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From the very beginning he has wrong-footed me, upended all my simple, pre-formed ideas about who he is. This is just one more piece of the Bishop puzzle, a piece with jagged edges and no simple place where it slots into the bigger picture. I like that he is complex, that the final result of all his pieces will be something unique and hard to solve. I have no right to wish it, and no hope the wish can ever be granted, but I still long to be the one to decipher him.
We eat a quiet dinner and I don’t ask Bishop where he’s going when I hear the front door open and close softly while I’m clearing the table. Out of the kitchen window, I see Meredith going into her house, and I knock on the window to catch her attention. The face she turns toward me is tear-swollen, her eyes red-rimmed and exhausted. I hurry out the back door before she can disappear inside.
“Hey, Meredith,” I call. “How is he doing?”
Her hands are clutched around the iron railing on her steps as if it’s the only thing keeping her upright. Her hair looks dirty, hanging in lank clumps around her shoulders. “He’s out of surgery. It went well. ”
I stand awkwardly on her bottom step. “Well, that’s good,” I say. I’m not sure what the protocol is, when I’m not sorry her husband was hurt and don’t understand why she is.
“He said…” A tear slips down her cheek and she brushes it away impatiently. “He said as soon as he’s able, he’s going to sign a petition to end the marriage and I need to sign it, too. He said President Lattimer will approve it. ” Her voice breaks. “He said we’re not a good match. He didn’t even ask me what I wanted. ”
So that must have been what Bishop said to him when he was lying on the ground, putting the final nail in the marriage’s coffin. “Isn’t it what you want?” I ask. “He hits you, Meredith. ”
She gives me a look of such withering contempt that I back up a step. “Don’t you think I know that?” she says. “But how is this any better? Our marriage is over. I move back across town with my parents and then what? No one’s going to want me. They say they’ll put me back in the pool for next year, but you know they won’t. ”
“If they don’t, there are bound to be some boys on our side of town who are looking for wives. ”
“Not wives who’ve already been passed over once before. ”
“You don’t know that. Besides, you don’t have to get married,” I tell her. “You can get a job and make a life for yourself where someone isn’t beating on you all the time. ”
She laughs, a harsh, bitter sound that doesn’t match her sweet, heart-shaped face. “I want a family, Ivy. I want children. I don’t want to live with my parents and watch people pity me because I couldn’t keep a husband. ”
“That won’t happen,” I say, although I have no real conviction that it won’t. There are plenty of girls who are never picked and who live their lives alone, not shunned but always regarded as less than, as having been not quite good enough. “And even if it did, if you never have children or get married again, it still has to be better than him hitting you every day. ”
Meredith bites her lip, tears streaming down her cheeks now. “Maybe,” she says. She shrugs. “I guess now I’ll never know. ”
“Oh, Meredith,” I say, torn between frustration and sorrow. “You don’t mean that. ”
“Don’t tell me what I mean. It should have been my choice. ” She pushes open her front door. “I know you meant well, both of you. ” She doesn’t look at me as she speaks. “But it wasn’t for you to decide. ” The door latching behind her is very quiet, and very final.
I’m not sure how we got to this place, where a girl’s only value is in what kind of marriage she has, how capable she is of keeping a man happy. Maybe Bishop is right and it depends on the couple. Stephanie and Jacob appear to love each other. But there’s something fundamentally wrong in a system where a girl like Meredith would even consider staying with a boy like Dylan if she has the chance to be free of him. Meredith doesn’t know her own worth, and in this world we’re living in, she never will. My father might not have held my hand or expressed his love openly, but he taught Callie and me that we had inherent value, that we were fully formed human beings without a boy by our side. For that, I will be forever grateful.
I return to the house and try to read on the screened porch, but the stifling heat and my own restlessness conspire against me. Bishop is still not home when I fall into bed at close to midnight, and I hope he isn’t punishing himself for what happened earlier. Perhaps Meredith is right and it wasn’t Bishop’s decision, but I’m not sorry he made it. And I don’t want him to be sorry, either. My only regret is that I didn’t think of it first.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but the sound of the shower wakes me. I push myself up on my elbows and listen to the rattle and spit of Bishop brushing his teeth. The bathroom door opens, and the dark outline of his body moves down the moonlit hallway.
“Did you just get home?” I call to him.
He stops in the doorway. The pale towel around his waist glows in the darkness. “A few minutes ago. Did I wake you?” he asks quietly.
“It’s okay. ” I scoot up to sitting. “Where were you?”
He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “Out walking. I’m sorry I left without telling you. I needed to be alone for a little while. ”
“I saw Meredith. She said Dylan had surgery and it went well. ”
Bishop doesn’t answer, shifting slightly in the doorway. I can smell the fresh scent of soap as he moves, tangy and sharp.
“He told her he’s signing the petition to end the marriage. ”
Bishop nods. I can tell he’s watching me, though I can’t see his eyes.
“You did a good thing,” I say. I hesitate, but he deserves to know all of it. “Even if Meredith doesn’t believe it yet. ”
“Did I?” His voice sounds ancient. “Can hurting someone ever be a good thing?” He blows out a breath. “I’m not that different from Dylan, really, in the end. ”
I push myself forward so I’m kneeling on the edge of the bed. I wish I were closer so I could touch him, although it’s a horrible idea. “Don’t say that. Sometimes pain is the only language certain people understand. And you are different than him. ” My voice is strained. “You wouldn’t hurt me that way, Bishop. I know you never would. ”
For a long time, there is only the ticking of the clock on my bedside table, the muted melody of water dripping from the showerhead across the hall. His eyes are on me and mine are on him and the tension swirling around us is so strong it’s like another person in the room, a living thing breathing heat into the space between us.
“You never say my name,” he says finally. His voice is low and rough.
“What?” I’m so confused that for a split second I think maybe I’m dreaming. I don’t know what I expected him to say, but it wasn’t that.
“Just now. You called me Bishop. You’ve never said it before. ” He pauses. “I like the way it sounds. ”
He’s right, and I never even realized it. I haven’t said his name, as if by subconsciously keeping that tiny bit of distance I can make what’s happening between us less real. Like that might be the omission that saves me.