by Lynne Hugo
“HOW ABOUT WE INVITE your mother to Thanksgiving at my parents’ with us? I can certainly get them to play dumb, and maybe we could tell them all at the same time that we want to get married?”
The idea seemed riddled with risks to me. “Oh, sweetheart. We’ve come so far in working this out. There’s so many chances for it to go wrong. Anyone could let something slip. We can’t go through this all over.”
I’d disappointed him again. “How about over Christmas break? Maybe between now and then, we can tell her ourselves, then have her meet your parents during the break. I won’t be so pushed for time, and we can do it in two steps instead of one,” I proposed.
Evan agreed, his face relaxing. “All right. As long as we’re getting along with it, I guess I can handle a couple extra weeks. Mom and Dad will be disappointed, though. They’re wanting to get this in the paper, get a date set, all that. And what I want is to marry you.”
“I don’t think anyone can want that as much as I do.”
“I know. I know. It’s okay.”
CHRISTMAS WAS RAPIDLY approaching, but Mother became despondent when Roger said he’d met a girl he liked a great deal and had been invited to her family’s for Christmas. He intended to go. I couldn’t fool myself into thinking she’d respond well. I felt Evan’s frustration that Roger had eclipsed our plans. “Roger didn’t know,” I said, guessing what he wasn’t saying.
“Then I wish you’d told him,” he said. Still, we split the time by my spending Hanukah with his family, which came before the university’s Christmas break so Mother didn’t notice, and Evan spending Christmas with Mother and me. He and I had to make whatever there was of cheer; Mother had been unable or unwilling to shake her upset over Roger, and I could feel her making a silent point to me as surely as a jabbing finger.
Weeks passed, in the same pattern as the fall, indistinguishable one from the next except by whether Evan came up to Connecticut. He didn’t joke as much. We slept together at his apartment, but every weekend, the diamond would come off my hand until Sunday night on my way back to New York. Though he kept his promise, staying tolerant, even understanding, on the smooth surface of what he showed me, I sensed Evan’s growing impatience, his assessment that it really couldn’t be such a bad thing to just tell her. “She’s going to have to deal with it sometime. And so are we.” I knew how critical timing was, that Mother believe it was her idea.
March was pressing up to an early Easter, and I suggested to Evan that maybe he could come with me for the holiday. “We can take her to church and out to dinner, and maybe talk about it then,” I said.
“Okay by me. Mom doesn’t make a big deal out of Easter, usually. At least we won’t have to deal with two families wanting both of us. The thing is, Ruthie, it’s not the families, it’s that I want to be with you. Do you know that?”
“I do, and that’s what I want, too.” But the truth was that what I wanted was something I hardly thought about anymore. There wasn’t space in my mind.
EASTER WAS GRAY AND RAINY, a close sadness in a low-hung sky. We’d been to church and were taking Mother out to dinner at an historic inn she’d read about. We were in the foothills of the Berkshires, what should have been a beautiful route, but the dank weather permeated the landscape in which there were no noticeable signs of spring. On a distant hill, three wooden crosses had been erected, large as highway billboards. I missed it, but apparently Evan made some minute sound. Mother, who was sitting in between us in the front seat, presumably to prevent my body from touching Evan’s, said, “What, Evan?”
“What what?” he asked, puzzled.
“I heard you sigh.”
“Oh. Really, nothing. I think we’re nearly there, if I’ve got the directions right.”
But Mother wouldn’t let it go. “It sounded as if you didn’t like something.” I glanced at her as she spoke and saw her eyes narrowed, her chin slightly upraised: her poised stance.
“Those crosses. I just don’t care for people putting up advertising for their religious beliefs where billboards are banned. There was a big debate about it when I was in grad school.” He answered evenly, undefensively. I knew he wasn’t trying to provoke her just as surely as I knew he would. I tensed up, trying to think of a way to divert her.
“Mother, what magazine did you say had the article about this inn we’re going to?” I tried to keep my voice relaxed and casual, but tension had a deathgrip on my body.
She completely ignored me anyway, turning her head toward Evan’s profile. He wore a navy suit and a tie I’d bought him, a wide red and blue paisley. Handsome. Solid. A good, good man willing to work with a situation that made Rockland State Hospital look like a sane community. And she was determined to ruin it. “I think this is a little different, don’t you? It’s not advertising, it’s a reminder of Truth,” she challenged.
Could he have just said, “I see your point”? Maybe he’d just been pushed too far over the last six months. Maybe I’d used up the last real chance we had.
“Well, certainly, it’s what some people accept as truth. I believe that Jesus lived, had a profound impact on people and was crucified. And I believe that in the sense of the impact his life had on history that he is indeed immortal. But, the real point is…” I knew he was going to explain about advertising, which had been his real interest in the subject anyway.
“No. I don’t believe you understand the real point of it. The real point is the sacrifice of God’s Son to save us.”
“Mrs. Kenley, I respect your faith, and I’m not about to argue with you.”
“So you don’t accept The Truth?” I heard her capitalize the words.
“If you mean, do I personally believe in the propitiatory sacrifice, the answer is no. It’s because I believe we are each ultimately responsible for and answerable for what we do here on earth.”
“You don’t believe Christ gave his life to save yours.” It was a statement, and, I knew, a damnation. I glanced sideways at her. She was clutching the cross she wore around her neck.
“What I mean, Mrs. Kenley, is this.” For the first time, I heard anger in Evan’s voice, and I realized he had guessed more about my childhood than I’d wanted him to. “I don’t think murderers, or rapists, or people who hurt their children are forgiven and saved because of Jesus. And this has nothing to do with my father’s being Jewish or whether Jesus was or was not the true Messiah. This is simply what I, Evan Mairson, believe.” The car rang with tension. Mother hung on to her cross and stared straight ahead, her eyes fixed on the road. There was nothing I could say. I knew what I should have said, at least according to my mother, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t save any of us anymore.
21
MASTER, FATHER, BROTHER, Son, it is Elizabeth Ruth, come in prayer without ceasing. Flesh of Thy flesh, flesh of my flesh, blood of Thy blood, blood of my blood: Elizabeth Ruth, Ruth Elizabeth, the inversion of my soul, but never its perversion. Never have I fallen since the sacrifices, which were Your will, that I might know sin and overcome. God’s chosen are tempted and tempted, but I have overcome, and when I was tempted again, I was cleansed of temptation. I was always cleansed. I am clean in body, mind, spirit, yet I confess I have not cleansed Your Ruth, have not saved her. You know there is no want of Love, as I know Your love, and You love her through me, having given her to my keeping; yet now I see she has accepted sin.
When You brought me to a man, to give my body to Your will, I was afraid, yet I knew You would not give me this task were I not worthy, if you would not restore me. I knew the sign You gave when his head flamed in red and gold like the bush you set ablaze, and he bore the name, John, like he who was sacrificed in your name, and John, my earthly father. He was the third, the John who bore your flaming sign. When his hands were kind on my flesh, it was You, opening me to his seed, and he spoke your word, Love. I knew You were present, and gave me Your child, named for the Ruth who never left, Your gift laid in my hand, to be raised in Truth, saved from sin. This is my
charge.
But Ruth is fallen to sin and untruth as her brother fell before her. She has been tested according to Your will. There was no holy sign directing her path, and she was warned as You would have her be, I saw to that. Yet I have harmed the gift, the one true word that came from the tempter, for she is not saved.
I have waited, wrestling with what You require of me. In all ways may I be like You, wrestling with the one who said, “You have harmed the gift, the gift cannot be saved.” By night, he comes and says it again. He is evil who says, “Not Father, Son, Nor Holy Spirit, can save Elizabeth or Ruth.” The tempter longs that I accept sin, as I long to keep her with me, like the Ruth for whom she is named. Forty days, the appointed time, and then more, I have wrestled, and now I see Your will. We are washed in the blood; in the blood are we cleansed. I shall be cleansed of her brother’s turn from grace; I shall be cleansed of harming the gift; I shall be cleansed when Ruth is cleansed and saved. Amen. Amen. Amen.
“RUTH AND EVAN, I require and charge you both to remember that no human ties are more tender, no vows more sacred than those you are about to assume.”
Sandy, in the exact blue of her eyes, is to my left and Evan, tall, meticulous, in a black pinstripe suit, to my right. He’s wearing a tie he says is the exact blue of his eyes, his joke because his eyes are hazel. Today he is not joking around, but I see him smiling at me with his hazel eyes. I do not know how to smile with my eyes. My long white dress came off a rack on Seventh Avenue. Sandy and Mrs. Mairson, Elaine I mean, said, Ruthie, it’s you. This one is you, which must mean that I am really here right now. Everything on me is white, as Mother always said it should properly be, a symbol, virgin snow about to be melted.
Evan gave me the strand of real pearls around my neck, pearl earrings, too. I’ve hardly worn earrings since right after I had my ears pierced, when…but the holes are still in my ears and Evan’s earrings are there now. I clutch pink roses, baby’s breath and trailing ivy—a touch of God’s greenery doesn’t break the white rule—though the pink does, and I thought it was an appropriate concession to honesty. My hair is caught up in a halo of baby’s breath, Elaine’s idea. Everything is white except my lips and hair; there wasn’t enough rouge manufactured in New York for Sandy to get color into my cheeks.
“…and forsaking all others, promise to keep thee only unto him, until death do you part?”
Forsaking all others. A separate mind than the one I use to collect the minister’s words is circling tightly as a bird of prey above my head asking how many times did you promise that you’d never forsake your mother? I won’t forsake her, not even now. Nor Roger, whatever promises he’s broken. He’d said he would come and stand with me at my wedding if only it were possible; couldn’t we wait until the end of summer when he’d have a break before his Master’s program started?
Evan isn’t waiting anymore, certainly not for Roger who left me in this mess. He’s not forsaking anyone, either, I see that. His parents stand not four feet behind us with Doug and Jon. Mark is grinning and solemn at once next to Evan, a gold wedding band pressed in his palm. A minister speaks now, but Evan’s father has produced a rabbi to join him. It will be the rabbi’s turn next, reading in Hebrew. I didn’t even know that Evan had gone to Hebrew School, but then, I didn’t know his mother had made him go to Sunday School, either. What else don’t I know?
If my voice comes out, I will know it’s a sign from God. Surely He will strike me dumb if the marriage isn’t right. Can a marriage be legal if your mother doesn’t know you’re being married? Of course it can. Of course. You’re of age, the clerk at city hall said, it’s legal as long as it’s what you want, you have fifteen dollars, a blood test and no other husband. Do you have those?
“Yes.” Is it what you want? “I do.”
“I, Evan, take you Ruth, as my lawful, wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, honor and cherish until death do us part.”
If the ring fits my finger, I will take it as a sign. Still, I will keep calling Mother. The time will come when she does not hang up. She will send me a key to fit the new locks on the doors to our house. Sandy will call me that there is a letter in my old mailbox at the dorm with Mother’s return address on it. My letters will not come back marked Refused in angry ink red as my hair. Red as blood.
“With this ring, I thee wed.” My left hand trembles like a wounded bird in Evan’s. The ring slides over my knuckle far more smoothly than it did when I tried it on in the jewelry store.
“…wear it as a token of my constant faith, abiding love.” My hand does not look like my own—nails polished, and my own wedding ring already in place—as I slide Evan’s ring onto his left hand.
“Those whom God hath joined together, let no one put asunder.” The rabbi steps forward with a stemmed glass wrapped in a cloth, and puts it at Evan’s feet. In one strong step, it is done. The chapel rings with the sound of breakage. Amen, Shalom, Amen.
22
WE HAD A LONG WEEKEND honeymoon, on Fire Island, from Friday night, after our wedding dinner with Evan’s family and Sandy, until Monday night. Evan’s parents had friends with a cottage there; the use of it was their wedding gift to us. I wished our first married night to be a culmination, but we arrived late, in a champagne drunk and just slept naked, in each other’s arms. Saturday, Evan explored me as he hadn’t before, with unabashed eyes, hands and mouth. I was dry, guilty-feeling. He was my husband; I was his wife, and still, my body did not answer until his mouth was on my breasts, his hand opening the door he was ready to enter. Then, I felt it again, the need that aches between a woman’s legs and wants the empty place to be filled, and filled again. Evan had surprised me by having You Light Up My Life sung at our wedding by an old friend of his from school who’d gone to Julliard. It had been exactly right, with its lyrics about hope. I would take all the hope he could give me.
IT WAS AWKWARD, having Evan’s big family and his parents’ friends sending elaborate gifts to his apartment, ours now. Nightly I wrote thank you notes to people I’d never met. Of course, there were no gifts from any family of mine. Some college friends who lived on Sandy’s and my floor chipped in for a party and a blender, but I didn’t have a lot of friends of my own. I’d spent my college life going home weekends to attend to my mother. Now, though, she had utterly shut me out. Her previous withdrawals were disappearing acts of her own, or the kind of withdrawal that keeps you totally engaged because it is so enacted in your presence. This was new. I continued to call; she continued to hang up. I continued to write; she continued to refuse the mail. I did not go back, though. It was too painful to knock repeatedly at the door in which my key no longer fit, and glimpse an occasional motion through a crack of drawn drapes. Unless she truly was psychic—which she’d given me reason to believe she was when I was a child—she had no idea I was married. Roger never would have told her, I trusted that much.
Now I had a husband to attend to, and I took refuge in the role if not always the fact of being with Evan. We were determined I would finish school on schedule, but I threw myself into being a wife with the conviction that, being a failed daughter, I had but one chance at salvation.
But I wasn’t enjoying it. “Sweetheart, sweetheart,” Evan said. “She’s all right. You know she’s all right, and you know she’s playing her trump card. Whether she ever speaks to you again or not, if you let her take away your life—our life—she automatically wins. Please, listen to me.”
I did. I listened. Of course, Evan was right. It had never occurred to me that she wouldn’t win, that it wasn’t an immutable law, the natural order of things. “Pork chops or hamburgers tonight?” I asked. “Which do you want?”
“I want you,” he’d answer. “Just you, but I really want you.”
“A carry-out picnic in Central Park, then, and a carriage ride, in that case. And don’t forget the expensive Chablis,” I answered, baiting him because we we
re trying to save at least a little of his salary.
“A bargain at any price, if you’d like it,” he answered, dead serious, and I saw how much I’d been denying him.
By the end of the summer, I was coming around. Maybe I was just getting used to the way things were, but Evan laughed at his own jokes more, to encourage me, and I guess it was working. I’d gotten a rocky start in my summer classes, but by midterm had pulled my averages up enough that I was within shouting distance of getting A’s. We needed to keep my financial aid. Almost every weekend we saw Sandy and Mark, who pretended to be mad that we’d eclipsed their long-planned wedding. Sandy kept working on me.
“You did everything you could. Even your brother says so.”
“Nothing’s come in the mail, I take it? You’d tell me if she called, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, but I can’t say I’d be too thrilled about it,” she answered, tearing iceberg lettuce into minute shreds in my kitchen. “I love how you’ve put up those prints. The kitchen needed some color,” she said. “This place was always gorgeous when it was just Evan’s, but you’ve added such nice touches. It looks like you, too, now. Mark and I will never be able to afford a brownstone flat. I wish we could.”
“I’ve hardly done anything. Mostly it’s Evan’s ideas. Sometimes I feel like a visitor, you know? This doesn’t feel like it’s really mine. I guess I’ve been too distracted for it all to really sink in, yet.”
Sandy sliced carrots, the knife hit the cutting board with unnecessary force. “It’s not fair. This should be the happiest time of your life.” She’d let her hair grow longer so she could wear it up for their wedding. She’d let it loose tonight, though, which made it easy to spot her head shake of sadness or anger because of the moving shine.
“It is,” I said. Was I that transparent?
“If anything had happened to her, you’d be notified, you know,” she went on, as if I hadn’t spoken. “She’s fine and dandy, and pulling your chain. Let it go, I say. She’ll come to her senses if she thinks you’re not going to beg and grovel.”