All he’d been saying had created an ache within her, the ache of knowing Aaron’s loneliness and the ache of knowing herself to be loose, like those women in the city.
“I’m no better than those women, Aaron, I…”
“Don’t you ever say that again.”
She turned her head to free her lips. “I’m married to one man and bedded with another, and I find I can’t even be sorry. I’ve wronged them both, and I can’t find guilt for it.”
“You haven’t wronged me, Mary. What we’re sharing is too good, too right to call it wrong.”
“And what about Jonathan?” she asked.
“Yes, what about Jonathan? What about my brother who threw you at my feet, traded you off so he could gain a sire?”
“None of that can excuse me or the injustice I’ve done to Jonathan.”
“Injustice? Mary, he deserves every injustice in the book after what he asked of you, and all that hypocritical claptrap he comes up with can’t excuse him.”
“What about us, though, Aaron? Doesn’t the same hold true for us?”
“I’m not making excuses, Mary. I don’t feel the need to. I’m not using Jonathan’s wishes as a crutch, either. What happened between us happened like a wholesome, growing thing, too good for excuses. I don’t need to be excused.”
There was a shine of lantern light in her eyes as she looked at him, confessing the rightness she felt about herself and Aaron. Seeing that confession in her face, he said, “Last night you said two people don’t have to be friends or playmates to fall in love, remember?”
She nodded silently.
“And I told you that sometimes it makes it more fun.”
“Oh, but Aaron, I never knew.”
“Mary, until last night I really didn’t, either.”
The touch of Aaron’s hand on her cheek turned her to sweet, shaking jelly as he pulled her forward and kissed her. But their crossed knees got in the way between them, so he took the glass from her and set it on the floor, along with his own, stretching out across the width of the bed to do so. Then he looked up at Mary and reached his hand out to her. And she took it and let him pull her down beside him, beside Aaron, her friend, her teacher, her lover—Aaron, who now seemed all things to her.
He began the magic his hands had played on her last night, but before he could take her gown from her, she sat up and turned the lantern off, knowing he had no intention of doing so himself. They loved again in the dense blackness. It carried the wealth of his murmured endearments, teaching her the way of words before all spoken sounds dissolved.
11
The drone of low thunder brought Aaron awake in the gray, early dawn. It was muffled, but accentuated by a steady rain. He lay very still, hoping it wouldn’t wake Mary. She was lying on her side facing him, and the blankets were tucked under her armpit. Some of her hair was way over on his pillow, and if he turned his head he’d be lying on it. He eased onto his side, facing her, moving by inches so she’d not awaken. When he’d completed his quarter turn, he lifted up his arm and held it aloft. Then, moving ever so slowly, he pulled the sheets up and away from Mary’s chest. Her arm over the covers held them pinioned to her side, but Aaron pulled gently from his direction, feeling the bedding sliding a cool path across his own body until he had enough slack to lay it all over Mary’s arm. Then at last he saw all of Mary, curved and curled up slightly in slumber, as beautiful as he’d imagined her. Her skin was smooth at first, but as he looked at her, he saw goosebumps form on it as the damp, cool air touched her. Watching her breasts, he saw them shrivel, too, with the chill that touched them. He was afraid the coolness would wake her, so he turned the blankets back over her. She roused a bit, turned over on her other side, facing away from him. He curled his own spine to match hers and put an arm around her, pulling her into his warm curve. He went back to sleep that way.
Mary became aware of the cocoon of warmth around her. The only thing that moved as she woke up was her eyes as they opened. She felt Aaron’s hand on her breast and his breath on her back, and she closed her eyes once more to better savor everything. She wished his face were in front of her so she could study it in sleep, but she contented herself with his guardian hand instead.
She knew Aaron was awake, too, when his hand began to move, gently fondling, arousing. The first thing he said to her back was, “It’s raining, sweetheart.”
She hummed, “Mm-hmm,” in a lazy monotone.
“We can’t plant corn in the rain.” His hand kept kneading.
“Mm-hmm.” It was hard to remember what corn he was talking about.
“We have lots of time.”
“Hm-hmmm.”
The nipples on her breasts were getting firm and pointed.
“Mary?”
“Hm-hmmm.”
“Put your hand back here.”
No answer.
Her hand was resting someplace in front of her, near her face—too far away, Aaron thought. He moved his hand down to her hard, flat belly, and he could feel her suck in the muscles that hardened it even more. Her breathing was fast and shallow. He felt her slowly begin to move her hand. When it got to her hip, under the covers, it stopped. He took his hand from her belly, and captured hers. Sliding his over the back of it, he wove his fingers in between hers and squeezed her palm hard. Then he pulled it slowly down and behind her until it rested on his body. At that instant, neither one of them was breathing, but holding their breaths in anticipation. When he felt her fingers timidly move, then wrap around the warmth of him, he expelled his breath in a near-groan. It was silent for a long time after that, and both of them had their eyes closed.
The next thing Mary felt were Aaron’s hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him. She let him pull her around, keeping her hand where he’d put it. When she lay looking him full in the face, he grasped the covers, sheets and all, and very deliberately turned them down to their hips, then kicked them the rest of the way to the foot of the bed.
“Look at us, Mary,” he said, but her eyes stayed riveted on his face.
“Look, Mary. We’re beautiful. You shouldn’t miss anything so beautiful.” Her eyelids flickered the very slightest bit but she didn’t lower her gaze.
“Just think about how right we are and how good, and how that makes us beautiful. You’re beautiful, Mary. I saw you before you were awake, and I swear to God I’ve never seen any thing as beautiful as you. The only thing that could be better would be both of us together.”
When she felt the warmth of his mouth, her eyes closed and her hand began moving down where it still was on his body. The lilac and lavender and rain formed the sweetest ambrosia, and they succumbed to its intoxication.
When Aaron stopped kissing her and drew back, she opened her eyes again, but he was looking down and there was a smile on his lips. She reacted as naturally as a lilac responds to the rain—she looked down, too. And once she looked she was captivated, held.
They explored each other at length, first hesitantly, then more boldly. He knelt on his knees beside her and pushed her onto her back, and his eyes and hands took their fill of her.
“There’s nothing in the world as soft as this spot,” he said, touching her as he said it. “I think that I can never get enough of it or of you.” And he kissed the spot he’d been touching.
What made her think of Jonathan right then? She had a glimpse of Jonathan’s shape above her in the dark. She remembered lying beneath him without moving and realized that after two days with Aaron they knew each other’s bodies in a way she’d never known her husband’s.
“How could I not know all this before? What I knew was such a small part,” she said. “All that time…”
Aaron rose up on an elbow to look into her face, his voice softly understanding as he said, “Let me make it up to you, Mary, if only for today.”
And he did.
In spite of the rain there were chores to be done and work for both of them to fill the morning. The range was stoked u
p and it dried and warmed the kitchen, making it the most comfortable spot in the house. After breakfast Aaron said he’d take care of all outside chores so she wouldn’t need to go out to the chickens and geese through the rain. He shrugged on a big, loose denim jacket and kissed her with his hands rubbing the base of her spine, then went out. She hummed while she set up the plank for ironing, resting the butt end on the table, the narrow end on the back of a chair. The three irons were heating on the range, and her chore began.
She worked on into the morning. She kept the fire well fed to heat the irons. She put a pan of sauerkraut on the back end of the range, lacing it with caraway and pork. The simmering mixture made a delectable odor. Through it she could smell the hot starch as she pressed the shirts. She protected their freshness by removing them from the kitchen as each one was done, keeping the food smell from them. Later on, she mixed dough and dropped it into the boiling broth, and at dinnertime she and Aaron ate the dumplings and kraut, taking the makeshift ironing board away from the table to make room for their plates.
In the afternoon, with the rain still falling and time on their hands, Aaron brought two big jackets, put one on and helped her into the other, saying, “Come on, I want to show you something.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her along after him through the puddles and showers to the granary. Depositing her inside, he ran out again to fetch the ladder.
He braced it on the rafters over her head, and she asked, “What’s up there?” as he climbed up.
“You’ll see,” he said. He stood above her with his feet astride the beams, testing the weight of the old, crusty trunk he’d found up there two days before, when he’d fetched the suitcase. “Get me the rope that’s hanging by the door and hand it up to me.”
She got it and went up the ladder with it slung over her arm, using one hand to lift her skirt as she climbed.
Aaron was above her, looking like a giant as she gazed up at his spraddled legs.
“Be careful!” he warned.
“Be careful, yourself! You’re a man, not a monkey.”
“Yes, my sassy wench.” He smiled down at her, taking the rope.
He tied it around the heavy trunk, grunting as he lifted it to lace the rope through the handles and under it where it rested on the beams. She was still standing on the ladder looking up at him when he finished, asking, “Can you tie a decent knot?”
“Hmph!” was all she replied as she reached toward him for the rope. He tossed it back to her, and she went down the ladder and looped it around an upright, leaving slack in it before tying the end to another upright. Then she came back to the slack near the first post and grabbed the rope, saying, “Okay, Aaron.”
He wondered just how okay it was as he watched her apprehensively from above, but with an appreciative smile on his face. Standing below him, hanging onto the rope, she looked like the weight of the trunk would catch her and whip her up and over the beam like a sunfish on the end of a cane pole. But he bent down and began easing the trunk over the beam. Just as it was ready to drop free, he warned, “Here goes!” and lowered it over. Then he quickly dropped to his seat, lowered himself to a hanging position, and let go to drop into the oats below. He was at her side seconds after she’d taken the full weight of the trunk, and he eased the looped rope around the upright with slapping, uncoiling motions until the trunk rested safely in the oats.
“This had better be worth it, Aaron Martin Gray!” she scolded, jabbing at his belly with one small finger.
“Let’s find out, Mary Ellen Gray!” And they knelt down in the oats and took the rope off and pushed the trunk around until it lay level on the grain. He opened the lid and folded back some white cotton pieces and exposed a black suit of some dull, heavy fabric.
“What is it, Aaron?” she asked, peering inside inquisitively.
“It’s clothes of my mother’s and father’s,” he said, taking the white piece and laying it on the oats as a bed for the black suit and the other pieces to follow. He lifted out the garments and held each one up, all of them plain and wrinkled and dusty. There were sack coats and fitted coats before they came to one dark chesterfield with a matching waistcoat and pants. Below that were women’s dresses, all plain until at the bottom, wrapped in its own separate liner, was a garment of crackling ivory satin. When Aaron picked it up and lifted it, Mary cooed a soft, appreciative sound and looked up admiringly as Aaron held the dress raised above them.
“It must’ve been something in its day,” she said.
“It was my mother’s wedding dress,” Aaron said.
The rucked ivory still had a sheen, even after all the years it had lain interred. The leg-of-mutton sleeves ended in a point at each wrist, where tiny seed pearls trimmed the edges. More seed pearls and satin braid were sewn in intricate whorls across the bodice and down the front, where it narrowed to a tiny waist that flared out in a peplum at the hip. The high choker collar was trimmed in ruching that still stood stiff and firm. Up the center front ran uncountable satin loops that encircled pearl buttons. The skirt was flat in the front, and Mary said, “Turn it around.” When he did, she saw the dirndled rear where it must once have puffed out behind the pleated tail of the bustled bodice.
“Oh, Aaron, your mother must have been so proud to wear it.”
He lowered it and draped it over the opened lid of the trunk and began unhooking the front buttons.
“She showed it to me once when I was a little boy, but I’d forgotten about it until the other day when I saw the old trunk up here.”
Mary picked up the old gray chesterfield coat and asked, “Was this your father’s wedding suit, too?”
“I don’t know, but maybe, since it’s the fanciest one here. Somehow I can’t imagine him in it. He was much bigger when he died.”
“I wish I had known them,” Mary said.
“Oh, you’d have loved them. Pa had an everlasting smile on his face, and he could tease Ma until she’d have liked to throw him out. At least she pretended she’d like to. But in the end they’d always wind up laughing. He could always make her laugh no matter how serious she pretended to be.”
“I reckon you got a lot of your pa in you,” Mary ventured.
“It’d be nice if I did. I got a little of both of them in my name, anyway. I’m not sure where they got the ‘Aaron’ from. But Ma’s name was Martinek. When her folks came from the Old Country they shortened it to Martin. Pa’s family name was Sedivy, but in English that means Gray. Ma was always so taken with the name she gave me, said it was a ‘prideful’ name.”
“What was she like?” Mary asked, seeing his hands on his mother’s old wedding dress. Aaron dropped both hands to his thighs as he knelt in the grain, remembering.
“Oh, she was little, like you, and always in a hurry, and she was a hell of a housekeeper—made us help her turn out the entire house every spring, Jonathan and me, and she’d jump around like a banty rooster giving orders and making the dust fly. She could gossip along with the best of ’em, but woe unto the one who spread any gossip about her or hers.”
He laughed at the memory. Mary laughed along with him but ended by saying, “I never knew about your name, before, Aaron. I guess…well, I guess I’m lucky to have at least part of that prideful name. I think I would have liked them both.”
“I know they’d have liked you, Mary. I know they’d be happy at the choice Jonathan made.”
At the mention of his name Mary grew sober, but Aaron stood and picked up the ivory gown, saying, “I want to see it on you.”
“On me?” She looked wide-eyed back at him with a hand on her chest in surprise. “But Aaron, I don’t feel like I should. It doesn’t seem right to put on someone else’s wedding gown.”
“I don’t think my mother would mind. Besides, it was made for a slim little thing like you. Let’s give it a treat, after all its years in that musty old trunk.”
She looked at it appreciatively and touched the delicate seedwork on it.
“Do it for me?” he
asked.
“All right, Aaron, on one condition. You put on your father’s gray chesterfield suit.”
“All right, it’s a deal,” he agreed.
They were still standing in the oat bin. They took off their big jackets and threw them down on the grain. The rain kept falling, and it tittered across the roof, as if enjoying their whimsy along with them. The big door was open, and the misty gray light was enough for them to see by. The cool draft from outside gave them shivers as they took off their outerwear. Aaron had trouble standing on one foot in the shifting grain, so he sat down in it instead, complaining that it bit his skin. He had to pick some oat kernels out of his underwear before he drew on the gray trousers.
Folded inside them had been a very yellowed shirt with a ruffled front that must have been more than dandy in its day. He put it on under the chesterfield, and when he was all dressed, stood and watched Mary struggling with the numerous pearl buttons on her bodice. She had started working them from the waist, so he made his way to her in four mushy steps and began helping her, from the neck downward. The whalebone framing inside the bodice extended up into the high neck and prevented her from lowering her chin with any ease. So she looked up at Aaron and felt her way up the remaining buttons until their hands met. Then she dropped hers and let him finish the buttons.
When he’d done up the last one, he reached for her hand and backed off a step to bend low over it and kiss it, saying, “You look lovely, young wench.”
She curtsied deeply and wobbled, losing her balance on the grain. “Likewise, my lord,” she laughed.
When she straightened again, he took her other hand and, holding both of her hands loosely between his, said, “I love you, Mary. You know that, don’t you?”