The Passion of Mary-Margaret (30 page)

Jude didn't agree to marry me all that summer, but at least he purposed to be helpful. He painted my apartment, polished the floors, then roped Brister Purnell into building me a rudimentary art studio on the grounds of the school. Together they hammered and sawed and raised a wooden building twenty feet by fifteen. A tin roof covered it and for heat they placed two old woodstoves in opposite corners. Jude said he'd keep the woodpile stocked once the winter set in.

“I feel kind of like Laura Ingalls Wilder when she went and taught on the prairie. Woodstoves and wood and teaching in a new building. It's exciting. I may just have to bring a lunch pail with me each day.” I scooped out some vanilla ice cream for the both of us. One bowl, one spoon. I figured he'd get acclimated to me sharing his germs. After a while, he stopped asking for his own portion.

“Who's Laura Ingalls Wilder?”

I explained, much to my sadness. “Didn't you read when you were little?”

“Not much.”

“Not even
Farmer Boy
? I loved that book. They were always eating pie and sausages.”

He spooned the ice cream in his mouth. “I don't know, Mary-Margaret. Sounds kinda boring to me. Anybody ever get killed in those books?”

“Not really. Jack the dog died. I remember that. And I cried so much I thought I would throw up.”

“Dead dogs. Hmm.”

Jude liked to read true crime.

“So school starts day after tomorrow,” he said. “You excited? Nervous at all?”

“Of course. What if they don't like me? What if they think I'm just some do-gooder who's doing this to make herself feel better?”

“Are you?”

“No! I need this job!” I took the spoon from him and dug up my own bite of ice cream.

“There you go, then.
Most kids can see the truth. You'll be fine.”

By this time, Jude's syphilis symptoms had disappeared. He was out of the first stage and the second. We both wondered when the tertiary stage would begin. Truth was, he could remain in the latent stage for as long as twenty-five years. It could take him years and years to die. Then again, he could be dead in relatively few. I know that's what he prayed for. I'd talked him out of committing suicide for the time being and I prayed to love him and to love him and to love him.

The next evening I put together packets of supplies for each child. I'd purchased used men's shirts at the thrift store for smocks. With a smock, I gave each child a watercolor palette, two paintbrushes, a stick of charcoal, an eraser, two pencils, a bottle of ink, and a nibbed pen. These I placed in shoeboxes. Their first assignment would be to decorate their shoebox. That would give me a good idea as to each child's imagination, manual dexterity, and natural style.

My kitchen window allowed the sounds of the island settling down for the night to filter through. Murmurs from the house next door rose from their living room window, sometimes the television, sometimes the commentary of the elderly man who chattered to his wheelchair-bound wife about nearly everything he was doing. “Now, Myra, I think I'll go get myself some milk.”

Or, “That pothole down the street still hasn't been fixed.” And she, with a softer voice, would reply. But I could never hear her words, just the soothing timbre of her high, smooth tones. He always set her in their car so gently and they ate fried Spam a lot, if the aromas from their kitchen were any indication. Cabbage as well.

The revolving light from Bethlehem Point Light would snag its beams on the frills of the curtain and when the breeze would blow just right, it was almost as if the ray itself pushed the gauzy fabric forward.

I decided, despite the heat, to make a cup of tea. I put just enough water for one cup into the kettle and turned off the spigot.

“Make one for me too.”

“Jesus!” I laughed at the sound of his voice, my back toward him as I filled the kettle higher.

“Gee, Mary-Margaret. I've never heard you take the Lord's name in vain before.”

I wheeled around. “Jude!”

He walked forward. “Who'd you think it was?”

“Well, nobody.”

He stopped and crossed his arms. “Surely not Jesus.”

“Of course not! He would have asked politely.” I laughed in an effort to distract him. “What are you doing here?”

“I've been thinking. Can I sit down?”

He'd gained some of his weight back and his hair looked almost normal. I remember thinking maybe our physical union wouldn't be as appalling as I feared. Even the pustules on his arms and legs were healing nicely, leaving only faint scars that would, hopefully in time, fade completely. Inside of him, however . . . Lord have mercy.

“Of course. Have a seat.” I turned on the burner and set the kettle to boil. “What have you been thinking about?”

“This stage I'm at, the latent stage, could last for years.”

“This is true.” I sat down and began securing each student's collection of pens, pencils, and brushes with a rubber band.

Jude caught on to the process and began to help. “So, anyway. Maybe this is a chance to get a fresh start, even for just a little while. Until the final stage settles in.”

“What are you thinking?”

I wasn't going to suggest that this bit of hope he was feeling might be put to good use by taking some antibiotics. He'd have to come to that conclusion on his own. Jude simply had to come to his own conclusions.

“I'm thinking I'd like to take you up on your offer. Would you still marry me, Mary-Margaret?”

“Are you asking?” I set down the bundle I'd just secured.

The teakettle screamed. I jumped.

I turned down the flame and grabbed a pot holder, circling it around the iron handle of the kettle.

Pouring the tea, I felt his hands descend on my shoulders.

“Yes,” he whispered into my ear. “That's what I'm doing.”

All those quivery feelings from when we were young went sliding from that ear right down into my private parts. I'm so sorry to have to write it like that, but that's exactly what happened and I wasn't prepared for it any more than you just were to hear it.

He turned me to face him. “If I don't have a good reason to stay here, I'll go back to my old life. I can't do that. I've always loved you, Mary-Margaret. You know that.”

“Yes, I do.”

“I'm sorry about that. I guess, what I'm saying is, I'm sorry I didn't know what to do with that. I just didn't know.”

“It's okay. I didn't either.” I laid my head against his chest.

And we listened to the murmur of the old folks, and through the window the light circled on us again and again.

“So what's your answer?”

“It's yes, of course.”

“But there's one thing. We can't have sex. I'm not going to give this disease to you.”

“All right.”

Jesus only told me to marry him. He didn't tell me we had to have children together. I mean, I doubt even the pope would insist on my procreating with a syphilitic man.

Jude wasn't the romantic type. He let me go with a squeeze and I poured the tea. When I sat down at the table with him, he said, “Let's always have a cup of tea together. Every night. Let's make it the last thing we do.”

I always drink tea with Jesus, I wanted to tell him, and then I realized something. Jude was Jesus.

I walked with him to the dock where he'd tied up Gerald's boat and we held hands. “This is as far as it's going to go,” he made sure to tell me. “Other than hugs. And no kissing either. I don't even want to sleep in the same bed with you, Mary-Margaret.”

We stood on the dock, the water lapping against the pilings. “You'll get the couch then,” I said.

“Okay.”

“I mean, I'll need a good night's sleep if I'm going to teach all day. And I get grumpy without my sleep.”

He stepped down into the motorboat. “I'm going to go back out on the water with Brister.”

“But, Jude, he—”

“Is calmer than he used to be. He's settled into his life. My mother didn't help that process any. He said it's fine. I'm a thirty-one-year-old man, Mary-Margaret. I'll beat the sh-- out of him if he tries to throw a punch.”

“I'm sure you will.”

I watched as he rowed cleanly back to the lighthouse. His boat cutting through the reflection of the moon.

Oh my. These memories tumble down the inside of my body so easily, yet every so often a barbed bit scrapes along. I'd quite forgotten I was in Africa! It's been so long since Jude died, the rawness of our beginnings as man and wife, and the pain of losing him that day, have bowed this old white head down so that my
chin almost meets my chest.

And I have a cramp in my neck now.

Oh, John, where are you?

I check my watch. Just another three hours, Mary-Margaret, and he'll be here.

There are some days an orphan misses her mother more than other days. But the biggest, most keenly felt of those days is surely her wedding day.

Jude wanted to get married as soon as possible, while he was still in good health. I did too. So we set the date for September 30th. The leaves would be starting to turn and the blue of the sky would deepen from the heat-addled expanse of summer.

We'd get married right at Bethlehem Point, under the maple tree, Bethlehem Point Light looking on.

At least that's what I thought. Until I voiced the idea to Jude over our nightly cup of tea. I'd made it through my first week of school. It felt like the old days actually.

“No!” he said, his jaw muscles clenched so tightly I thought his lower face might fold in upon itself.

“Why?”

“No, Mary-Margaret. I won't get married to you with that lighthouse looking on. I can't.”

That was the first inkling I had that something went on at that lighthouse none of us knew about. Not Hattie, nor Gerald.

Not myself. And it affirmed what Angie said about me for years that I always denied—I was a lousy judge of character.

“Can you tell me why?”

“I don't like to speak ill of people. You can say a lot about me, Mary-Margaret, but I don't backstab.”

“You're right. Are you speaking of your dad?”

“Yes. Among others.”

“All right.” I slid the plate of cookies toward him.

“I'm not hungry.”

“Me either.”

“What would be a good second choice for you?” he asked.

“St. Francis's, I suppose.”

He screwed up his face. “A church?”

“Yes.” I said it with a finality that must have got through to him because he only nodded in reply and said, “Okay.”