step not closer but farther away, as if I had pushed him, and maybe I had. I dropped his hand.
“I’ve spent all of my life in an attempt to find Truth and moral good, and then to live it. I can’t discard my moral habits for feelings, which are just that—feelings.”
“The virtues,” I said. He’d written about them at length, and I discerned that they were as ingrained in him as the wrinkles now radiating from the corner of his mouth and drooping eyes.
“They are my footholds for moral goodness. Morality is about choice.”
“You think God is judging you for wanting us, or because I’m divorced?”
“God doesn’t judge by internal disease but by moral choices. We must protect our hearts.”
Anger, my old and familiar companion, surged. “You’re spouting theology and empty words. I read what you wrote about sex—that it’s either in marriage or else total abstinence. But sometimes love changes things. Or love should change things.”
He reached for his pipe and then his hand dropped as if even that was too much energy to muster. “We can’t just surrender to our every desire—man must have his principles and live by them regardless. Our nature must be controlled or it can ruin our lives.”
“But how?” I sounded like Davy when he asked ten million questions as a child, never satisfied with the first or second answer.
“If I attempt virtue, it brings light to my life. If I indulge desires, I invite fog and confusion.”
“Oh, Jack, that logic takes no account for the heart. How can you tell a heart what to do? I’m incapable of such things.” I turned away from him, desire’s fire alchemizing to anger.
“I’m trying,” he said. “Because I must.”
“I think it’s time for you to leave.” I took a step toward the back door, not wanting him to see the pain quivering on my face and the frustration shaking my body. His logic would not quell or explain.
“Joy.” His voice was soft, but I didn’t turn back to him.
“Your logic,” I said as I opened the door to enter the house. “It offers no rest for the heart.”
He was instantly next to me, his hands on my shoulders to spin me around to face him. “Don’t turn from me,” he said. “I cannot bear that. If we can’t indulge in eros, surely we have all the beauty that remains in philia.” He pulled me close to wrap his arms around me. Twilight turned to night and my head rested on his shoulder and the palm of his hand was on my neck, stroking my skin with gentleness as if consoling a small child after a frightful storm.
But this wasn’t fright he was trying to subdue; this was desire. His mind might twist firm around logic, but his body divulged the truth.
It was he who let me go, and gently touched my cheek before leaving me quaking without another word.
CHAPTER 43
Blessed are the bitter things of God
Not as I desire but as I need
“BLESSED ARE THE BITTER THINGS OF GOD,” JOY DAVIDMAN