“Thank you, Mary. God bless you.”
“That goes double for me,” Richard seconded.
“Thank you, Richard. God bless you, too.”
“Well, Grandma, come on,” Richard said, “Let’s get these kids in the car and get home to chores. Them cows can’t milk themselves.”
After seeing the children off, there were final goodbyes and thanks to Jean’s family, and while she changed clothes, and her mother stuffed some favorite recipes into her hand, and Eddie’s brothers loaded the wedding gifts onto the bed of Eddie’s pickup, he stood by impatiently, trying not to pull his pocket watch out every sixty seconds and check the time.
She came out of the house at last, wearing the pretty blue dress she’d made for their first date. He put her in the pickup and somebody stuffed her wedding dress and veils in after her, pushing her to the center of the seat, then finally... finally... Eddie was starting the engine and they were waving goodbye as they pulled out of the driveway and raised a dustcloud down the road.
It was around six in the evening, the sun still high and the red-winged blackbirds bobbing in the marsh, their songs whistling in the open truck window. Eddie and Jean’s responsibilities were behind them and they had the rest of the night to themselves. He peered at her, and she peered back, and they laughed for their freedom.
“I thought we’d never get out of there,” he said.
“So did I.”
Suddenly he had an idea. “Well, wait a minute. Wait just one gosh-darned minute here,” he said, pulling the pickup to the side of the road. He braked, shifted to neutral and said, “Come here, Mrs. Olczak.”
She went gladly, into his arms, into his kiss, into the mushroom of white wedding veil where they stayed a good long while, until some departing wedding guests came roaring past them on the road, honking their horn and catcalling out the window. It was Romaine and Rose and a carful of kids.
“Hey, Olczaaak...” Eddie heard, like a train whistle going past, as he swung away from his new bride. The rest he missed as Romaine’s dust rolled in his open window.
He laughed, put the truck in gear and said, “Let’s go home.”
________
He parked in front of his yellow brick house beneath the box elders, and said, “Leave your dress, would you?” Somewhere between the farm and here their playfulness had disappeared, replaced by a reserve that hid plenty of jitters.
She slid beneath the steering wheel, leaving the froth of white behind, and he walked her to the house, holding her elbow. He decided to take her in through the back door, which was out of sight of the street, giving them more privacy. The door was never locked. He swung it open and said, “I thought I’d do the honors,” then picked her up and carried her inside.
She had never been inside his house before: they’d been extremely careful to observe every propriety. From his arms she surveyed the kitchen—wood range, white cabinets, running water, and the table and chairs he’d made for Krystyna.
“Put me down, Eddie,” she requested quietly.
He stood on the rag rug while she moved about the room, examining it in silence. The chairbacks, the white sink, the angled cabinet doors above it where Krystyna had checked the back of her hair, canisters shaped like apples, the coffeepot on the cold stove, the icebox, a wringer washer crowded behind the door, which brought her full circle around the table, back to him.
Looking up into his face, she said, “It’s a very nice kitchen, Eddie. Did you make all this?”
“The cabinets and the table, yeah.”
“I thought so. Show me the rest.”
The sun was setting through the west living-room window, and the neighborhood children were playing running games outside. Their voices drifted in when he opened the front door, and she took in the maroon horsehair furniture and the upright piano, too big for its comer.
“There’s a sewing machine out here,” he said, pointing to it in the tiny front entry. “You’re welcome to use it anytime.”
She passed near him, went to the machine and touched it lightly with her fingertips, giving him the impression she might have said a word to Krystyna while doing so. She remained facing it for quite some time before turning back to him.
“And there’s an upstairs, too.”
“Yes.” It was clearly visible off the opposite end of the entry. He let her precede him, and when she mounted the bottom step the metal washer bumped the wall on the end of its long string.
“What’s this?” she said.
“It’s a string so the kids can turn on the light before they go up to bed. Krystyna put it up.”
He chided himself for mentioning Krystyna, while Jean pulled the string and looked up as the light came on in the upstairs hall ceiling. She started up the steps and he followed.
“This is the girls’ room,” he said at the top. She stepped into the sunlit room and smiled as her eyes wandered over the wallpaper and the rosettes on the window frames that Krystyna had painted white. Sugar was sleeping on the bed, woke up and stretched all four feet straight out in front of her, squint-eyed and stiff.
“This is Sugar,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about her.”
“Hi, Sugar,” Jean said, giving the cat a cursory scratch before Eddie led her to the other end of the hall.
“And this is our room.”
They stood just inside the doorway.
“Oh my, it has a door to outside... isn’t that lovely.”
“We sleep with it open a lot in the summer.” He realized too late that he’d said we.
“May I?” she said, unfazed, glancing up at him.
“Of course.”
She crossed the linoleum and opened the east door, letting in the sound of the children again and the green whisper of the box elder trees which were much taller than the house. She gazed out over the black tar-paper roof of the porch and put her warm face toward the gentle breeze blowing in.
“There’s a bathroom,” he said. “I put that in, too, and the hot-water heater.”
“I think I’ll be lucky, married to a handyman.” She came near him and peered into the bathroom. “I don’t think there’s anything you can’t do, Eddie.”
“There’s a dressing table. I cleared it all out for you, and two dresser drawers, too. The closet’s awful tiny, but whatever you have we’ll make room for.”
“Thank you, Eddie.”
He took off his suit jacket and hung it in the closet, then stripped off his tie and looped it over a glass towel rod that Krystyna had screwed onto the inside of the closet door to hold all his Sunday ties. “Well, you know what?” he said. “I’d better get those wedding gifts inside in case it rains.”
“Do you want me to help you?” she asked, but he was already heading for the stairs.
“Naw, I’ll take care of it. If there’s anything you need, just open doors and look.”
She went into the bathroom and opened a pink cupboard to find a clean washcloth. While he pounded in and out of the house downstairs, she washed her face and looked inside the medicine chest. His razor and shaving mug were inside. She picked up the soft brush and ran it over her jaws and beneath her nose, recognizing a scent he carried on his skin early in the day, or late in the day if they had a date.
The doors closed downstairs, first the front, then the back, and his footsteps returned: everything was closed up for the night.
But it was barely eight o’clock, and the sun hadn’t even dropped below the horizon. It streamed through the west bathroom window, straight through the doorway and across the blue scatter rug beside their bed.
She was standing uncertainly near the dressing table when Eddie reached the doorway, bearing with him her suitcase.
“I brought you this,” he said, and put it on the foot of the bed.
“Thank you.” She went to it and snapped open the cheap metal locks, folded back the top and took out a white plissé nightie while he hovered nearby, at odds with the time of day.
?
??Eddie, there’s something that I want to say.” She turned and found him close behind her. “I understand that this was Krystyna’s house, that she lived here with you and shared your life. And it’s okay when you mention her name, and when you tell me this was hers, or that was hers, or that she did whatever for Anne and Lucy. Memories of her will be here for many years to come, but because I love you, and because I know you love me, it takes nothing away from our marriage. So, please, Eddie, don’t look so guilty when you mention her name.”
In the beat before he scooped her into his arms she saw relief flood his face. “Dear God, how I love you,” he breathed, clasping her as he might a child he’d just plucked from in front of a runaway team.
“I love you, too,” she told him gently.
“I think, Jean Olczak, that you’re a saint.”
“Oh, no I’m not. I’m so very mortal that I’m scared out of my wits right now.”
“Don’t be scared...” He eased his hold and repeated, softer, into her eyes, “Don’t be scared.”
“What should I do?” she asked.
“Go into the bathroom and put your nightgown on.” There were precedents being set here; she didn’t want to live like her Grandma and Grandpa Potlocki. So she left the door open but slipped behind it to change clothes. When she padded back into the bedroom, her suitcase was closed on the floor, the bed was turned down, and Eddie was wearing nothing but trousers, leaning against the door frame with one shoulder, looking out at the twilight. The children’s voices had disappeared. Purple shadows were stealing over the town. Mosquitoes buzzed futilely at the screens.
Sensing her return, Eddie sent a glance over his shoulder and opened his free arm. It closed around her when she reached him, then he shifted her over and settled her comfortably against his front. She liked his ways, felt soothed by the length of him warming her back, but stirred by this first intimacy with a man. His scanty clothes, her nightwear, both of them barefooted—all innocent, but more than she’d ever experienced. It was hard to believe that what she wanted to do with him was no longer a sin. All those years she had striven to put all thoughts of carnality out of her mind; now she strove to put them in, to know what to do, and when. But, of course, she knew nothing.
She reached back and rested her hands on his trouser legs, and he started kissing her neck, his right arm clamped firmly across her collarbone.
“I’ll tell you something...” he said, nuzzling her earlobe. “I’m a little scared myself.”
“Why?”
“You have to ask me that? An ex-nun?”
“But it isn’t new to you.”
“Oh, yes it is. It feels new.”
So she thought she’d do her part, what little part she knew. She turned in his embrace and kissed him, tucking her elbows to his ribs and folding her arms up his bare back, following her instincts. His back was warm and long, the ridge up the middle inviting beneath her fingertips. While she explored it, he drew away from the door frame and coiled more sharply into the kiss, opening his mouth. Touching him, tasting him was the best thing she ever remembered being allowed to touch and taste. It grew easier and easier while minutes stretched on and she acquainted her hands with his shoulders, and ribs, the hair on his chest, and the beltline of his trousers.
In time he fell against the door frame again, hauling her with him and wrapping one bare foot around her calf, forcing her body into an arc against his.
They fit exquisitely, and she experimented, rising against him.
Abruptly, he lifted his head, found her hand and whispered, “Come with me.” To the bed he led her, and sideways across it so they could see each other. He kissed her eyes, cheeks, nose, mouth, and covered her breast with an unhurried caress.
She fell still beneath it, wonder-struck by discovery. Through half-opened eyes he watched her face, the lips fallen open, the breath shallow and quick while he moved his hand, pleasuring her through the soft puckered cloth, gathering it and her in his hand as if picking tender fruit from a tree. He lowered his head and closed his eyes, his lashes sweeping against her nightgown as he kissed her through it, on one breast, then the other, rolling her gently to her back.
She murmured once, his name he thought. “Oh, Eddie...” before sensations silenced her again.
He lay on her, let her feel his weight for a while, and learn the movement of an aroused body. He gave her time, easing her through the rudiments of early sensation, showing her without words what was yet to come. He reached behind her, ran a hand the length of her longest, smoothest curve—twice, thrice, and yet again before finding the hollow behind her knee, and finally he felt her hip and leg relax. Then once again he made a space and spread a hand on her stomach, feeling it palpitate with each short, stressed breath she took as the hand remained, firm, idle, open. Soon it pressed, stirring the soft cloth of her nightie into a whorl to match that within her heart.
And at last, at long-awaited last, he touched her through the wrinkled cotton.
She held her breath and lay unmoving. She might have been a carving, so still she remained, tensed, arched, expectant.
But no carving was this warm.
He whispered something to her, something to calm whatever fears she held, called her Jean, darling Jean, put your hand on me, too, Jean, you can, it’s all right, let me take this off, Jean, Jean... ahh, Jean...
He taught her things he’d learned with Krystyna, and there, in the lessons, Krystyna brought them another gift. For it was a gift, and wondrous, and deserved. They had waited, done the pure, right thing, postponed every pleasure till they’d earned its right through marriage. And when that marriage was consummated, there in the dark of that warm August night, they emerged resplendent, loved and loving.
She said, afterward, with wonder in her voice, entwined with him, still, “Isn’t God wonderful... thinking up such a thing?”
Eddie kissed her forehead and rested his cheek against it. “I think he’s pretty wonderful for giving you up to me.”
“I do, too,” she said, and fit her foot into the snuggliest place on him, and her hand, and one bent knee. “I hope you like sleeping all snuggled up, because I know I’m going to want to be like this a lot. I’ve slept alone too long.” He wriggled deeper and spread his hand wider on her flank. Down the hallway the caramel-colored cat walked silently. At their doorway, it stopped and listened, unseen. Jean said, “Eddie, could I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
It took her a while to work up the courage. “How often... I mean...”
“How often—?” he encouraged.
“Nothing. Just forget it.”
“No, you were going to ask, so ask.”
“Well, how often do men and women—um—do this?”
He laughed heartily and rubbed her bare hip and said, “Ah... my adorable virgin bride.”
“You promised me you wouldn’t laugh at my ignorance.”
“I’m not laughing at you, darling, you just tickle me. You’re so perfectly innocent.”
“All right, then, how often do they?”
He decided to have some fun with her. “Well, let me see—tomorrow is Sunday and once Mass is taken care of, we’ve got the whole day to ourselves, so we could do it, say, thirty, forty times. But then on—”
“Thirty or forty!”
“But then on workdays we’d have to cut that down some. Let’s see... I ring the first bell at seven-thirty. Say we do it at six-thirty a.m., then I could run home before the noon Angelus and squeeze one in then, but at the supper Angelus it’ll be tougher, because the kids will be around then, so we might have to wait till bedtime. Then, after bedtime, why, heck, I’d say we could manage seven, eight times before we fell asleep if we—”
“Oh, Eddie, you’re teasing.” She gave him a punch through the soft bedspread.
“No, no! Look, we got seven more times yet tonight. Will that satisfy you? It better, ’cause, I mean, I’ve got to get some sleep. A man can’t live on sex alone.”
“Oh, Eddie, are you always such a tease?”
“When I love a woman, I am. And I sure do love you, my little petunia.” His voice lost a lot of its teasing, got soft and seductive. “I suuure do love you.”
They kissed, and afterward he told her, in the voice of a patient teacher, “We can do it every day if you like. Usually at the beginning, when people first fall in love, they want to do it more than once a day, then after they’re married awhile they do it less often. Maybe a couple times a week, maybe more, maybe less. When women get pregnant they don’t feel much like doing it, then toward the end they’re not allowed to do it at all.”
They thought about that awhile, and she said, “Just think... I could be pregnant right now.”
“And what would you think?”
“I said a Novena asking that it would happen soon.” He reared back and looked down at her, surprised. “You did?” In the dark he could scarcely see a rim of light on her hair.
“Yes, I did. I’d take as many of your babies as I could get.”
“Oh, Jean...” He hauled her up from the crook of his shoulder and kissed her softly, then rubbed a finger over her lips time and again. “I’m so lucky.”
They thought about the children they might have, the ones they already had, and a future of loving them all, working hard for them, and for each other. At the foot of the bed, they felt Sugar jump up and pick her way tentatively up the bedspread.
Eddie’s hand went down and found the cat. “Hi, Sugar, you miss the girls, huh?”
“Hi, Sugar.” Jean’s hand joined his, scratching Sugar’s soft fur. She hadn’t had a cat since she lived on the farm as a girl.
“I like cats,” she said.
The cat started purring. They were getting blissfully sleepy, their thoughts fraying.
Suddenly Jean sat up and threw the covers back. “Oh my gosh, I forgot my prayers.”
She scrambled from the bed, got to her knees and joined her hands, naked as a jaybird, while he grinned to himself in the dark. He didn’t interrupt her, but neither did he join her. He’d had enough prayer for one day during their long wedding ceremony. Besides, what they’d done together seemed like a prayer to him.