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by Patsy Brookshire

  "Oh, David. Let me see!" I took the papers to the window and looked at each one, comparing them to the original, the Rock. They all seemed perfect to me. Then I remembered the scraps in my bag. Were any of them large enough? The reddish-brown from my good dress maybe? Leaving the papers on the windowsill and without even thinking of David, I went to my bedroom closet. I had the dress on the bed when David's hand touched me on the shoulder. "I guess you like them? Do I get a thank you?"

  I whirled around and straightened up quickly. I was face to face with him.

  "What? I am sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." He didn't step back.

  His breath was warm on my face. His hand reached up to my hair, smoothed down to stroke my face.

  My hands went to his hair. I was rigid, but my whole body felt alive, pushing towards him. In a last second questioning of myself I pulled back, but he looked at me and pulled me to him, easy.

  "Relax," he whispered, "I won't hurt you." His kiss was like velvet, soft and warm, but strong, too. I had the strangest feeling, like I was melting into him. He unbuttoned my dress while I kissed his face. I felt the stubble of whiskers on my lips. I opened his shirt while his hands moved over my body.

  By the time we were down to nothing I didn't want to stop him, or myself. He kept whispering, "So beautiful, so beautiful," as we lay together on my small bed, the brown dress among the heap of clothing on the floor.

  I don't know how it was for you, Annie, your first time. I'd heard that a virgin is supposed to feel pain, but I didn't feel any. Only joy, and, afterwards, contented and wrung out. No remorse. That David loved me as completely as I loved him, I never had a doubt.

  As we lay easy against each other I was at total peace but I felt a tremor startle him. "Oh, Sophie, dear, I hope you don't think when I said to thank me that I meant--"

  "Well, no, but now that you mention it..." I shoved him over the side of the bed and he landed on the floor with a heavy thump.

  "Sophie!" he yelled in a hurt tone as I laughed. His dignity and sense of humor sometimes clashed. When I'd do something a little rough or laugh at him when he wanted to be serious, his nose would get out of joint. A little kiss always smoothed him down. Sometimes I'd catch a wary look in his eyes when he got serious and, he'd warn me, "Now, So? Don't get mischievous." It was more fun to keep him just a little off-guard because, in too many things, he had the drop on me.

  9. Like A Girl in Love

  That David loved me but that he also loved his wife was a fact I had to accept. It was never my intention to try to take him away from her. My desire was to have part of him for myself. We made each other happy, that was all I cared for.

  We loved together many times that summer. Often the cabin was our place, but once, on a gray, foggy day he made love to me behind a barrier of driftwood. The open air with the cloak and damp of the day only added to my desire for him.

  At home I tried to be as I'd always been.

  My brothers were suspicious. I'd been seen walking on the beach with David. I was happy and cheerful around the house, which was always clean. The flowerbed was bright and the vegetable garden came up well. This efficiency bothered Zack.

  I was setting the table one evening and singing, when he demanded, "Sophie, what's the matter with you?"

  "Why, Zack," I answered innocently, "nothing's the matter with me. Don't you like my singing?"

  "Stop acting so damn prissy. It ain't normal. Not for you it ain't."

  Instantly I was on my guard. "What's so un-normal about singing?"

  "It ain't the singing. It's the way you do it. Flouncing around here. Cleaning up all the time."

  Willie got into it then. "Oh, leave her alone, Zack. She's just happy. Nothin' wrong with that."

  "I'm not so sure. What's she got to be so happy about? Living here on this lonely beach doing our washing and cleaning? Is that enough to make a woman sing? I don't remember our mother singing and working."

  Neither Willie nor I answered him. I was hoping the whole thing would blow over before Zack thought anymore. Then, slyly, he slipped it in, "You act like a girl in love."

  I couldn't deny it, but I wasn't about to admit it either. I tried to divert him. "Sure, Zack, I'm in love. With cooking your stupid meals and washing your stinking clothes. And I just love the thanks I get. Do you ever appreciate it? No, all you do is complain about the lousy five bucks a week I keep."

  It worked. At the mention of the five dollars he jumped up, shouting, "It's more than five bucks, missy. You take a 'wage' of two bucks a week, then get a buck-fifty apiece from us each week and then grab another three bucks apiece for us. For savings, supposedly. How do we know what you're doing with it?"

  "Wait a minute, Zack!" Willie decided to defend me. "That's for our own good."

  "I don't like it," Zack said, "It's my money and I never see it." While they argued I got the box with the bags from my bedroom. I'd started out with envelopes but that hadn't worked for very long as the cash started to pile up. So I made up three different bags for the money. I loved the feel and the sound of the money rustling around in the bags when I pulled the box from under my bed.

  Willie's voice was loud. "You know we'd just blow it if she didn't keep it for us." I came back and handed them their bags. Zack dumped his on the table and counted it. Ninety-six dollars. Not a great sum nowadays but a comfortable amount for then.

  Willie handed me back his bag. He didn't even open it. "I want you to still keep it for me, Sophie. If you don't, I'll just waste it. I'll be going home in a month and if Nettie will have me, I want to marry her."

  I knew Nettie, a girl who went to school with Willie, and I hoped, for his sake, that she would marry him. She came from a farm nearby where we bought pigs every spring to fatten and slaughter for winter.

  She was prettier than any other girl around and was in a couple plays in school. I remembered especially once when we were over there and she took me into the house to show me the quilt she was working on. She had told me she'd like to join up with some people in Portland she knew about who put on real plays.

  I also knew that she did like Willie, better'n he knew, but I wondered about her, could she be a good wife to him? Recalling that day at her place I didn't remember any big statements from her about how she was looking forward to settling down and cooking and cleaning for someone for the rest of her life. She made an impression on me because I'd had those thoughts, but she was the first other girl I knew who actually talked about doing something else. I couldn't see how she would really do what she talked about so I figured it wasn't something I needed to bring Willie's attention to. She was a good girl and I supposed she'd get over that stuff if she married Willie. So I kept my mouth shut and my doubts to myself.

  "Sure, Willie," I agreed, "she'll like you even better for having money to get started." I knew that was true. She'd also said she didn't want to be a poor farmer's wife, which could mean that she was willing to be a well-off farmer's wife. I truly didn't know.

  Zack shoved the money in his pocket and threw the bag down on the floor, then he picked it back up. "I been needing something to put my shoe stuff in. I'll just take this after all."

  Things were all calmed down and we were eating dinner and Zack was planning the good time he'd have with his money, the girls he'd dance and romance, when he remembered.

  "Who could the guy be?"

  "What guy?" Willie said. If he'd had any sense he'd have kept quiet, but he was too busy eating meatloaf and boiled taters to be thinking.

  "The guy Sophie's goofy over." He put his fork down and looked at me. "You haven't been to a dance in...since Spring sometime." He nodded his head as he calculated time, moving his lips as he brought his focus on me. I felt a coldness along my spine and, touching the bowl of potatoes said to Willie, "Oh, I got a little bit of butter made today." He didn't even hear me. Zack had his attention.

  "Aw, that don't mean nothin' Zack, Sophie's just too nice a girl for those roughnecks."

  "
Yeah?" He shook his head. "I'll take that butter." He smirked at Willie. "They weren't too rough for her before." A heat of anger and fear surged through me. I jumped up and grabbed the butter from the cooling shelf and slammed it down on the table beside Zack's plate. I wanted to slam him on the head with it but I'd worked too hard to ruin the butter. He didn't seem to notice my anger except for the smirk getting bigger on his face.

  "Out with it Sophie girl, who is it?"

  This time I was determined to stop it but it was beyond me. Standing over by the stove cleaning up the cooking mess I said, as casually as I could, seeing as I was blood-red mad, "There's nobody, Zack. It's just like Willie said, none of your pals are the kind of men I truly choose to be spending time with."

  He looked at me then, and mimicked, "'Truly choose?'" and then slid into his regular voice, "Huh! It's my bet someone is feathering your nest right here. The hen don't have to wander far when she's got a rooster right close to home."

  Both Willie and I stared at him, me because he had me nailed to the wall. I tried to distract him, "That's what I mean, crude talking like that. That's all you know, you and your pals."

  "Smithers?" Willie cut right through it. "You don't mean Smithers?" He stared at Zack who just shook his head at Willie like he was a simpleton.

  "Of course I mean Smithers. Who else is around here? Not the rough guys we work with. Oh no, it's that Fancy Dan with the smooth hands. I'll bet he's smooth everywhere else too, eh, Sophie." He leered at me.

  I felt my face go crimson. The fire was hot in me. "Don't talk to me like that."

  Willie jumped up, outraged. "That's enough, Zack! Sophie's our sister, and Smithers is a married man. So they like to talk, that's no reason to get foul-mouthed about it. I know Smithers and he's decent. One more word like that and I leave. And Sophie goes with me."

  That startled me. I kept silent but I had no intention of going anywhere. Willie's threat immediately calmed Zack down. Without me he'd be back to taking care of himself. He didn't want to do that.

  "For God sakes, Willie, I was only kidding. Don't you know nothing? Sit down, eat your supper. Forget I said anything." He took up the butter and started spreading some on his potatoes.

  Willie looked at him and then at me.

  I shrugged my shoulders, like what could we do with Zack, and motioned him to sit down at the table again. "Forget it, Willie. Finish your dinner. I've also got some pie tonight." He looked at me again. For one horrid moment I thought he was going to question me about David, then he shrugged and sat back down.

  "What kind of pie?" He was so serious it would have made me laugh if I wasn't so frightened. I showed him the salal berry pie that I'd made in the cool of the morning with berries I'd picked the day before with David. He tucked into his dinner, a smile on his face.

  We finished our meal in silence, but Willie's words had been like a bucket of cold water thrown onto a forest fire. They didn't put out the flame I felt for David but I was more in control now. Willie was right.

  David was a married man. And I was beginning to suspect I was a pregnant woman. I felt disaster just around the corner. I was two weeks past my monthly, not usual for me. In another three weeks I'd know for sure.

  10. What Am I Going To Do?

  My mind was clear, I must tell David. If I was pregnant I was no more than a month along. Maybe he would know what to do. Having a baby out-of-wedlock in those days was unthinkable. Shameful. I was terrified at the possibility.

  The day after the argument I went to the beach. I found him near our log. He was happy to see me and hugged me hard and kissed me right there in the open. I hardly cared. "David, we've got to talk."

  He knew something was very wrong. "Sure, honey, what's the matter?"

  We sat on the log and I plunged right in. "I think I'm pregnant."

  I certainly didn't expect him to leap up, laughing, and then reach down, grab me and yell, "Tremendous!" right in my face, but that's what he did.

  I was shocked, surprised. "But, David," I tried to say. He didn't hear me.

  "Are you sure? Oh, honey. This is wonderful! How far?" At last he was going to listen to me.

  "You act like this is a glorious event. It's not! You're a married man. What's going to happen to me?" I could feel tears starting but I swallowed them. "David, do you know anyway to stop it?"

  He looked like I had struck him. "You just put that idea out of your head right now. You could die."

  "David, you don't understand. What am I going to do?"

  "Do?" He had the simplest explanation of all. "You'll come live with me, of course."

  "With you? And what will Amy think of this fine idea?." I thought he'd gone mad. Maybe he was "Crazy Smithers" after all.

  "Why Amy thinks it's just fine."

  "What do you mean Amy thinks it's just fine? She doesn't know about us, does she?"

  He looked bewildered for a minute. "Sure, she knows. I couldn't keep something like this from her. She's known I love you since last spring, when we planted the roses."

  All I could think was that David was off his rocker, and so was his wife.

  "Look Sophie, maybe it does sound a little odd, but Amy and I... We don't believe a wedding band should cut you off from life. No one person can be everything to another. Amy loves the city, and plays, and crowded smoky rooms full of people. I hate it. So when she leaves in the summer she does all those things, with men who do enjoy them."

  "Does she make love to them, like you do with me?" The whole idea was absurd, but I couldn't help asking. For a moment I ignored my predicament.

  "No, she hasn't. It's just that it's her choice. So far she hasn't met any man she loves but me. But I'll understand if she does."

  "But, David," I was repeating myself. "It's so dangerous. What if she finds someone, and leaves you?"

  "Why ever should she leave me? The core of me is her and the core of her is me. That will never change. I know that as certainly as I know I love you and you love me. Do you doubt that I love you?"

  "No." I didn't. I was absolutely certain.

  "Okay. It's settled. Amy gets back the last week in September. We'll know for certain whether you're going to be a mother by then."

  "David." It was time for some serious talking, of the way the world really is, not the way David wanted it to be. "This just won't work."

  "Sure--"

  "No, wait. You've got some starry-eyed notion that Amy is just going to be delighted to welcome me into her home. She's not. I'll bet everything I have on it, which isn't much. She may be all you say. If she has allowed you to go with me...knowing all about me...then she is, well, unusual. I certainly wouldn't have left you alone here with me."

  For the first time he was concerned, "You're not a jealous woman, are you, Soph?"

  That made me laugh, though it came out bitter. He was worried that I was a jealous woman. "Frankly, I've never had the chance to find out. I've never been in love, until you."

  "How do you feel about Amy?"

  Finally, I'd gotten to him. "I don't think about her. She's been gone all summer. It's like she doesn't exist. I never thought about living with her. I can't believe even now that you would ever consider it. Why, she'd have to be a saint to do that." Or nuts, I thought.

  "The Mormons do it."

  "What?"

  "You know they do, and they get along all right. They don't think it's crazy."

  "Maybe they don't but everybody else does." I was suddenly suspicious. "You're not a Mormon, are you?" That would explain his crazy ideas.

  "No, I'm not. But we grew up in Utah, so I've heard stories."

  Then I remembered what he'd told me about his growing up, and I was relieved, let me tell you. An odd religion thrown in would have baked the cake.

  "This whole thing is too much for me. I'm getting a headache. Whatever happens I'm not moving into your house. It's just not right."

  "I wouldn't force you to do something you think is wrong, but please, Sophie, at least think
about it."

  I promised to do that but I had no intention of giving in. I didn't want to meet Amy, nor even see her, let alone share her husband in the same house with her.

  We parted without even a kiss. He tried but I wasn't feeling too well. I just wanted to go home, and lie down. He teased me then about being "...just like a wife with headaches and no lovin'."

  I didn't see anything to laugh about. I waved him away and trudged off through the sand. As I walked up the path to the cabin, I thought how easy it would be to slip and fall, and lose the baby. Something else within me made me walk even more carefully, lest I fall and hurt the baby. I knew it was crazy thinking but if I was carrying a child, it was David's as well as mine, and he wouldn't want to lose another one.

  When I got home I laid down for a while until I felt better. Then I started thinking about Willie and Zack. The road job would close down at the end of September, about the same time Amy would be back. I still had no notion of living with them, but I wanted to be close to David for as long as I could, no matter whether I was pregnant or not. Willie would be going home to Nettie--no problem there--but Zack was going to another construction job, in California, and was expecting me to go with him. I had to think of a believable reason for staying here in the cabin.

  Telling him I was "in trouble" was out of the question, but what if I told him that Amy was pregnant and that David had asked me if I could stay and help? No, not just help. If Zack thought I could earn more money by staying rather than going with him... He wouldn't like it, but he understood money.

  She'd been gone since late June. She couldn't be less than three months along. But did Zack know that most problems happen in the first three months? I was sure he didn't. Even so, there were other complications I could dream up.

  After I got it satisfied in my mind that I could handle the boys, I put my thoughts to David. I had best get to know him even better. What did I really know about this man who might be the father of my child, and who had such strange ideas?

  11. If He Only Knew...