Definitely Against Policy, page 23
Mary felt the first ripple deep in the center of her being, and the ripple surged into a wave, then crested and broke. She gripped him, arms and legs, and in her deepest place. Joyful energy built and crashed over her being, and through it all, she held him in her gaze. Eli’s breath quickened, his muscles tensed with raw power, and he took her as high as he could, meeting her ecstasy with his own.
“Eli,” she whispered hoarsely. “Eli.” Only his name. Only him. He was enough.
Spent, he eased off, and they rested, limbs entwined and bodies melded. Night was falling. At first, they didn’t speak and they didn’t move except for the rise and fall of their breath. Eli’s exhalation tickled her neck and, guessing he’d fallen asleep, she moved to give him space. His arm tensed to hold her, and he teased her nipple with his fingertips.
She spoke first. “You’re awake.”
“Well, on the phone you said you wanted to talk, Mary Rose.” His voice was husky in the darkness of the room.
“Yes, I did. But I think you cleared up everything when you told me you love me.”
He gave a low, unsure laugh. “There’s still something we have to discuss.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He rolled onto his side, his eyes and teeth shining in the darkness. “Remember when I said, ‘no other men. Only me’?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“When we were, uh, broken up, did you keep our promise?”
“We were ‘broken up’ so I don’t have to answer that, but yes, I kept our promise because, deep down, I never lost hope for us.” With the fiasco at In-Spire with Felicity, she didn’t dare ask him the same question and she found she didn’t care to.
“I’m glad,” said Eli.
“What if I’d said ‘no’?” asked Mary.
“I’d get over it eventually.”
They held each other and drifted off to sleep.
A couple of hours later, Eli startled awake and sat up. “I have to go,” he exclaimed. Before Mary could ask why, he said, “My grandmother’s visiting. She’ll be worried if I don’t come home.”
“Go then,” Mary urged with a warm laugh. “You really must.”
“When you meet her, you’ll understand.”
“I already do understand.”
By the lights of the city, she watched him pull his boxers and jeans over his slim, athletic hips and tuck carefully before zipping his fly. She would never tire of watching him move.
“Could you leave me your T-shirt?” she asked.
“Pardon?”
“Your T-shirt, please. You could wear only your sweater, or take one of Dominic’s shirts, but I want to keep your shirt so I can smell you after you leave.”
“It’s kind of sweaty.…”
“Even better.”
Eli bent, found his shirt, and tossed it to her, sinewy muscles moving under his skin. “I won’t steal from Dominic.”
“He won’t mind. We trade clothes all the time.”
“Like sisters,” said Eli.
“Like roommates,” Mary corrected.
Sweater on, he bent over the bed and planted an intentionally sloppy kiss on her forehead.
“We still haven’t taken our drive. Can I pick you up at school tomorrow?”
“Four. In front of the library.”
This time, he kissed her lips, a tender, lingering kiss. He said, “I’ll be there,” and then he disappeared into the night.
Sitting cross-legged among the rumpled sheets, Mary bunched up Eli’s shirt, buried her nose in the cotton fabric, and took a long appreciative sniff, inhaling its musky odor. She pulled the T-shirt on, drew up her knees underneath it, and hugged herself. Her three-week nightmare had ended. She’d come very close to losing a man whose depths she’d only begun to fathom, and the very thought of it sent a current of ice down her spine.
****
A steady rain broke through the clouds as Eli drove through nighttime streets. The wet weather reminded him of Eden Springs. Every year, just ahead of planting, Dad and Jacob walked along the pine windbreak, discovered small ponds of standing water in the backfield, and wondered if they should lay tile come fall. And every summer, during a dry spell, they decided against the idea. The seasonal rhythm of the land swept the people who depended on it into a yearlong cycle of work and rest, hardship and celebration. They were soul-bound to the earth, and they were lucky for it. Jacob crowed about the superiority of rural life, but he’d never lived in the city and his beliefs were untethered from experience. Eli knew it as fact.
And here was the trouble. Mary was like Jacob in that very same way. Toronto was her universe in the way that Eden Springs was Jacob’s.
When Eli and Mary had rested together, her hair damp on his shoulder, her bewitching softness against his body, and her sweet breath warm on his chest, he’d longed to say, “Forever. Promise me forever.” He stopped himself. After mustering his courage all day, with the police and the Meteor interviewer, he’d blinked with Mary. It was cowardly. The worst she would’ve said was “maybe,” and he could live with that and hope for more. In his heart and soul, he knew he’d eventually need “forever” from her, but some strange force held him back from seeking it, as if he didn’t know what he was offering her.
Maybe the key to their future was hidden in the past, in a reckoning he’d put off for too long. He would never be an obedient disciple of the Brethren Church, but he wasn't a hyper-materialistic, big-city hustler either. He’d lived in two versions of himself, one imposed and one adopted, and they were both traps.
With a swoosh of puddle water under the car, his mind returned to Eden Springs and the creek-fed pond at the edge of the farm. People were teachers and so were animals. Snakes shed their skins, and deer their antlers. He’d even seen a painted turtle basking on a rock in August sunshine with its shell flaking off like potato chips. If he went back to that pond, he could sit on a rock, shed pretense, and work things out.
Eli turned into the garage and parked. Grandma would be asleep by now. Used to her room in the quietest corner of a rambling farmhouse, she’d awaken even if he tiptoed. He wouldn’t discuss the situation with her. Her advice was predictable anyway: pray and bring Mary to Eden Springs to meet the family. Prayer was impossible, but returning to Eden Springs was not. In fact, it was necessary.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Eli stopped the Corolla behind a streetcar, and Mary scurried across the bike lane and hopped in.
“Like it?” he asked.
“It’s certainly less complicated,” she replied.
“This is the car you’ll use to learn how to drive,” he announced as they followed the streetcar at a snail’s pace.
“I don’t know, Eli. Our first lesson didn’t go very well.” She peered through the window as cyclists whooshed by on their right and an oncoming delivery van came inches from clipping the driver-side mirror. Even as a pedestrian, she felt intimidated by Toronto’s traffic. “When you were my teacher, you ended up with a terrible headache, remember?”
Eli shrugged. “I don’t seem to get those anymore.”
“Really?” She stared at him and wondered what else had changed in three weeks.
“Really.” He grinned. “At least not debilitating ones. Grandma brought me medicine. But you wouldn’t know anything about that…”
“Um, I might. I wrote to her without telling you and asked her to send you some.”
“I know, and she decided to deliver it herself. She thinks you’re an angel because of that letter. I told her you’re into godless philosophy and unchurched, but she won’t change her mind. You’re an angel.”
“I’m flattered, but of course, you know better,” said Mary. “Where are we going?”
“Belgrave Park for a walk? And then we’ll pick up Grandma and go to Takamatsu. She has surgery tomorrow and she can’t have anything to eat or drink after midnight. She’s very excited to meet you and going out for supper will take her mind off her procedure.”
“Eye surgery would make me nervous, too.”
Eli tensed his grip on the wheel and steered through a gap in the traffic. “What did you say?”
“Her cataracts. They say it’s routine, but the idea of someone cutting into your eyeballs would be scary.”
“How do you know she’s going for eye surgery? I didn’t tell you or anyone at Hill.”
“Didn’t you?” Mary asked innocently. When Eli didn’t reply, she said, “Oh, I suppose you didn’t.” Damn. A stupid, unnecessary secret was ruining the afternoon.
A frigid silence enveloped the car for the rest of the journey. Eli backed into a tight space at the park’s boundary. They got out and he paid the meter. He was clearly annoyed, but he took her hand anyway and they walked on a footpath to an ornamental lake noisy with birdsong.
They found a bench at the water’s edge, and she squeezed his hand. “Eli, I’m sorry. I know about your grandmother’s surgery because I met her at Breaktime last Friday. That’s when she told me about it. We should’ve told you we met, but we agreed to keep it a secret.”
“Why?”
“Why what? Why did we meet? Why didn’t I tell you?”
“All of it.”
“Your grandmother wrote to me and asked me to meet her because she was worried about you. When we met, she asked me to talk to you. I told her I’d think about it, but I ended up going directly to the sales office because after what she said, I had to see you. You know what happened after that.”
Eli shuddered. “Yeah, I do know. And it’s too bad because, by then, I’d already told Claudia I was resigning, and I’d lined up a lawyer for advice on going to the police. I didn’t need an intervention.”
“Is that what you think it was? An intervention?”
He responded with a shrug that came across as dismissive. At once, she felt a frisson of anger and she took a deep breath to push it away. “Eli, I went to In-Spire because I love you and I wanted to see you. Your grandmother said you were suffering and, believing that to be true, I couldn’t stay away from you any longer, so I went to you. I guess it was a mistake.”
“Do you think so? What happened at In-Spire was a misunderstanding. Your mistake was freezing me out in the first place and then plotting my rehabilitation with my grandmother.”
“I didn’t have a chance to tell you that we’d met.”
“Yes, you did, Mary. Last night you pretended you didn’t know she was in Toronto.”
“Okay. Fine. That’s true. But the way you dealt with Silverstein behind my back was a way bigger lie, and I had to ‘freeze you out’. I have my standards and I won’t apologize for that. I’ve forgiven you for your big lie. Why are you being so hard on me for this small one?”
“Because it feels like a betrayal of trust.”
“I am sorry, Eli. Yes, it was sneaky and wrong of me, but I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I know.” He encircled her shoulder, pulled her close, and kissed the top of her head. “I’m being too hard on you. I just want honesty. That’s all.”
“I want that, too.”
They sat together, deep in their thoughts, so quiet and still that a large bird landed in a rocky shallow. Mary looked up at Eli to see if he’d noticed it. His sharp eyes were focused on the bird.
“That’s an interesting bird,” she said. The majestic creature flapped its wings and flew away.
“The heron we’ve scared off by talking?”
“I scared off.” Hoping the answer would be ‘no’, she asked, “Have you hunted them?”
“Herons?” Eli smiled. “Nah. That’s illegal, and they probably wouldn’t taste very good anyway because they eat fish and frogs.”
“Oh.” She cuddled under his arm and gazed over the water, hoping the heron would return. Here, in the middle of Toronto on her home turf, she felt disadvantaged by Eli’s easy answer. He knew the species of the creature, its habits, and whether one might hunt and eat it, while all she saw was ‘a really big bird’.
“Did you and Grandma talk about Eden Springs?” he asked, eyes scanning the lake.
“Yes.”
“Did she tell you why I left?”
“Yes. She mentioned your run-in with the law, your free-range curiosity, and the fight with your father. Stuff like that.”
“And here you are, next to me. She didn’t frighten you away from me with an account of my sins?”
“Your ‘sins’ as you call them, seem rather noble to me, and consistent with how you’ve conducted yourself in Toronto.”
“You sound as if you’re grading me like a term paper.”
“Sure. Why not. I’ve watched you, Eli, and you’ve done the same with me. As for your sins…well, if I were a man, I wouldn’t want to be your enemy. Everyone has a weakness, and a hot temper inflamed by a primitive sense of justice is yours.”
“Primitive?” The color rose in Eli’s cheeks. “I guess I can’t refute that.”
“Fair’s fair, so tell me—what are my weaknesses?”
“You, Mary Rose, have a narrow range of experience. Yes, you’ve partied and experimented in ways that if God existed, He would surely smite you for. You’ve read every book in the library…attended all the concerts…but I’ll bet you’ve never caught a fish and pan-fried it over a fire or woken up to a rooster’s crow.”
“That’s true. I’ve led a sheltered life,” she joked, though his criticism cut close to the bone. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re angling to take me on an educational field trip to Eden Springs.”
He nodded. “Highly educational. You need experience in the field. Literally.”
“Finally. Someone who uses the word ‘literally’ correctly. Yes, I’d like to experience the fields and the barns and meet the Klassens and observe you in your native habitat. I think it would be educational.”
“This weekend? I have to take Grandma home, anyway.”
“It isn’t too soon? I mean…with us…”
“Mary, I’ve been running from myself. I have to reckon with my past, make peace with it, and you should know where I come from. I want you with me.”
“Okay. In that case, I’d be honored.” She smiled and he drew her even closer and kissed her forehead again, though she knew he wouldn’t go further. He thought kissing in public distasteful.
She said, “I’ll have to bring some work with me, though. Does the farm have Wi-Fi?”
“Yeah, and a brand-new icebox and even a laundry mangle.”
As Mary laughed and punched Eli’s shoulder, he added, “My dad keeps tight control on usage so it might be better to use your phone to make a hotspot.” His own phone buzzed a message. “It’s Yuka. Grandma walked to Takamatsu. She says we should head straight there to avoid the media who’ve shown up outside the condo.”
“Sounds like you’re famous.”
“Or infamous.” He shuddered as his phone pinged again. “Yuka also says that Grandma brought her a homemade cake to go with green tea ice cream.”
“Is your grandma being kind or competitive?”
“Likely both.” Eli chuckled.
****
The next day, Mary kept her phone on even while lecturing in case Grandma and Eli needed her. Fortunately, they didn’t, as God answered Grandma’s prayers and her surgery went smoothly, or so Eli had texted her when they returned to the condo just before noon. He spent the remainder of the day administering eye drops, blocking calls, and deleting email from reporters, and ordering pizza for each shift in the building’s security concierge.
In the evening, he phoned Mary with an update and added, “Grandma’s follow-up appointment is at nine fifteen tomorrow, and assuming Jesus comes through for her again, she’ll be free to go home. When can you be packed and ready to go?”
“I have a seminar in the morning. Is one o’clock early enough?” asked Mary, suddenly struck with anxiety over meeting Eli’s family.
“Yeah, sounds good. We’ll beat rush hour and be there by supper,” he replied. They said their goodnights and the call ended.
Now she stood by her empty duffel bag that lay open on the bed and she peered into her closet.
“One must never underestimate the importance of that crucial first impression,” Dominic drawled from the doorway. “Overdress and they’ll think you’re a snob. Underdress and they’ll think you a wanton, worldly harlot who’s corrupted Eli, the innocent, runaway farm boy hypnotized by the glittery temptations of the city. You, my dear, must walk en pointe upon the tightrope of fashion.”
“Gee, thanks for the reassuring advice.” Mary opened her top drawer and transferred three pairs of underwear and socks into the duffle bag. “The question is, how do I strike that balance?”
Dominic sidled to her side. “If clothes make the woman, or offer a mere hint of who she is, do not pack any band T-shirts or torn jeans. You are not a groupie.”
“Okay. There goes half my wardrobe.” She rummaged through the second drawer for pajamas.
“Yes, those are perfect,” gushed Dominic. “A pattern of ladybugs on brushed cotton. Ideal for a slumber party with the Klassen girls.”
Mary startled at the words ‘slumber party’ and stared at Dominic. “You don’t think—”
“I do. They won’t even consider letting you sleep with Eli. You’re not married. The family is large, perhaps underhoused for their numbers, and unlikely to have a guestroom. You, my dear, shall sleep in the girls’ room.”
“Eli didn’t say anything about that,” Mary stammered. “If, if that were true, he would’ve mentioned it, wouldn’t he? I’m going to call him.”
“Don’t bother.” Dominic arched his brow in a knowing expression and Mary realized he was right.
“Jeez. I was only packing pajamas in case I had to get up during the night,” she muttered. “I guess I should pack an extra pair.”
“Those with the penguin and igloo pattern are cute.”
Mary put the pajamas in the bag. “What next?”
