When Henry Came Home (19 page)

             
"Just—one day you ain't and then the next you are?" The church came closer, lined with buckboards and wagons and a few folks milling around.

             
"It does sound kinda silly. Maybe it's more like you grow up slow, along the way doing different things because you are older, and for girls puttin' up hair is one of those things." She was silent for a moment as Henry pulled the horses to a stop. "Looks like we're late. Ma won't approve." Then she grinned, hopping down from the wagon. "But I ain't goin' home with Ma to be lectured, am I?" She skipped around to the other side to help Henry, then unhitched the horses and led them to water on the side of the building. She tied them there and went to join Henry on the front steps. Music came out loudly but a little muffled, and they went inside to find a place with everyone standing. There was a spot about the middle of the room on the edge of a pew, and they slipped in and Mary picked up a hymnal, although they both knew the words already.

             
They joined the singing, with the choir up front leading, and the hearty sound rose to the rafters of the little church until it nearly burst open to heaven above. Instead it only shook the walls and floors until they, too, were humming in their own particular manner, low and inaudible but felt deeply in the chest. After a few songs, Henry leaned a little towards Mary. "You ought to be in the choir," he whispered in her ear.

             
She turned her head and grinned, then whispered back, "So should you," into his ear so close he could feel her voice trembling upon her lips as the chords tumbled out, the air thick and warm with so many bodies together. After a moment, she leaned over again. "I think maybe we are," she said.

             
At length, the music came to a halt, and the congregation was seated. The preacher emerged, a great, looming man, his hair all grey and frazzled, and his beard looking as if it had not been cut in some years—and indeed it had not. He was a ferocious and dear old man, holding the deep and sincere adoration of his congregation, though he would have denied it had any man said it to his face. He seemed to take pride– if pride was the word—in terrifying his flock with rousing tirades of hell and damnation, although immediately after noon these rantings would cease, and he would pass in and about the people to hold babies and play jolly Saint Nick to young children. It was a sort of dichotomy between friendship and duty, and because of it no one became offended. They somehow felt he never was referring to them when he stamped around in front of them—and if, in fact, he
were
referring to them, he would never have the heart to play the beast in a moment of genuine confession. To further the proof of his actual mildness, he was content to be called simply "Preacher Dan," without a surname at all.

             
The sermon that Sunday, as near as anyone sitting in a pew could figure, was on the tale of Jonah. It started out, of course, with a bible verse, but as Preacher Dan continued and grew more and more fervent, the tale expanded until it might have been a great, unrhyming poem of Odyssean proportions, spun out of some worthy philosopher's mind, laced with strange, beautiful words and references to literary works none but a few had ever heard of. His body, too, became part of the poem, and his wild gestures seemed to become the ship and then the whale and, then again, the shores of Ninevah.

             
As Preacher Dan came to Jonah's casting from the boat, Henry leaned over again to Mary. "Did you ever read Moby Dick?" he queried softly.

             
Mary clapped her hand over her mouth—but not before a short giggle escaped. For a moment Preacher Dan paused, glancing about, but that was all. Mary looked at Henry, her eyes wide, hand still over her mouth. Her shoulders shook, and she dared not remove her hand for fully another two minutes. At last she did, clamping her lips shut over her smile. "That was bad," she whispered back, when finally she could.

             
Henry looked at her, innocently.

             
Later, when the service had ended, they walked out arm in arm and down the steps to get some fresh air, along with most of the congregation. Mary stared up at the sky, blue and empty but chill, trying to see beyond. "I wonder sometimes what the sea looks like," she said absently. "I've never been. Just to stare out forever, blue in the sky and all blue underneath, too. I think maybe it would drive a man crazy, if he was out there too long."

             
"It does, sometimes."

             
"You seen the ocean?"

             
"Once. It was only blue for one day I remember, though. Mostly it's kind of green and grey, and all cloudy."

             
"I bet it's beautiful anyway."

             
Henry paused, thinking. "Yes," he said at last. "I guess it is." He stopped walking, looking down at nothing for a minute. "You—want to go?"

             
"Where, the ocean?" Mary laughed. "It's so far! We'd be weeks. Months!"

             
"No—just for today." He gave a half-nod in prompting. "Say yes."

             
Mary tipped her head to one side and smiled oddly. "Well—all right," she agreed. She looked back towards billowing checkered blankets and laughing children, already messy-faced. It was the usual custom to bring a picnic basket to church on Sunday and eat together in the grass after. "I reckon they'll do fine without us."

Henry angled towards the wagon, and Mary ran to get the horses.

              When they had climbed up into the little bench-seat in front, Henry turned the horses further down the road, past the church and even further away from town. He set the beasts to a gallop and watched from the corner of his eye, secretly pleased as Mary's hair unfurled. She gave an exclamation of dismay. "I give up!" she declared at last, shaking her head and feeling the pins tug and then fly away in the wind. She put a hand up to one side of her face, keeping the hair out so she could talk. "Where're we goin'?" she asked, laughing at her own predicament.

             
"Just wait—you'll see." He glanced at her, smiling a little, almost shy.

             
"A surprise!" She twisted close around his arm and closed her eyes. "How far?"

             
"Not long." As they continued, the flat yellow land passed under them, gradually beginning to dip and roll. There was only vastness in front of them, and soon the same behind when a hill rose to block the dwindling spots that were trees and buildings. Mary opened her eyes again and gazed out at it, squinting in the sharp sunlight.

             
"I love this land," she said. "There ain't noplace on earth as beautiful. I'm glad I live here."

             
"How do you know?" asked Henry, hesitantly. "You ain't never been anywhere else, have you?"

             
"Nope. I just know."

             
Henry was silent for a while, feeling the wind and Mary's arms around him. "You're right," he said.

             
Mary held tighter, smiling privately.

             
Soon the buckboard slowed, clattering up a soft rise. "Close your eyes," he told her, and she obeyed. He brought the horses up and to a halt at the very top. "All right."

             
Mary sat up straight and opened her eyes. "Oh," she said, taking in a long breath. "It's beautiful." There before her rolled and seethed ten billion separate strands of golden hay, so brilliant and gleaming in the sun that it hurt to look. The billows traveled in great longish waves with the wind blowing towards them, and the last rustling row lapped at the horses' hooves, making them paw back in the dust.

             
"This is the sea," Henry told her. "Happy birthday."

             
Mary laughed, slapped him on the arm playfully, and kissed him. "You knew all along!" Henry quenched a smile and looked down at his hands a moment, holding the reins. Then Mary tugged him over to her side of the hard little seat and leapt down to the ground, pulling him after her. She left him standing on the top of the rise and let her legs carry her wildly down into the warm golden waves, her arms wheeling back for balance. She let out a long, breathy whoop and spun around, tumbling down and down until she disappeared in the hay. A moment later she sat up on her knees so that her head came above the grass. "I'm drowning!" she called, laughing, and threw herself down again to gaze at the sky. This, too, did not last long, and after a moment she stood, sober, and looked back up the hill to see her husband standing there next to the wagon, a striking outline against the sky with his neat black suit and cane in hand. Mary waded back up the embankment, hitching up her dress. "You look a fine figure," she called, halfway up.

             
She reached the top, face flushed. "I'm hungry," she declared. "Let's eat." Going to the back of the wagon, she lugged out a picnic basket and a blanket and was about to spread the blanket out next to the buckboard when she paused. She looked up at Henry and grinned. "No—let's eat in the ocean!" With that, she grabbed up the basket again and plunged haltingly down the hill, only just barely keeping balance. When half of her body stood immersed in the fragrant, earthy grass, she put down the basket and began to spread the blanket out, beating down the grass under it to make a little square flat area. This done, she hopped up and went to Henry, who had picked his way half down the hill. In his free hand, he carried a sort of tube, which he had pulled from its spot under the buckboard seat.

             
As Mary came to him, he put his arm around her and she took the tubing from him, looking at it curiously. "What is this?" she asked as they walked slowly down.

             
"I'll show you."

             
"Ah-ha! Another surprise?"

             
"Well—yes."

             
She laughed, putting her hand out for a moment against his chest to steady him. A moment later they sat down, in the middle of the blanket so that the staffs of hay on either side, blowing in the wind, wouldn't bother the food. Mary scooted up close to him. "Show me!" she urged.

             
"How about we eat first?"

             
Mary crossed her arms. "Oh, all right," she huffed amiably.

             
Sitting in the middle of the blanket was somewhat like being in a little boat, or maybe a tall barrel, so deep with its own weight that although it had not sunk, most of it was below the water. The reeds themselves made little whispering, rustling noises, as if amplifying the hollow cry of the wind. Together the sound was so loud it almost deafened conversation, had Henry and Mary not been whispering into each other's ears anyway. When they finished lunch, Mary placed the tubing in Henry's lap and looked up at him with large, expectant eyes.

             
"You look like my kid sisters on Christmas morning," he told her, and she grinned. With careful, purposeful hands, he untied the string and unrolled the stiff paper, careful to hold it so that the wind didn't catch it, though down in the grass they were fairly sheltered. Mary looked at it, putting out a hand to keep the nearest corner from rolling up again.

             
"A house," she said, finding herself looking at a set of plans. She looked at him.

             
"Our house," he said quietly. "—Someday." He watched her, gauging her reaction.

             
She put a hand over her mouth and took it away again, smiling. "Oh, show me, Hen, show me! Where? How?"

             
He shook his head. "I don't know where, not yet. I—hope you're not disappointed."

             
"No, no! Of course not! We'll find a way!"

             
"I've been—arranging things, when I can," he admitted carefully. "Trading for work instead of money, when we can afford it. I figure—I figure so far, maybe we can start next year, in the spring after the snow melts, if we find a spot."

             
She threw her arms about him, and the plans slipped from his fingers, rolling up again. "Oh, I can't wait—I'm so excited!" Pulling back a little, she picked up the plans and opened them again. "Is this why you got all those books? I can't believe I never saw—I can't read it, Hen, show me where things are."

             
He pointed to a little double line. "Here's the front door, see, after the porch. We'll have a nice big porch." His finger ran up the paper a little, tracing the path as he spoke. "Here's the front parlor, and then here's two doors, one goes into the bedroom and right across is the kitchen. Down the hall this way is the bath, and then, back here—back here I put in another room--" he cut himself off, looking away, but Mary grinned.

             
"For the babies!" she exclaimed brightly, finishing for him. "Well—when we have them." She sighed and lay down. Henry followed suit, after carefully retying the plans. They were still together for a long while, looking up at the hay blowing back and forth above them against a blue, cloudless sky.