The Dearly Beloved

by Cara Wall

  “Let’s not talk about divinity,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said.

  She said, “It’s just that I think God is wishful thinking.”

  “What’s wrong with wishful thinking?” he asked.

  “It’s wishful,” Lily said.

  “You must have wished for something that didn’t come true.”

  “Yes,” she told him.

  “What?” he asked.

  She shifted in her seat, tried to lean back, but the wall of the booth was too far away.

  “Let’s not talk about divinity,” she said again.

  So they talked about school, and Lily found herself admiring the way Charles’s eyes lit up when he talked about history. They talked about the library, and she had to appreciate his reverence for it, the gratitude with which he described its solemn rooms. After they’d finished their first drinks, he told her about Martha’s Vineyard, and she could easily recognize the pictures he painted of his cousins—they were as lively and attached to one another as her own. While they were eating, he told her about his stern father, his accommodating mother, the thin, silent house in which he’d been raised, and she was glad to see some sadness in him, a close familiarity with solitude.

  She told him about the paper she was writing on Leaves of Grass and how much her professor hated the thesis, but would have to give her an A anyway, because it was so well researched. She told him that she had her senior suite all to herself because her roommate, Rosemary, had gone back to homecoming at her old high school and never returned.

  Her overwhelming sense, as she spoke, was that Charles was listening. When her eyes landed on him, he was considering her words, every one of them. His attention was alarming. She could not meet his eyes directly. She looked down or over or away and her hands moved across the surface of the table, adjusting the silverware, fiddling with her straw.

  Dessert came—two ice cream sundaes in tall cups with long silver spoons. She had not suggested they share, and he had not seemed to mind. They ate in silence. The waitress took their plates away. The seat beneath Lily was hard. The only way to sit comfortably was to lean forward, legs crossed, elbows on the table. Charles was looking at her, waiting for her to say something. His silence pulled at her like a tide.

  “Fine,” she said abruptly. “Why on earth do you believe in God?”

  Her face was flushed and her expression reconciled. It was the first time Charles had seen her look anything but pale, and he thought she looked beautiful. He wanted to tell her they could talk about God another time, but he wasn’t sure there would be another time.

  He took a deep breath. “I don’t exactly know,” he began. “From the moment I was presented with the idea, I believed it. I can’t imagine not believing.”

  Lily narrowed her eyes, seemingly unmoved. “Do you think you have some sort of call?” she asked.

  Charles looked at the straight angle of her shoulders and the long line of her neck. She was weighing him now; he could not lighten the scale.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “To what religion?”

  “Presbyterian.” It was the church he had gone to with his parents, and the most democratic and practical religion he could find.

  “What do you have to do?”

  “Preach. Counsel. I talk with people about their deeper beliefs. Not what they do for a living, but why they do it. I get to know people. I see what’s underneath—what gives them comfort, what brings them joy.”

  He knew this sounded hackneyed, but it was true.

  “Do you pray?”

  “Yes.” Before prayer, his life had unfolded in a place of hard study and debate, where men believed in the power of their minds. Prayer gave him a respite from that skepticism, a way to ask for comfort.

  “About what?”

  “Mostly, I sit quietly. I ask for help in thought, clarity of understanding. I try to see beyond whatever obstacle I’m experiencing. I ask to see the possibility of its resolution. I know I can’t find all the answers, but I think they’re out there.” Through prayer he had seen, immediately, how much easier life was when he had faith.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Lily said.

  Charles frowned at her, taken aback. She was angry now, her eyes fierce. She looked like his father, outraged at the absurdity of an unproven thesis.

  “It’s not ridiculous,” he said, keeping his voice serious. “It’s what I believe.” He leaned forward, ready to say more.

  “Shush.” Lily glared at him. “I’m thinking.”

  Charles sat back and watched her still, delicate face as she thought.

  At one time, Lily had believed in God. She had gone to church and Sunday school, which was taught by her grandmother or her great-aunt, depending on the year. Mostly, they played with the faded animals that made up Noah’s ark and cooked pretend chocolate cakes in the yellow plastic oven. If they managed not to act like hooligans, they were given a root beer Dum Dum before they went home.

  “Jesus likes well-dressed children,” her great-aunt reminded them, “and little boys who don’t pick their nose.”

  Her parents’ funeral was in a church. Their caskets were grey, with white roses on top; her aunt Cassandra had asked the florist not to use lilies. Richard sat in the front row with her and held her hand. It was very bright inside, so she closed her eyes for most of the service. She didn’t cry. Everyone else did; Miriam kept passing tissues down the rows. Lily just waited for it to be over.

  The minister had preached that God had a reason for her parents’ deaths, a purpose only God knew. So, for weeks, Lily racked her mind to discover that purpose. Was it to spare her parents from aging, to let them exist for their loved ones as ever young, ever handsome, ever charming and at ease? Or, Lily wondered, was their death meant, in fact, for her—did she need to wake up, to grow up, to suffer, to learn? And if so, why? Was she so judgmental, so impatient, so spoiled? Were her parents so casually expendable? She began to panic because she could not discern the logic of it, which meant she was stupid, which meant she was losing her mind.

  Then a thought came to her, a simple thought, clear and unbidden. There is no God. The idea was followed by a velvet abyss of silence so deep that it stopped time for a moment, as one stops for a fear-frozen deer in the middle of a road. She stared at it, unblinking.

  Could it be? Was God not real? Had God not punished her or her parents? Had they not been watched and found lacking? Was it possible that there was no magical being, no loving benevolence, no outraged tyrant, not even a mirror reflecting her back to herself? Was it possible there was just nothing? Did life run out as commonly as a ball of yarn, knitting needles waving in suddenly empty air?

  The idea was so electric that Lily held it at bay for a few days. When it had stopped hissing and cracking at her, when its sparks fell impotently to the ground, she allowed it to be real. And then she understood.

  There was no God.

  There was no master plan, no prewritten destiny, no plot, no judge, no sentencing. There was no God. There was only circumstance and coincidence. Life was random, neutral, full of accidents. There was no redeeming value in her parents’ deaths, just debris to be cleared, trees in the driveway after a storm. Her relief was as liberating as a lemon ice on the hottest day of the year.

  And now, here, was a boy who was telling her, with his whole being, that he believed in the loving benevolence, the hidden meaning, the plot and purpose. He had described his faith clearly; she could not mistake its outline. It sat between them as fresh and essential as the pale frame of a new house. Her heart was racing. She was afraid. And yet, she did not stand and walk out. Charles had given her a plain truth, and somehow it calmed Lily, opened a still space inside of her, smooth as a lake at dawn.

  Without warning, Lily looked Charles in the eye. “My parents died,” she said.

  Charles held her gaze without answering. There it was, he realized, the barest bone of her, bright as the moon on an autumn night that was full
of the smell of woodsmoke.

  Lily did not want to be dating. One of the girls on her hall was dating, and it involved flowers, phone calls, hair curlers, and laughing in ways the girl had never laughed before. Lily did not ever want to act that way.

  And yet she found herself thinking about Charles all weekend. She was acutely aware that he had not said I’m sorry. He had not said, How terrible for you. He had not said, God works in mysterious ways. He had sat across from her, sturdy and kind, and absorbed her grief without comment or pity.

  She did not remember the route they had taken home. The waitress had put the check on the table and Lily had excused herself to the ladies’ room. When she came back, Charles had held her coat for her to slip into and followed her out the door. It was cold, but they had decided to walk; she had watched her shoes fall into step next to his. They did not say a word to each other until they reached her dormitory, when she had turned to him, nodded her head, and gone inside.

  So, when she found Charles waiting outside her class on Monday, she wondered how he could have possibly thought their date went well. She walked quickly down the stairs and stood squarely in front of him, confrontational.

  “You were supposed to leave me alone,” she said.

  “I didn’t want to,” he answered. Lily glared at him.

  “You didn’t call me,” she said.

  Charles nodded. “I didn’t know what to say.” He spoke with easy honesty.

  “About my parents?”

  “Yes.”

  Lily was tempted to tell him there was no way he could be a minister without having a pretty good plan in place when he was called on to comfort and console. But then she realized he meant that he didn’t know what to say to her, because his pretty good plan involved talking about God.

  “Do you have a class near here?” she asked finally.

  “No,” he said. “I came to walk you to your next one. What is it?”

  “American Lit,” she said, turning on her heel to leave. Charles fell into step beside her.

  “Is it good?” he asked.

  Lily shrugged without looking at him. “Passable. But I don’t like Thoreau.”

  “What do you like?”

  They had reached the glass door that led out of the building. Lily stopped and looked at him, annoyed. She did not want to tell him what she liked. She did not want to find out what he liked. She did not want to talk at all. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, sighed heavily, and handed Charles her books.

  “Come on, then. Even though we’re only going right next door.” She pulled on her coat as he slid her books on top of his own, tucked the whole pile to his chest, opened the door, and waited for her to walk out in front of him. They walked down one set of icy steps and up the set directly next to them, where Lily took her books, said thank you, and went inside.

  On Tuesday, Lily found Charles waiting once again. “Do you not have a class of your own?” she asked.

  “Yes, but I don’t mind being late.” Charles shrugged, the tweed of his blazer rasping against the collar of his blue shirt.

  “Every day?” Lily raised her eyebrows, handing him her books. They walked outside, down stairs, then up stairs. Bells rang inside the buildings, and Lily said thank you.

  “For the carrying or the company?” Charles asked before she had gotten inside.

  “The carrying,” she said, without looking back.

  On Wednesday it was raining, and Charles arrived with a large black umbrella.

  “Do you want to carry this or my book?” he asked. It was a pointless question; there was no way Lily could hold the umbrella as high as the top of his head.

  “Do you just have the one?”

  “Yes,” he said, handing it to her. “Don’t worry, it’s not a Bible.” He was grinning. He was teasing her. It had been years since anyone had told her even the smallest joke. But here was Charles, straightforward and charming and preposterously pleased.

  On Thursday, Charles was waiting for her again, looking thoughtful. He took her books, as usual, and held the door open for her without saying a word. Then, at the bottom of the steps, he stopped, faced her directly, and said, “Look, Lily. You must know I come all this way just to see you.”

  She turned to face him and met his thoughtful tone. “Of course,” she answered.

  “If you want me to stop, you should say so.”

  Lily said nothing. On the one hand, she still did not want to be dating. On the other hand, Charles was not totally objectionable. From what she could tell, his mind was clear and his ideas were organized. Plus, he was handsome. That, she could not avoid. Mostly because the girls on her hall had whispered it to one another all week. “Lily’s got a boyfriend,” they said. “And he’s a looker.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” Lily shouted into the hall.

  But they persisted. “Well, he should be,” they said. “His father’s a dean and he has family money.” “He’s a shoo-in for faculty, if he decides to teach.” “My brother says he’s brilliant.” They wouldn’t leave Lily alone about it, and slowly she began to see that it was not terrible to be a little bit more like the other girls, to not be so different, to be defined by something she had rather than something she’d lost.

  Charles had their books pressed between his arm and his rib cage, both hands in his pockets. “All right,” he said. “If you don’t want me to stop, I’d like to take you to dinner again.”

  “Tonight?”

  “No,” Charles answered. “On Saturday.”

  Lily’s heart sank. She knew what Saturday night meant. Friday was for girls who were fun but nothing serious. Saturday was for courtship.

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow.” She scowled.

  That night, Lily talked to her uncle Richard on the telephone. “He wants to take me to dinner,” she complained.

  “I’m sure lots of boys want to take you to dinner,” Richard said. “They just don’t have the nerve to ask.”

  “I wouldn’t call this nerve.”

  “What would you call it?”

  “Stubbornness.”

  Richard sighed. “Lily, that boy likes you. And you’re being mean.”

  “I know he likes me,” she said. “I don’t know if I like him.”

  “Of course you like him,” Richard said. “If you didn’t, you would have told him to mind his own business.”

  Lily thought for a moment about how much she should tell Richard, how much of what she said would get back to the whole family, how much she could bear others knowing about her life. “He believes in God,” she said finally. “And I don’t.”

  “I believe in God,” Richard said.

  “True, but so does Miriam. Wouldn’t it bother you if she didn’t?” There was a pause in which she could almost hear Richard thinking.

  “Maybe. But Miriam doesn’t like to read.”

  He had her there. Miriam didn’t read, and Richard did, constantly. Lily wondered what it would be like to marry someone who didn’t have the same need for plot and character and story, for words and words and words. Unbearably lonely.

  “Does this boy read?” Richard asked her.

  “I have to assume yes,” Lily conceded.

  “Then try not to make him work so hard.”

  Charles was, indeed, late for his third period every day. That was how every one of his classmates in Intermediate Greek knew he had found the woman he wanted to marry. True, Lily was not encouraging in the slightest. But he had spent nearly a week watching her face as she talked, and her expressions revealed what an effort it was for her to keep up her indifferent facade. She had ten thoughts before she said a word, and ten more after she’d said it; he could see them in her eyebrows and the way she bit her lip. She seemed aggressively Spartan, but she cared about her appearance: her skirts and blouses and cardigans were finely made. He guessed she would never admit to being sentimental, but she wore her Radcliffe ring on her pinky and a leather-banded Cartier watch that was too big and not new.r />
  She reminded him of the rosary beads he had once seen at the Cloisters. No larger than walnuts, each one had opened like a locket to reveal entire scenes from the gospels in miniature: crosses the size of peppercorns and saints as slender as toothpicks, with eyelashes and fingernails almost too small to be seen. They must have taken years to carve, the monks hunched carefully over every movement, still and precise and attentive. Lily seemed to Charles like both the beads and the carvers: intricate and patient, closed and waiting to be seen.

  He spent Thursday night in the library, wondering what he would do if Lily turned him down. If she said no, he would have to give up completely; having asked her to make up her mind, there would be no point in trying to make her change it. He wondered if he should just not show up the next morning, surrender before she could reject him.But he couldn’t stand the thought of whom she might walk with if he weren’t there, and he could not stand the idea of her walking to third period alone.

  So, on Friday, before he even took Lily’s books, he said, “Well?”

  “Tomorrow?” she asked, as if she had forgotten to check her calendar.

  “Yes, tomorrow,” he said, holding his breath. It took her so long to answer that he knew she was calculating something in her mind.

  She was, in fact, calculating whether she could love him. Not that he expected her to, after just one dinner and four walks to class, but she could tell he was hoping, and the truth was that she did not think she could love anyone. She could love things, like linen sheets, peonies, and strong tea. She could love Richard and Miriam, because she was grateful to them for all they had done for her. She could remember loving her parents and could still recognize that feeling in the characters and plots of the books she read. But the prerequisite for love was trust; and Lily did not trust anything.

  Her silence became uncomfortably long, but she didn’t rush herself. She stared at Charles’s shoes, then his white shirt, then the bare trees and redbrick buildings behind him, blocking out the opinions of the other girls, trying to decide if she, herself, liked seeing Charles at the foot of the English Department staircase more than she liked not seeing him, if she liked walking to class with him more than she liked walking alone.