Ruth watched Chandler stalking up the driveway in the cold January rain. They hadn’t talked for the rest of the trip, and she could see how they hadn’t been together two hours when they’d fallen into the same pattern as before: she giving him the silent treatment and Chandler too stubborn to be the first to speak. She hated the immaturity that still rose within him. And her. Chandler was nearing middle age, and she was thirty, nearly thirty-one. Shouldn’t they be above such pettiness? Drying her face on the collar of her fleece, Ruth decided to see their daughters before Chandler did, in case the sight of their father caused Sofie to have a panic attack. Vi, on the other hand, was so young when he left, she might not even recognize the altered man for who he was.
Ruth asked, “You mind waiting on the steps a minute?”
Chandler’s smile was tight with contained anger. “Whatever you need me to do.”
She nodded and walked up the porch toward the house. She entered and saw one of Elam’s insulated parkas hanging from the coat tree by the door. She pulled it off, wanting to breathe it in for comfort, but instead turned and went back out.
“Here,” she said, proffering an olive branch. “This’ll keep you warm while you wait.”
Chandler begrudgingly said, “Thank you,” and pulled the jacket over his cheap sweatshirt.
They were both tall men, but Elam was broader shouldered, so the sleeves dangled over Chandler’s hands. Ruth watched him, saw her first husband wearing her second husband’s clothes. Turning from the sight, she opened the door and stepped from the portal of one world—one life—into the next. She could hear her young daughters—who were, she thought, once again theirs—giggling in the bedroom and the accented cadence as Mabel read them a book. Vivienne was about to take a nap; Sofie was about to have quiet time. A part of Ruth wanted to let their daily routines continue, undisturbed by revelation, but it was cruel to make Chandler wait. It was crueler still for Ruth to deprive her children of the man whose absence would leave a gaping hole. For the girls, for Mabel, Ruth climbed the stairs.
Mabel’s hands shook as she closed Eloise Wilkin Stories’ gold-edged pages. Ruth nodded, nearly imperceptibly, but Mabel saw it. Tears distorted her vision as she kissed her granddaughters’ heads. Rising from the bed, Mabel crossed the room and touched Ruth’s shoulder. Ruth reached up and clasped Mabel’s hand. Both women stood there a moment, drawing strength, as one woman prepared to welcome back her son and one woman prepared to welcome back the man who’d fathered her children but whom she no longer wanted to be married to.
Mabel walked downstairs then, one hand gripping the banister the same as Ruth had done. Bordered by the glass window, she could see Chandler on the porch. She would’ve been able to pick her only child out of a crowd by the back of his head alone—that dark hair, which was straight except for where it curled at the base of his neck; that slightly stooped posture he’d affected in his youth when his arms and legs appeared to sprout overnight. With each step toward him, Mabel felt the years falling off her grief-worn body and hope rise inside of her like a living, breathing thing. She opened the door, and Chandler turned, her son.
His eyes looked at her without really seeing her, so Mabel touched a hand briefly to her kapped hair, self-conscious about the physical changes that had taken place since she’d lost both her husband and her son overnight. But her son, she saw, was not exempt from the grief she had experienced. He, too, had lost a lot in the past few months.
“Mom,” Chandler said, with a tenderness he had not displayed since his voice changed.
He stood and moved across the porch toward her, arms spread wide. Despite his gaunt frame and the faint red-and-white scars that patched his day-old beard, his face was recognizable by that same reckless grin. But it trembled at the edges now.
Mother and son held each other, sheltered, as the rain streaked by, and Mabel began to sob against him. Sob mostly from the euphoria of relief since she hadn’t allowed herself to cry after her grandchildren started sleeping in the next room. Finally, Mabel stopped and pushed back from her son to dry her eyes. She was laughing and crying at once. Chandler smiled, and she smiled too. The door was open still, and she could hear Sofie, upstairs, screaming, “Dad-dy!” and then the surprisingly thunderous sound, for a child so slight, as she pounded down the stairs.
Sofie ran to him, her body a case study in kinetics, dark eyes wide with the miracle of it all. Chandler picked his older daughter up and spun her around and around, the tie on her striped sweater swinging loose along with the tangled black banner of her hair.
Ruth came down with Vivienne on her hip, who smiled at Chandler like she smiled at everyone. Ruth watched her husband, twirling their firstborn daughter, but there, Ruth could also see him: Elam, who stood under the eaves of the barn, watching through the streaking veil of rain that separated them both. His handsome, craggy face was grave with emotion, and for a moment she just watched him as he watched them—his family, his future, and yet . . . not. She tried to smile at Elam, to let him know everything was all right. But she didn’t know that, not really. And when he turned away from the sight, she knew that, deep down, neither did he.
CHAPTER 15
SOFIE WOULDN’T LET HER FATHER out of her sight to the point she stuck her hand beneath the door whenever he dared to enter the bathroom on his own. “I can see your feet!” she’d cry. “Can you see my fingers?” It was endearing, the way she loved him, and it softened Ruth’s heart to see how uninhibitedly he loved her in return. But because the children wouldn’t leave Chandler’s side, Ruth and Chandler had no opportunity to further discuss what they’d said at the diner.
Ruth stood in the doorway and watched Chandler napping in the living room with Sofie and Vi. He had barely closed his jet-lagged eyes when Sofie ran across the living room—trailing her blankie in anticipation—and Vi followed suit. Giggling, they pinned him to the couch and sucked their thumbs as their blankies overlapped his chest like tattered flags. Earlier, Chandler had built a fire in the grate, and it now crackled and popped, adding to the idyllic atmosphere as the rain fell and the sky swelled shut with clouds, making it seem later than five o’clock.
But it was five o’clock, and Elam had not returned.
If Chandler noticed his cousin’s absence, he had made no comment. And yet, why would he? That was just another topic in their marital Pandora’s box they could not discuss. Ruth watched her first husband and daughters sleep for a few more minutes, and then—feeling like a stranger around those she knew most intimately—put on her jacket and went outside. The barn was dark, empty; the space fetid with the composted scent of year-old hay. She walked toward the area where they’d sorted cranberries and where she and Elam had first stood with their bodies so close, it seemed even light could not come between them. He was not there either. Then Ruth thought and knew where he was.
Most of the snow had melted beneath the day’s unending torrent, leaving a frozen brown crust along the bank that could possibly remain there until late spring. Ruth wore insulated boots, the laces loosely tied, and yet she started to run, cutting past the channels and the lake. Lamplight shone through the cabin’s two small windows. Ruth’s breath hitched and her mouth grew dry, knowing Elam was inside and yet not knowing what she could possibly say. He opened the door as soon as she knocked. It appeared he’d been waiting for her for quite some time.
They embraced wordlessly, the frustration dissipating that had been there when she’d left for the airport. Ruth cried with relief, as Mabel had done a few hours prior, but also with sadness, for Ruth couldn’t help wondering why her life had been dealt such an unfair hand. Elam didn’t cry but held her until her crying ceased. Spent, she remained shielded in the hard fold of his arms, secure in his embrace in a way she had never been in Chandler’s.
“How are you?” Elam asked, and tears rose once more in her eyes. He was the one who was in the midst of losing, not her. But was losing what this was? She refused to believe it.
“I’m fine,�
�� Ruth said and then choked on her laughter, because they both knew she wasn’t. “I don’t even know who Chandler is anymore. We’re like strangers.”
Elam rubbed her shoulders in silent reply. She didn’t realize how much tension was gathered there until the knots began to unwind. “How’d he take it?”
Ruth closed her eyes against his chest. “Not well, and we haven’t gotten to talk since we came home. The girls won’t let him out of their sight.”
Elam recoiled at this—the mention of the girls—and she wondered if it hurt, the fact that their true father had returned, replacing him, the step.
“It’s going to work out,” Ruth said. “I promise.”
“How?” He lifted a hand. “I’m sorry. It’s just hard to know . . . my place.”
“I understand,” Ruth said. “This is an impossible situation for all of us.” She looked to the side, wanted to look anywhere but up at him. “Maybe Chandler and I will get to talk more tonight. After the girls are asleep.”
“I’m sleeping here,” he said.
Ruth looked around at the spartan furnishings. “I wish I could sleep with you.”
Elam blanched and moved to sit on the cot that was in no way a bed. “I wish you could too,” he murmured. “And then a part of me wishes I would’ve never pursued you. That my cousin could return here, to his wife and children, without any complications.”
Ruth remained standing by the door, which was propped open enough to let the damp breeze in. She turned and closed it, and then crossed the room to sit beside Elam. Reaching out, she took his hand. “You’re not a complication,” she said. “You and I are married, remember?”
“I know we’re married. But you’re married to Chandler, too.”
“If I could change that, I would.”
He removed his hand. “We have to respect Chandler’s place in your life.”
“What about yours?”
Elam smiled sadly. “That’s what I’m hoping to figure out.”
She looked down. “When are you going to see him?”
“Chandler?” He folded his arms. “I don’t . . . know.”
Ruth nodded and remained close to Elam, although she could already feel him drawing away. The problem was, she wanted to remain here for the rest of her life, but she could never leave her children. They called her back to the farmhouse, back to the uncertainty surrounding her marriage to Chandler and her marriage to him. Legally, she wasn’t sure her union with Elam still stood. And yet, right now, she cared about nothing but the comfort of his distant warmth, and so she stayed. She stayed until the darkness condensed, the stars came out, and a night bird’s cry echoed across the water, as if calling her home.
Ruth walked up to the farmhouse and could see Mabel in the kitchen, setting the table for supper. She could hear her daughters giggling—always giggling—in the living room, and Chandler’s deep voice as he roared, playacting either a lion or a bear. Despite everything, despite the unknown, Ruth found herself smiling at this mingling of familiar sounds she hadn’t heard in so long. She’d forgotten that about Chandler; how, when present, he filled an entirely different role. She was the physical and emotional nurturer and, if necessary, the limp-wristed disciplinarian. Chandler, on the other hand, was the parent who provided fun. He would get the girls accustomed to nightly tickle fests and wrestling matches (he let them win, resembling Gulliver being attacked by Lilliputians); chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and plastic bags of lemonade brought home for lunch. But then he would disappear, on one mission or another, and the girls’ behavior spiraled downward from this abandonment, forcing Ruth to become the disciplinarian once more and to despise her husband for the cycle he’d set into motion.
She entered the house now and looked to the right, observing Chandler on the ground with Sofie wrapped around his back and Vi around his leg. He was so intent on playing dead he didn’t hear Ruth come in. But Vi saw her standing there and squealed, “Mommy!”
Chandler looked up at her, smiling, and in the firelight she could see how thin he was, and the scars from the bombing that had mottled his cheeks. She wondered how extensive his burns were, if the body she knew as well as her own was changed.
“Help, Ruth,” he groaned. “They’re beating me up.” As he said this, he gently flipped Vi over on the rug and tickled her belly. Sofie’s hold tightened on his neck, and he fake gagged.
“Be gentle, Sof,” Ruth said.
Chandler met her eyes, and some unknown source of anxiety tightened its grip. She walked out of the living room and entered the kitchen. Mabel was standing at the counter, slicing bread on a wooden cutting board. Ruth wiped her hands on her jeans.
“Can I help with anything?” she murmured.
“No, I’m okay.” But Mabel wouldn’t lift her head.
“Did you have a good afternoon?”
Mabel said, “I’ve been busy.”
Ruth wanted to ask, “Busy doing what?” For she hadn’t seen her mother-in-law in the kitchen and had heard no sound from her room. But there was something in the set of Mabel’s shoulders that caused Ruth to watch in silence as her mother-in-law continued slicing bread.
When she was done, Ruth stepped closer and took the cutting board over to the table and set it down. That’s when she saw there were only five place settings on the table. They were missing one. “You didn’t set a place for Elam?” she asked.
“No,” Mabel snapped. “I didn’t set a place for him. He hasn’t had the decency to come here and tell his first cousin he’s grateful he’s alive.”
Shocked, Ruth glanced over her shoulder toward the living room, but Chandler and the girls were oblivious to the conversation taking place. Ruth walked back over to her mother-in-law, who furiously wiped crumbs from the sink’s soapstone lip. Mabel stopped and balled up the washcloth in her fist. She looked at Ruth, and behind her glasses, tears welled.
“Elam hasn’t done anything wrong. And neither have you. I just feel so much . . . guilt.”
Ruth looked at her in disbelief. “Guilt?” she asked. “What for?”
Shaking her head, Mabel took her glasses off and wiped her eyes. “I’m the one who encouraged you,” she said. “And encouraged him. I thought—” She took a breath. “I guess I thought it all made sense, so it must be the will of God: Elam never marrying, and you a widow with two little girls. But when I stop and look back on it, when I let myself really think, I know I encouraged the two of you because I was trying to keep you and the girls here, near me.”
With this admission, Mabel began to cry. Ruth moved in, closer, and pressed her mother-in-law’s soft body against her lean frame. “Shh,” she said, “shh,” and she could feel Mabel’s fevered heat, the same as with her own children when they were most upset. “There is nothing wrong with wanting your daughter-in-law and grandchildren around.”
Mabel looked up and whispered, “But don’t you see? It wasn’t about seeking God’s will. It was about seeking control.”
Ruth made more soothing sounds and stroked her mother-in-law’s back. Chandler must’ve overheard his mother’s crying, for Ruth heard him ask, “Everything all right?”
She turned and saw him standing there: his deep-brown hair long and the kerosene light casting shadows, so she couldn’t see his matching deep-brown eyes. But she could hear the surprise in his voice, the surprise of finding his wife and his mother—practically strangers when he left—together like that, embracing, in the kitchen.
And Ruth thought, Oh, Chandler, if you only knew how much has changed.
Ruth, Chandler, and their girls sang “Edelweiss”—just as they’d been singing it as part of the children’s nightly routine for the past few years. It was dark in the room, except for an oil lamp that cast a honey patina on the hardwood floor and on the entrance rug leading to the bed. By its light, Chandler looked over at his wife, and she looked at him.
Ruth allowed herself to recall the journey of their lives and how that journey hadn’t ended up at the destinati
on she’d envisioned when they first fell in love. But their lives, as fallible as they were, had provided shelter for the two precious children who were nestled into their beds. Ruth and Chandler sat next to each other on the floor between Sofie’s bed and Vi’s crib, each holding a hand of one of their daughters. The girls snuggled their blankies, their thumbs in their mouths so the lyrics were misshapen (“Bossoms of snow may you boom and go”).
And then Chandler did it. With his free hand, he reached for Ruth’s. The part of her which was loyal to Elam—as short as their own fragile union was—did not want to allow him to take it; the other part, which was loyal to the history she and Chandler shared, allowed him to interlace their fingers. Ruth sat there, in that golden darkness, with her face growing damp with tears.
Like Mabel, Ruth wondered if she should’ve entered into a relationship with Elam so soon after her husband’s death. It had all happened so quickly, nearly effortlessly, causing Ruth to assume this was the will of God. But what was God’s will, anyway? She’d believed she was following God’s will when she married Chandler, and see where that had gotten them? Or did the will of God allow her to make her own choices, as Ruth’s father had once said?
Ruth’s parents did not often discuss politics or religion since their lives held a certain level of formality, which exhibited itself even at home. But Ruth was so distraught after Chandler had visited and proposed, her father forfeited this unspoken rule. They were strolling along the beach that day—both of them bundled up in corduroy slacks and sweaters, the thick, cable-knit wool dyed the colors of the sea. Ruth’s father kept throwing pieces of driftwood to Zeus, who would leap from the salty foam with his prize clenched in his jaws.
Her father said, “I think God winks a bit at our self-torture.”
Ruth glanced over and could see the weathered skin around her father’s ageless green eyes was creased with mirth. She asked, “What do you mean?”
How the Light Gets In Page 21