Patience & Sarah

by Isabel Miller

  It was getting to be a severe puzzle, with my knees giving out. I wasn’t bold enough to take her to her bed, but then she, who for all her womanly ways was always bolder than me, took me to bed. Into the bedroom and up onto that high white feathery bed. She stretched out and patted beside her to show me my place, and I went into it. I propped myself up on my elbow and looked down at her and words like hallelujah and glory kept coming to me. What do folks that never went around with an unfrocked parson think at a time like that?

  I put my cheek against hers. It felt as good as a kiss. Oh what else is as soft and firm and downy smooth and cool as a woman’s cheek? It made me proud that mine was the same and I could give it to her.

  “Stop that silly smiling,” she said. She felt it in my cheek.

  “I can’t. I can’t. I’m happy.”

  And she was smiling too, so who was she to talk?

  I said, “When you came across the field yesterday, I couldn’t believe I ever kissed you, or ever would.”

  “But I believed it,” she said.

  “What made you – ” I began, and then I couldn’t ask it after all. She knew anyway.

  She said, “I asked myself what was the worst thing that could happen to me. So then it was all clear and easy. Losing you, that was the worst. I can’t remember why I drove you away. Was it just to keep what I never liked anyway? I don’t know why I didn’t go with you.”

  “Scared, that’s all,” I said. “If I’d had sense enough I would’ve been too.”

  She said, “Don’t talk that way,” and turned her face to kiss.

  I kissed her, but I also managed, between kisses, to explain that boys and penniless women don’t fare so easy on the way west, and they should thank the stars they got born under for a room and a tall soft bed to kiss on. “There’s nothing out west to beat this,” I said.

  How was it possible to stand up and walk to the pegs and put my wraps on? I said, to head her off from warning me, which I couldn’t’ve stood, “This time I won’t tell.”

  “As you wish,” she said. I didn’t believe her. Even if I wished to tell, I’d better not. I knew my lamb that much. But I liked having her say it like I had a choice: “As you wish.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to want beyond what that day marked the start of. There was good hard work all week, and then those wonderful Sunday afternoons when I could hold Patience and lean over her face trying to find the exact name for the brown of her eyes, and studying her ear with the tip of my tongue, and feeling her clean breath on me, learning how born to fit her eyelid my mouth was, watching the daylight fade across her face. I learned the use of being beautiful. A person would have to be bolder than me to imagine something beyond perfect happiness and wish for it.

  But I already said, Patience is bolder.

  At first I didn’t know it was more she wanted. I thought maybe it was less, or different. Before long it was clear something was amiss. She got so she didn’t pay attention like I did. I always kept one eye open a crack, to look, because being looked at that way is the use of being beautiful, and on our fifth Sunday during one of our kisses, she wasn’t looking back at me, and I swear she was thinking. I’d suspected her of it before, but this time there was no mistaking it.

  I backed right off, for I knew from Simon how a kiss feels when you don’t want it and I’d rather die than have somebody feel that way from any doing of mine. I got across the bed from her, flat on my back, and looked at the ceiling.

  “We don’t need to,” I said. “Don’t think just cause you started you’ve got to keep on.”

  “Do you think you could stop now?”

  “If you wanted.” It was true that if she wanted to stop I’d have to slit my throat, but I didn’t see that as needing to be said. If she could stop, I could work out a way of stopping too, without bothering her about it.

  “You think so?” she said, in a wonderful scarey dangerous way, like she was going to prove to me I couldn’t stop.

  “I’d have to, if you wanted to,” I said.

  She said, “I don’t want to stop.” She rolled up close to me. “I want to start.” Her face was above me then, the tables turned, and I wondered did it feel that way to her when I leaned over her, and if it did how could her thoughts wander? She kissed me, a sweet soft cozy kiss, and drew back and said, “Recognize it?”

  I shook my head.

  “You should. It’s Our Kiss.”

  “It’s good.”

  “Yes. And so’s this.” I thought, no, no, gentle is better, I can’t feel that your lips are soft, I can’t remember that you are Patience and that I love you, and then I realized I’d shut my eyes. So I opened them. I saw her freckles and her eyebrows and her frown. Her thoughts didn’t wander. I reached up to touch her hair, which I loved the red of, the snappiness of, softness of, but she caught my wrist and held it. She said, “Do nothing.” I knew she was cross at breaking the kiss to say that, and I thought, I have to find a way to show you that I am yours and have no wishes apart from yours, and the thought caused my body to find a way, which later on we made a name for. We called it melting.

  Then she was gentle and made lots of soft ways to kiss and touch me. Her face was so proud. I just stayed still, smiling a little smile I hid from her and feeling that she was mine too, and that she couldn’t stop now either.

  When we got back to where we could smile real smiles, she said, “Now stop thinking we can stop and start thinking what we’re going to do about it.”

  “What’s there to do, but keep on doing it?”

  She didn’t move, but I felt her go away from me. “Just like this?” she asked in a tone of voice that made me scared to admit, yes, that was what I had in mind – just like this, just like this. I was scared. What was the matter with just like this? Why didn’t it make her happy? Was there something she liked better she was comparing it to? Then I thought maybe she wanted to have the feeling in her body that I’d had, so I tried to give it to her, but she said, “It’s getting late. You have to go,” and even though I said, “I don’t care – I don’t care,” she turned away from me, saying, “Go.”

  I put my wraps on, but I couldn’t let the best time of all end so miserable, so I went again to the bed where she was still curled up with her back to me and I said, “Next Sunday?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said, but in a way that kept me just as scared.

  “Patience, Patience, what do you want?”

  “Go home. It’s getting dark,” she said, and I didn’t know what else to do so I went.

  My heart was in my throat all week, and what made it worst was needing to play nothing was wrong, which is hard when you can’t eat and can’t sleep and it’s chancey you can keep your temper. I finally just took the ax and went out to work on the new field, to have a time alone. There was some comfort in laying all my strength behind the ax. It was just comfort enough to keep me from tipping up my chin and howling.

  I studied and studied on what was wrong, until I figured out that the trouble was, Patience thought it was wicked, what we did. She could kiss me, because women always kissed, and she didn’t have to admit how different our kisses felt, but when the feeling got out of our hearts and went everywhere, all over us, then it was different and no getting out of admitting it.

  I remembered Parson saying how the whole idea behind making this country was to stamp out wickedness, and how you know what’s wicked is whatever feels good. I could see how Patience could have wickedness come to her mind, just home from Meeting and all. I didn’t fault her. I set myself to bear giving up and giving up until we got back to something she could do without feeling wicked.

  Next Sunday when I got there, Patience wasn’t home yet. She pretty often wasn’t. Like always when she wasn’t, I took my shoes off and got into her bed to wait. I liked having a place warmed up for her when she came in cold. It was winter by then. I thought how I would wrap myself around her and hold her hands and warm them with my mouth.

  At l
ast she came. She bent and kissed me. I started to go wild inside. It was so different when I looked up at her instead of down. I held her to try to make it last, but she stopped and I had to let her go. Instead of getting in with me she sat in a chair beside the bed. She didn’t look happy.

  “We have to talk,” she said.

  “All right,” I said. I was afraid.

  “There’s been too much bed and not enough talk.”

  I said, “We could talk in bed.”

  She smiled a little, saying, “I know you better than that.”

  The way she said it wasn’t exactly mean. It wasn’t exactly like she didn’t love me. It was like she was older than me, like not plain equal. It got my pride up. If it was just me we went to bed for, we didn’t have to go. I jumped out like the bed was afire and grabbed my shoes and went out to the kitchen.

  Right away I stopped being riled and wished I could figure out a way to get back, and then I remembered maybe bed was what worried Patience and made her feel wicked and maybe it was all to the good that I’d jumped out before I knew what I was doing, because I couldn’t’ve done it otherwise and maybe it had to be done. Bed could be given up. Bed was a lot to ask.

  Patience came in and sat down behind her spinning wheel. It was like a fence between us. She whirled it a little, for something to do, but she didn’t spin because it was Sunday.

  “I find that I can still think,” she said.

  I waited.

  She said, “Even after what happened last time, I can think. And I think – I – don’t – like it – this way.”

  I dropped my shoes and covered my face with my hands. That wasn’t enough so I ran into her parlor and stood facing into the corner. I blocked up my mouth with my arm.

  I heard her come and stand behind me. “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t hurt me like this.”

  I started making a noise that didn’t stop. From sort of faraway I listened to it. It sounded quite a lot like laughing. I didn’t turn around. I heard Patience go away.

  When I could I went back to my shoes. I felt burny and dried out, but at the sight of Patience a whole new batch of tears came pouring down. I kept quiet, though. I sat down to put my shoes on. She came and stood in front of me so close I couldn’t bend down.

  She said, “Is this what you want? Falling on each other like starving animals once a week?”

  “We don’t. We never did,” I found I could say.

  “We will.”

  So all my tears and hurt stopped like a line storm, like coming to a wall.

  “Will we?”

  “You know it. And you’re actually glad.” She smiled, lopsided. She called me wench and kissed me and I relaxed my neck and let my head fall back and held on, getting ready for the wonderful thing to happen.

  Then I thought maybe it was what she meant by animals, and I thought I’d better show her it didn’t have to happen every time she kissed me. Otherwise she might quit kissing me, besides not getting into bed with me.

  The very exact second I decided I wouldn’t let my body do that, she straightened up. I waited like a baby bird. She didn’t bend down again, so I started feeling foolish. I shut my mouth and tried to look sensible.

  Being sensible, I said, “Reckon we never did talk like you said you wanted.”

  “I was going to be like a father and ask your intentions, but I begin to think you haven’t any.”

  “You mean, like plans?”

  “Like plans.”

  “No, I guess not. Except just keep on loving you.”

  “Every week,” she said so soft and flat I couldn’t tell if she meant it good or bad.

  “If that’s too much, it wouldn’t need to be that much. I could get along on less.” I explained it all very fast, not to leave her in doubt an extra minute. “I know once a week’s a lot to ask.”

  She just shook her head like at a puzzle she gave up on.

  BOOK THREE

  Patience

  Chapter One

  You are forlorn on my bench, seeking yet more ways to reassure me that you don’t want me very much or need me very often. When I grumble at our half-loaf, you offer me a crumb. When I ask to launch our ship, you suggest we fish the millpond with it. You do without, in everything, until you forget how to want. Luckily, I can be willful for two.

  I say, “Have you forgotten Genesee?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Have you given it up?”

  “You might say.” (Your mouth so dry I can hear your tongue pulling away from the roof of it.)

  “Why?”

  “I learned something, out there trying.”

  “I learned something, staying here. I want to go. I want our home.”

  I think I imagined you’d be overjoyed at that. I think I thought it was your not knowing exactly what I wanted that tied your tongue. But your face is far from happy. Given years enough, and your help, I may grow humble.

  I say, “Don’t you?” When you don’t answer, I kneel and put my arms around you, saying, “Don’t you? Darling, don’t you?”

  You say, “It’s like lots of things I might want. No use thinking on it.”

  Who is this cautious unhoping young woman? Where is the hero who bore such batterings for love and stood up before witnesses to ask me to be a hero too? And I am a hero now. Can’t you see? We can be an army of two. We can be Plato’s perfect army: lovers, who will never behave dishonorably in each other’s sight, and invincible. Let the world either kill us or grow accustomed to us; here we stand.

  I say, “I think there’s a use in thinking about our home.”

  “When we can’t have it?”

  “The first step is to think about it. Shall I tell you what it looks like? Or what happens inside it?”

  You like the game. You choose what happens.

  “In the first place, I am never on my knees.”

  “Get up, oh get up,” you say.

  I take you to my bed. Your head with its half-grown child-like hair is on my pillow. I make us a tent with the covers. I am the pole. Slanting. A very low tent, an almost horizontal pole. Ah, I was right before. Bed is a place we do not talk. I bend down the cloth that divides us and find (again) the tanned V the sun made at the base of your throat last summer. I kiss the V and then the pure creamy skin beside it, that the sun never saw. (And I begin to wonder, who has seen it? There must be no one but me.)

  “This happens in our house,” I say. “Every day. Without the cloth, of course. Unless we decide we prefer cloth. I may find that I love your skin best when I must search for it.”

  In dreaming as in everything you are a quick pupil. You are dreaming already, but I was never so awake. I miss nothing. I gaze down at you, watching as you turn your head to hide your face from me, feeling the wave in you. Someday, when you are a hero again, I will give the same to you.

  But afterwards you still say – I have not succeeded in making you reckless – “We really can’t, you know.”

  “Yes we can.”

  “No. It’s too hard. I’m not a man.”

  “No indeed,” I say, smiling, I hope, wickedly.

  “I’m not even very much like a man.”

  “Not at all. No, not at all.”

  “I haven’t got everybody backing me up like a man, and I’m not strong enough by myself.”

  “You’re not by yourself.”

  “I won’t take you to wild country and I won’t let you think I’m going to. We’re better off right here.”

  Travel has not been good for you. Once you thought I knew more of the world than you did.

  You say, “You think we can go off without a cent and everybody against us and you’re wrong.”

  “My brother will help us.”

  “Not likely.”

  “Yes. He was moved. You impressed him. Tell me you want our home, and I’ll ask him to help us.”

  “Maybe he will, and maybe he’ll set the dogs on me, and maybe he’ll tell Pa, and maybe you’ll find you care wh
at people think.”

  So that’s it! Yes, of course. But it takes more than one whimper to make a coward. I added a cubit to my stature by taking thought.

  “Try me!” I say. (Yes, I need to be tried. How can I know, myself, until I am tried?)

  “Let’s just stay like this,” you say. “Can’t we? I’ve been so happy. This is so much more than I ever thought a person could have. Why do we have to fight with each other, and ask for more? Who do you know that’s got more?”

  Nobody. But I know someone who will have more, and it is I.

  “Come tomorrow,” I say.

  “Tomorrow! You’re busy all day, same as me.”

  “In the evening.”

  “It’d look – it’d call attention.”

  “Don’t worry. Bring somebody. A sister.”

  “I’d have to explain about us.”

  “No you wouldn’t.”

  “Then nothing could happen.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I have to see you more. Every day.”

  “You want me out on the road at night in the cold?”

  “Yes!”

  You bow your head. Are you hurt? Are you offended? I don’t care. You submit. I am not wrong about what that wave meant. You will be here tomorrow.

  I say, “Tell them you need help with reading. Or else the truth. Either.”

  You leave me. I feel the cold air like a sword where your warmth has been. You tear my whole front open when you cease to lie along it. My skin goes with you. I could bleed to death.

  You are here. I make the proper exclamations and kiss, indifferently, the air beside your cheek. I turn to greet whichever sister you brought, who hangs back shyly in the dark hallway. “Come in, come in,” I say, and she does. It is your mother.

  How can I bear her unease? I must end it. I set myself to warm and welcome her, cherish her. My mother-in-law unaware. When she is seated, trying to be no trouble, take up no space, I say, “We must have a fire in the parlor,” and though she says she’s fine, she’s cozy, goodness, I say, “It’ll only take a few minutes.”