Redeeming Love

  He was right. She knew he was. She had reached the end of enduring it even before Michael claimed her. Yet, being here was no assurance.

  What if she couldn’t fly?

  As a hart longs for flowing streams,

  so longs my soul for thee.

  PSALM 42 : 1

  The land awakened with the coming of spring. The hillsides were splashed with purple lupines and golden poppies, red paintbrushes and the white of wild radish. Angel found something strange stirring inside her as well. She felt it first while watching Michael turn the earth in the vegetable garden. The movement of his muscles beneath the shirt sent a rush of warmth through her. He only had to look at her, and her mouth went dry.

  At night, they lay side by side, hardly touching, tense and silent. She felt the distance he put between them and honored it. “This is getting harder to do,” he said cryptically, and she didn’t ask him what he meant.

  Her own loneliness grew. It had to do with Michael, and the ache grew worse, not better, with time. Sometimes when he would finish reading at night and raise his head, she wouldn’t be able to breathe for the look in his eyes. Her heart would beat wildly, and she would look away, afraid he would see the deep longing she felt. Her whole body spoke of it. It sang inside her like a loud chorus, filling her head with thoughts of him. She could hardly speak when he asked her a simple question.

  How Duke would laugh. “Love is a trap, Angel. Stick to pleasure. It doesn’t require any great commitment.”

  She wondered now if Michael wasn’t the answer to all things for her. Contemplating that, she was afraid. At night, when he turned to her in his sleep, his strong body brushing hers, she would remember the way he used to make love to her—with joyous abandon, exploring her body as he did the land he owned. She had felt nothing then. Now, the lightest touch made her senses spin. His dreams were becoming her dreams.

  Michael opened his hand more each day, but she was frozen in fear. Why couldn’t they leave things as they were? Let her stay this way. Let her still be inside herself. Let things be as they had been. Still, Michael kept pushing, gently relentless, and she held back in fear because all she could see ahead was a great unknown.

  I can’t love him. Oh, please, I can’t!

  She couldn’t be more than her mother, and Mae hadn’t been able to hold on to Alex Stafford. All her love hadn’t been enough to keep him from riding out of her life like the wind. Angel could still see his dark figure, cape flying, as he galloped down the road and out of her mother’s life. Had he even come in person to tell Mama to pack and get out? Or had he left it to that young lackey to do it for him? She didn’t know. Mama never said, and she never asked. Alex Stafford was sacred ground Angel had never dared walk over. Only Mama spoke his name, and only when she was drunk and despondent, and it had always grated like salt on a raw wound. “Why did Alex leave me?” Mama had wept. “Why? I don’t understand. Why?”

  Mama’s grief had been so great, but her guilt had been even greater. She had never gotten over what she had given up to have love. She had never gotten over him.

  But I paid him back in spades, Mama. Can you hear wherever you are? I smashed him into tiny pieces the way he smashed you. Oh, the look on his face.

  Angel covered hers.

  Oh, Mama, you were so beautiful and perfect. You were so devout. Did your rosary beads ever help you, Mama? Did hope? Love never did anything but bring you pain. And it’s doing the same to me.

  Angel had sworn she would never love anyone, and now it was happening in spite of her. It stirred and grew against her will, pushing its way through the darkness of her mind to the surface. Like a seedling seeking the light of the spring sun, it came on. Miriam, little Ruth, Elizabeth. And now Michael. Every time she looked at him, he pierced her heart. She wanted to crush the new feelings, but still they came, slowly finding their way.

  Duke was right. It was insidious. It was a trap. It grew like ivy, forcing its way into the smallest cracks of her defenses, and eventually it would rip her apart. If she let it. If she didn’t kill it now.

  There’s still a way out, came the dark voice, counseling her. Tell him the worst of what you’ve done. Tell him about your father. That’ll poison it. That will stop the pain growing inside you.

  So she decided to confess everything. Once Michael knew everything, it would be finished. The truth would drive a wedge in so deep between them, she would be safe forever.

  Michael was chopping wood when she found him. He had his shirt off, and she stood silently watching him work. His broad back was already tanned, and hard muscles moved beneath the golden skin. He was power and beauty and majesty as he swung the ax in a wide arc, bringing it down hard, splitting the log clean through. The two halves banged off the block. As he bent to set up another, he saw her.

  “Morning,” he said, smiling. Her stomach fluttered. He looked pleased and surprised to see her watching him.

  Why am I doing this?

  Because you’re living a lie. If he knew everything he would detest you and cast you out.

  There’s no reason for him to know.

  Would you rather someone else told him? Then it will be even worse.

  “I have to talk to you,” she said weakly. All she could hear was the pounding of her heart in her own ears and that dark voice driving her on in desperation.

  Michael frowned slightly. She was tense, worrying away at a gather in her skirt. “I’m listening.”

  Angel felt hot and cold all over. She should do it.

  Yes. Do it, Angel.

  She had to do it. Her palms were damp. Michael took his handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped the sweat from his face. When he looked at her, her heart sank.

  I can’t do it.

  Yes, you can.

  I don’t want to.

  Fool! You want to end up like your mother?

  Michael studied her. She looked pale, small beads of perspiration breaking out on her forehead. “What’s wrong? Are you feeling ill?”

  Tell him and get it over with, Angel! It’s what you really want, to make him let you go now while you can still bear it. If you wait, it’ll only hurt worse. He’ll cut your heart out and carve it up for dinner.

  “I’ve never told you the worst I’ve done.”

  His shoulders stiffened. “It’s not necessary for you to confess everything. Not to me.”

  “You ought to know. You being my husband and all.”

  “Your past is your own business.”

  “Don’t you think you should know what sort of girl you’ve got living with you?”

  “Why the attack, Amanda?”

  “I’m not attacking. I’m being honest.”

  “You’re pushing again. Pushing hard.”

  “You should know that—”

  “I don’t want to hear it!”

  “—I had sex with my own father.”

  Michael let out a sharp breath as though she had punched him hard. He stared at her for a long moment, a muscle jerking in his cheek. “I thought you said he walked out of your life when you were about three.”

  “He did. He came back into it later, when I was sixteen.”

  Michael felt sick. God. God! Is there a sin this woman hasn’t committed?

  No.

  And you ask that I love her?

  As I have loved you.

  Why had she done it? Why couldn’t she keep some burdens on herself? “Did it make you feel better to throw that in my face?”

  “Not much,” she said dully. She turned and headed for the house, sickened at herself. Well, it was done. Finished. She wanted to hide. Her strides lengthened. She would pack a few things and be ready to leave.

  Michael was shaking with anger. The idyll was over. The storm had hit.

  As I have loved you, Michael. Seventy times seven.

  Michael cried out and sank the ax deeply into the chopping block. He stood breathing heavily for a long moment, then snatched up his shirt and shrugged it on as he strode towar
d the cabin. He hit the door open and saw her pulling things from the dresser he had made for her after the Altmans left.

  “Don’t leave it at that, Amanda. Tell me the rest of what you’ve done. Get it off your chest. Dump it on me. Give me all the gory details.”

  Michael, beloved.

  No! I’m not listening to you right now! I’m going to have it out with her once and for all!

  When she didn’t stop what she was doing, he caught Angel’s arm and swung her around. “There’s more, isn’t there, Angel?”

  The name was a slap in her face. “Enough, wasn’t it?” she said in a tiny voice. “Or do you really need more?”

  He saw the emotions she was so desperate to hide, but even that didn’t calm him. “Let’s get all the dirty laundry out in the open at once.”

  She drew her arm away from his disturbing touch and took his challenge. “All right. If that’s the way you want it! There was a short while when I thought I was in love with Duke. Amazing, isn’t it? My whole life seemed to depend on him. I told him everything. Everything that hurt. Everything that mattered. I thought he’d fix it for me.”

  “And he used what he knew against you instead.”

  “You guessed it. I never gave a single thought to Duke’s life outside the brownstone or what people he had for friends. Not until he came back with one he wanted me to meet. ‘Be nice to him, Angel. He’s one of my oldest and dearest friends.’ And in walks Alex Stafford. When I looked at Duke, I could see him laughing at both of us. Rich, isn’t it? Duke knew how much I hated Stafford for what he did to my mother. He just wanted to see what I’d do about it.”

  “Did your father know who you were?”

  Angel gave a bleak, broken laugh. “My father just stood there staring at me like I was a ghost. And you know what he said? I reminded him of somebody he used to know.”

  “Then what?”

  “He stayed. The whole night.”

  “Did you ever stop to think—”

  “I knew what I was doing, and I did it anyway! Don’t you understand yet? I did it with relish, just waiting for that moment when I’d tell him who I was.” She couldn’t hold his gaze. She was trembling violently and couldn’t stop. “When I did, I told him what became of Mama, too.”

  Michael’s anger evaporated. She was silent so long, he touched her. “And what did he say?”

  She moved back again, swallowing convulsively. Her eyes were huge and tormented. “Nothing. He said nothing. Not then. He just looked at me for a long time. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and cried. He cried. He looked like an old, broken man. ‘Why,’ he said to me, ‘Why?’” Her eyes felt hot and grainy. “And I told him Mama used to ask me the same thing. He asked me to forgive him, and I told him he could rot in hell.” The shaking stopped, and she felt cold inside, dead. When she looked up at Michael, he was just standing there, quiet and still, watching her and waiting for the rest of it.

  “You know what else?” she said dully. “He shot himself three days later. Duke said it was because he owed money to everybody, including the devil himself, but I know why he did it.” She closed her eyes, ashamed. “I know.”

  “I’m sorry,” Michael said. How many more nightmares did she have locked away inside her?

  She looked up at him. “That’s the second time you’ve apologized for something you’ve got nothing to do with. How can you even look at me?”

  “The same way I can look at myself.”

  She shook her head and pulled her shawl tightly around herself. “One more thing,” she said. “It’ll make a difference.” Michael stood like a soldier going into battle. “I can’t have children. I got pregnant twice. Both times Duke had a doctor take the baby. The second time he told the doctor to make sure I could never get pregnant again. Never, Michael. Do you understand?” She saw he did.

  He stood, stunned. Alternately hot and cold. Her words had gone straight through his breastplate.

  She put her hand over her face because she couldn’t bear the look on his.

  “Anything else?” he asked quietly.

  “No,” she said, her mouth jerking. “I think that about does it.”

  Michael didn’t move for a long moment. Then he took the shirtwaists she had laid out. He jammed them back into the drawer and banged it shut. Then he walked out the door.

  He was gone so long, she went to look for him to ask what he wanted her to do. He wasn’t in the fields or in the barn. He wasn’t down by the creek. She wondered if he had gone to the Altmans. Maybe he had ridden over to see Paul to tell him he was right about her, more than right.

  The horses were in the corral.

  She kept thinking of her father, and she was afraid.

  She thought hard and realized one other place he might have gone. She put on a coat and took a heavy blanket from the bed and headed for the hill where he had taken her to see the sunrise. Michael was there, sitting with his head in his hands. He didn’t look up when she reached him. She put the blanket around his shoulders. “Do you want me to leave? I know where the road is now.” Coaches even went by on occasion. “I could find my own way back.”

  “No,” he said hoarsely.

  She stood looking at the sunset. “Do you ever get the feeling God is playing some horrible joke on you?”

  “No.”

  “Then why, when you love him the way you do, would he do such a thing to you as this?”

  “I’ve been asking him.”

  “Did he say?”

  “I already know.” He took her hand and pulled her down to sit beside him. “To strengthen me.”

  “You’re strong enough already, Michael. You don’t need this. You don’t need me.”

  “I’m not strong enough for what’s yet to come.”

  She was afraid to ask him what he meant. When she shivered, he put his arm around her. “He hasn’t given us a heart of fear,” he said. “He’ll show me the way when the time comes.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because he always has before.”

  “I wish I could believe.” Crickets and frogs were making a cacophony around them. How could she have ever thought there was silence out here? “I can still hear Mama weeping sometimes,” she said. “At night, when the tree branches scrape against the window, I can hear the tink of her bottle against a glass and almost see her sitting on that rumpled bed, staring out at nothing. I liked rainy days best.”

  “Why?”

  “Men didn’t come so often when the weather was bad. They’d stay away where it was warm and dry and drink up all their money, like Rab.” She told him how she collected tin cans in the alley and polished them, putting them out to collect the drips from the leaky ceiling. “My own private symphony.”

  A breeze came up. Michael brushed a wayward strand of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. She was quiet, drained; he was pensive. “Come on,” he said and stood. He pulled her up and held her hand as they headed home. When they entered the cabin, he rummaged in the utensils drawer. “I’ll be back in a while. There’s something I want to do in the barn.”

  She set to work on dinner, needing to keep busy so she wouldn’t have to think. Michael was driving nails into the cabin eaves. Was he tearing the place down around her? She stepped to the door while drying her hands and peered out. He was hanging metal scraps, utensils, nails, and a worn horseshoe.

  Stepping down a ladder rung, he ran his hand along the line of things. “Your own private symphony,” he said and smiled at her. Speechless, she watched him carry the ladder back to the barn.

  She went back inside and sat down because she was too weak to stand. She destroyed his dreams, and he made her wind chimes.

  When he came in, she served him supper. I love you, Michael Hosea. I love you so much I’m dying of it. The breeze stirred the wind chimes, filling the cabin with pleasant ringing. She managed a frail thank-you. He didn’t seem to expect more. When he finished eating, she ladled hot water from the big iron pot ove
r the fire to wash dishes.

  Michael took her wrist and turned her toward him. “Leave the dishes.” When he began to loosen her hair, she could scarcely breathe.

  She was trembling and embarrassed. Where was her calm, her control? He was shattering it with tenderness.

  Combing his fingers into her hair, he tilted her head back. He saw the fear in her eyes. “I promise to love and cherish you, to honor and sustain you, in sickness and in health, in poverty and in wealth, in the bad that may darken our days, in the good that may light our way. Tirzah, beloved, I promise to be true to you in all things until I die. And even beyond that, God willing.”

  She stood staring at him, shaken to the core. “And what have I to promise you?”

  His eyes lit with gentle humor. “To obey?” He lowered his mouth to hers.

  When he kissed her, Angel was lost in a wilderness of new sensations. It had never felt like this, warm and wonderful, exciting and right. None of the old rules applied. She forgot everything she had ever learned from other masters. She was dry ground soaking in a spring rain, a flower bud opening to the sun. Michael knew and gently coaxed her with tender words flowing over her like the sweet balm of Gilead healing her wounds.

  And she flew, Michael with her, into the heavens.

  Earthbound once more, Michael smiled. “You’re crying.”

  “I am?” She touched her cheek and found a single tear.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he said, kissing her. “It’s a good sign.”

  But when Michael awakened in the morning, Angel was gone.

  Because a thing seems difficult for you,

  do not think it impossible.

  MARCUS AURELIUS

  The jangle of pots and pans on the side of Sam Teal’s wagon reminded Angel of the wind chimes Michael had hung for her. Closing her eyes, she could see Michael’s face. Beloved. Oh, beloved. She couldn’t let herself think of him. She had to forget. Better to think of what love had brought Mama and keep her head straight.