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Sight of the big, white house was a happy one for the weary travelers, even though Gerritt and Maire weren’t going there directly. But they stood side-by-side and stared for a good number of minutes before heading home.
Their upcoming decision lay heavy on Maire’s shoulders. That Gerritt shared the burden showed in the stiffness of his stance. They could only delay so long before their reluctance became obvious, so Gerritt at last opened the door.
“After you,” he said.
Maire stepped into the front room of their small place, her nerves standing on end. She shouldn’t feel this way about her husband, but the discomfort that dominated them before they left had returned. It soon became obvious that both were avoiding the inevitable question and the bedrooms in general.
Gerritt sat down at the table to work on his notes, and she busied herself unpacking, checking food supplies and babbling about Christmas decorations. All the while, the sun sunk further and further toward the horizon, leaving the earth dark.
At last, her eyes closing while she stood, she could avoid it no longer. “I’m going to bed,” she said, and she trudged toward the back of the house.
Gerritt stopped her. “Maire.”
She lingered in the doorway, her hands hidden in the folds of her skirt.
Gerritt’s chair scraped across the floor, and his footsteps approached. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he unhurriedly turned her around. “Are we starting over?” he asked.
Over in their marriage? Or over with this discomfort between them? She didn’t respond.
“Tell me, Maire, do you want me in your bedroom or not?”
What she wanted had nothing to do with her answer. What she wanted was a normal marriage with a normal relationship. But that was evidently too hard for them both.
Yet, things had changed since they left. The story was out there now. The family knew of their problems, and he had shown he cared for her.
“I want ...” she began. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t say this and look at him. “I want to be your wife ... for real. But I can’t. And it’s too hard for you and me to lie together.”
“Too hard? Are we avoiding each other again?”
She opened her eyes. “I cannot avoid you. You are everything to me.”
He gave a soft smile. “My bed is empty without you. It has been since you first crawled into it.”
She bit the inside of her cheek, her eyes downcast. “I was foolish.”
“You were frightened.” He tipped her chin upward. “Don’t be hard on yourself.”
“I had a crush on you,” she said.
He smiled softly. “I know.”
“I can’t believe sometimes that we are married. I feel like we should be back in the other house, you ignoring me like you did.”
“I can’t ignore you any longer. I won’t ignore you any longer. But I also won’t make you uneasy. If we have started over, then how far along are we? We’ve been in the same bed for two weeks now. Does having another one here to choose from change things?”
Maire extracted herself from his touch. Stepping into the hallway, she looked away from his face. “Yes. I need to be alone.”
He dreamed of her, but not as she was now. Not the nervous, skittish, doleful creature who sent him to the other bedroom. Instead, she was satisfied, happy, and merry. She had children around her feet. Their children.
He lay in bed for the longest time with the images replaying in his head. They gave him hope. Hope, because this marriage was the most important thing in his life. He hadn’t had that before. He’d simply wanted her as a woman. But there was so much more to wedded bliss than that.
The scent of breakfast pulled him from the bed and out of the room. Donning a shirt, he stumbled into the kitchen and found Maire bent over the stove.
“Hungry?” she asked.
He came up behind her and kissed her cheek. “Starved.”
“I wanted you to be full for your first day back at work.”
He nodded and retreated to the table, slumping down in a chair. “I will come home for supper,” he said. He hadn’t before, instead eating a bite at the café or skipping dinner entirely.
She smiled. “Then I will prepare something. I thought I might go up to the house today, talk with your mother.”
“Mama? Why?”
The sizzle from the pan cast steam toward the ceiling.
“Because she knows what it’s like to be taken.”
Her words stabbed him in the heart. She did know, though she’d never spoken of it to him. Her profession when she was young had been forced upon her as much as that one night was for Maire.
“You want eggs?” Maire asked.
He shook himself. Eggs. Was it good or bad that she could speak of these things to him so casually? At least she wasn’t crying. But had she instead turned cold?
He sighed. “Eggs would be nice.”
Amber Finnegan was a beautiful woman. From her, Gerritt and his sister, Jenny, got their good looks, though Jenny also had something of her father, Patrick, in her – a certain upturn of her nose and curl in her hair. Her eyes were also gray like his.
Yet, the story of Amber’s past was more of a rumor than a fact since she never discussed it.
The idea to talk to her about what happened at the lake came to her during the night, and Maire decided afterward of all the people on earth who would understand what she went through, Amber was the one.
Amber took care of them a lot when they were young. Not that her mother didn’t. But Amber had a way with children. She enjoyed doing craft projects, playing silly games, or teaching them to bake, and so much of their youth had been spent in her care, especially with her parents away so often.
Amber’s affection for her father was also known in the family, and not talked about. But the way Maire saw it, her mother never complained, so it must not be a problem.
She made the walk to the big house at a leisurely pace, enjoying the Florida sun’s warmth in comparison to New York’s frigid temperatures. Along the way, she mulled over Gerritt’s expression when he left. She’d confused him at breakfast, and that hadn’t been her intent. Plainly, he wondered why she’d spoken so frankly. She should have set him straight on it. She should have explained.
Somehow, telling her family what had happened to her had broken its grip. Whereas it strangulated her before and she’d gone her way to tiptoe around the issue lest the story get out, now, she could only ask what the point was. Her parents, her brother, and probably Gerritt’s family as well, knew the truth. They knew what he’d done for her and what they hadn’t done together.
It was liberating in a sense.
She’d learned secrets were horrible things. They changed the way you behaved, in the long run doing more damage to yourself than to the person you were trying to protect. Maybe Amber wouldn’t talk to her. Maybe she would. But whatever the case, Maire was finished hiding, at least with the people who cared about her.
She found Amber in the kitchen, not such a big surprise, looking as beautiful and put-together as she ever did. Even elbow-deep in flour, she took your breath away.
“Maire,” Amber said. “I’d give you a hug, but then, you’ll look like me.”
“That’s not such a bad thing,” Maire said. She turned a chair about.
“You always were a sweet child, but I know the truth. I see my crow’s feet.”
Maire smiled. One thing Amber didn’t have was crow’s feet ... or wrinkles for that matter.
“How was your trip?”
It was a general question, but still, a loaded one, and Maire considered how much to put out there in her first breath. It hadn’t even been the space of a day since they returned, so perhaps her parents hadn’t said anything.
“Cold,” she said. “I remembered why I love Florida when walking here.”
Amber rolled the dough before her into a pancake and sprinkled it with cinnamon-sugar. “I remember cold New York winters. The winter I met your father was the worst, and he was such a skinny thing.”
“He took us there. Did he tell you that?” she asked.
Grasping one end of the dough, Amber rolled it into a spiral. “Yes. He said it was empty.”
“It was, and to be truthful, I couldn’t picture what happened.”
“That’s just as well. There’s nothing pleasant to be recalled from that place.” Amber tucked the ends of the cylindrical roll beneath itself and reached for a knife. She made even slices.
“Did he tell you what else happened?”
Amber paused in her slicing and raised her gaze. “On the trip?”
“With me? With Gerritt.”
She resumed her cutting. “He only said Gerritt was his father’s son. But I could have told him that. He’s a good boy.” Coming to the end of the roll, she lifted a pan onto the counter and laid the slices flat.
Maire calmed her trembling hands, wiping them back and forth in her lap. “I need to talk to you. It’s ... personal.”
Amber gave a nod. Spinning about, she slid the pan into the oven. She dusted off her hands. “Go ahead.” Her brown-eyed gaze rested kindly on Maire’s face.
“Gerritt married me to cover up something that happened to me, and I ... I can’t get past it to be his wife.”
Untying her apron, Amber slung it over the counter. She found a seat. “What happened? Is that what you want to talk to me about?”
Maire’s voice cracked. “Yes. I don’t mean to pry, but you were ... you ...”
“I was a prostitute.”
Maire wadded her skirt up in her hands. So it was true then, all the rumors. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I shouldn’t ask.”
But Amber smiled. “This is between us. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“Then you have a right to ask. Tell me, Maire, what happened to you?”
“I was raped.” A flush of heat swept over her face. She’d never stated it before for herself.
Amber took her hands. “And you want to know how to overcome it.”
“How did you ... I mean, what did ...”
“My father sold me to a man for a bottle of whiskey, big, ugly fellow with a dark beard. I was thirteen.”
Maire gulped. Thirteen. When she was thirteen, she barely knew she was female much less how to deal with a man. “How did you get past it?” she whispered.
“I didn’t. I cheapened myself and sold my favors over and over for the next seven years, even after I met your father. He was the first person to ever tell me I could be different, the first one to say no.”
“Is that why you came here to find him?”
Amber sat up straight, not releasing Maire’s hands. “Partly. I was running from Gerritt’s father toward someone I thought could save me. But, Maire, I was wrong. Your father couldn’t save me. Patrick couldn’t save me. Only Christ could do that. Gerritt’s a good boy, and it’s like him to do this for you, but he’s not the one you should turn to for forgiveness.”
Maire recoiled. Forgiveness? She didn’t need forgiveness. She hadn’t done anything. She sought to retrieve her hands, but Amber held them fast.
“Maire, listen to me for a minute. You did not ask that man to do what he did, so you are not who you need to forgive.” Amber curled their hands together. “You have to forgive him.”
Forgive him? She couldn’t possibly do that. He ruined her and ruined her life. But as soon as the thought left her head, she saw the truth. He gave her Gerritt. Tears trickled down her face. Without that night, she wouldn’t have Gerritt, and she would never ... never ... give him back.
“How?” The question emerged a faint squeak.
“The same way I forgave every man that ever darkened my door and then my father greatest of all. I said, ‘I’m sorry. I forgive you.’”
A sob tore from her throat, and Amber pulled her to her chest. “It hurts,” Maire cried. “It all comes back. Gerritt tries to touch me, and I see him again.”
“I know, sweetheart. Believe me, I know. But Maire, Gerritt’s not that man, just like Patrick wasn’t any of those others. Once I let him show me that, it wasn’t a problem.”
“I’m not ready.”
Amber pushed her to arm’s length and wiped her hair from her face. “You will be. But first ... forgive.”
Forgive. The word tormented her for the remainder of the afternoon and on into the evening. All through supper, she dodged it, eating more than she should simply to occupy her mind. Afterward, she moved into the front room, thinking she would read, but between every line the word appeared. Finally, she tossed the book down in disgust.
Gerritt looked up from his writing. “What’s troubling you?” he asked.
She fingered the worn wooden arm of the chair. All the furniture was used, albeit clean. “Something your mother said.”
He laid down his pencil. “My mama upset you?”
“No. Yes.”
This brought a mixed expression. “Which is it?”
“No, she didn’t, but she made me think.” Think about hatred and anger and right and wrong, and the words of the Scripture that kept bubbling up.
And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. Mark 11:25.
But forgiveness for hurt this size seemed too hard. How could God expect her to forget what happened to her? For that matter, once forgiven, how could God forget it? Wasn’t that what the Scripture said?
Gerritt rose from his chair and extended his hand. “Come. We’ll talk.”
Heaving a sigh, she traipsed behind him to the divan where he drew her into his lap.
“Tell me what she said.”
“She told me about her past, about meeting Papa, and coming here.”
“And what else?” he asked.
She laid her head against his neck. “I told her what happened to me, told her I wanted to get past it. I thought she’d have some amazing advice, some tidbit to help me forget. I mean, she’s so beautiful and happy, and she loves your father.”
“But?”
She huffed. “But ... she told me to forgive.”
Gerritt fell quiet. His breath brushed soft against her face. “If you have to forgive him, then so do I.”
She twisted her head around. He was serious.
“I tried to stop him from leaping off the ship, but had no regrets when he died from the fall.”
Maire paused. “I’d like to pitch a childish fit,” she said, “and say your mama doesn’t understand, that she’s never been there. But it’d be a lie. She was thirteen ... thirteen ... when it happened to her. So I have no excuse.”
Gerritt never flinched at that news. “You know,” he said, instead, “perhaps forgiving him simply means that what happened won’t affect you from now on.”
She ran her fingers around his collar, fiddling with the cloth. “And for you?”
“And for me it means admitting I had thoughts about you like he did, although not his motive.”
She made to protest, but he forestalled her, a finger on her lips.
“No, Maire, I know what was in my heart, and selfishness is selfishness no matter how it’s presented. I wanted your body without giving much thought to your soul.”
She pulled herself upright. “That’s where you’re wrong, and I’ll tell you why you’re wrong. You’re wrong because ... because I wanted yours as well, and there’s the difference.”
A smile affixed itself to his face, and the effect of it transferred to her own.
“Did you now?” he asked.
She bit her lip. “Yes.” Her voice lowered. “You are the most beautiful man, and it does things to me.”
“I can’t recall being called beautiful before,” he replied, his smile spreading. “Many other things, but not that. Tell me, Maire, what else would you say about me?”
He was teasing. Very well, she’d play along.
“Smart. You’re very smart, and you’re sweet. And you have the loveliest lips.”
An eyebrow rose. “Lips, huh?”
“Mmm, and you’re a very good kisser. I’d think you had practice, except I know you didn’t.”
He laughed. “I’ve practiced on you, and that makes practice easy.”
She laid her head back against him. “You also have lovely hands. Writer’s fingers, long and slender.” She toyed with them.
“Maire.” He spoke warm and throaty in her ear. “Where am I sleeping tonight?”
She never lifted her head. “You’re going to ask me that each night. Aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Where would you like to sleep?”
He nudged her chin upwards. “Do you really have to ask me that? I want to sleep with you, but only when you want me there.”
She fell into his gaze. What a fool she was to even have to decide. “Gerritt Finnegan, you are my best friend. Do you know that?”
He smiled. “I like to hear it, but Maire, I want to be more than that to you.”
“I want you to be more than that too,” she said quietly.
“Where am I sleeping?” He persisted with the question.
“With me. Sleep with me tonight, Gerritt.”
She was his entire world. Laying there, their bodies pressed together, her fragrance all around him, he fell in love with her all over again. And she didn’t resist when he took her in his arms and tucked her to his chest. It was as if she and he had the same basic need, to be as close as they’d once been.
She slept with her hair spread over him, and he moved not a muscle, fearing to break the tenuous connection they’d formed. Eventually, he dozed. He woke still tangled with her, but this time, she’d thrown her leg over his and draped her arm about his waist. Her gown had crept up to reveal the length of her leg, and he stared for the longest time. Then, she stirred, her eyelids flicking open, her pupils washing spring green.
“Morning,” he said.
She stretched and curved around him. “Morning.” She nestled harder into his flesh. “You’re comfy.”
He laughed. “Another of my attributes.”
A smile pulled at her lips. “There are others,” she said sleepily.
“Oh? Like what?”
“Legs. You have lovely long legs.” With that comment, she wrapped herself around them further.
“Your legs aren’t so bad either. In fact, I was admiring them.”
An eye flicked open. “Admiring my legs?”
“Mmm. Your gown works its way up at night.” He smirked.
She returned the look. “And you peek.”
“Oh no, I’m not peeking. I’m staring.”
She laughed into his chest. “As long as that’s all you’re doing.” Her voice fell silent, and she scrambled to correct herself. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean that like it sounded.”
Grasping her shoulders, he pulled her up to his face. “I know how you meant it. Forget about it.”
Laying her cheek flat to his skin, she faced him, her hair trailing down his belly. His mind brimmed with emotion, yet he didn’t say a word. What was there to say? Thank you seemed closest. Thank you for allowing me to sleep here with you, to experience this. Thank you for marrying me.
I love you. The words sat on the tip of his tongue, but still, he didn’t say them. They were reserved for that special moment when things finally fell into line, when they became united for good. When that happened, he’d say them every day, every hour of the day. He was such a blessed man.
The late hour encroached on their togetherness.
“Are we going to lie here all morning?” he said, “because if we are, I’m going to miss work.”
She smiled. “We could ... but we better not.” Springing up, she slipped from the bed. “I’ll go fix something. You get dressed. I think we have some of those cinnamon things your mother made yesterday.” Her voice decreased in volume as she left the room.
He dressed slowly, his mind turning over and over this morning together, and emerged to find her having already fixed his plate. He stuffed the breakfast roll into his mouth and moaned his pleasure.
“My mama is the best cook,” he said, spitting crumbs as he spoke. He consumed the roll and reached for another, wiping sticky icing on the table cloth.
Maire frowned. “You’re making a mess.”
He paused, mid-bite. “It’s worth it.”
He reached for a third only to have her smack his hand. He grinned and switched the path of his fingers, sweeping them across her face instead.
She gasped. “Gerritt Finnegan.”
Snatching a third roll while she was distracted, he crammed it in his mouth, then rose to his feet. Towering over her, he backed her one step at a time to the wall.
“Kiss me,” he said. His face was smeared with icing.
She laughed. “I will not. You’ll have me looking like ...”
“Like what? Sweet? Sugar?” He moved closer.
“You’re being ridiculous.” She wriggled beneath him.
He placed a hand on either side of her head. “You know you want to.”
“I am not kissing you. You’re a mess, and you’re getting it in my hair.”
He chuckled and nuzzled at her lips, then, in one swoop, claimed her mouth. She pushed at him, floundering, but it was half-hearted. Her fists slowed, and her body slacked. One hand flattened to his chest.
He raised his head at last, but didn’t move. “How was that, Mrs. Finnegan?”
“Sweet,” she replied, the light shining in her eyes.
“I have to go now,” he said. “Will you miss me?”
“Every minute of the day.”
Extricating himself, he wiped his face and headed for the door. As he took hold of the knob, she spun him about and kissed him again. His hand released and moved to her face.
“You’re making me late,” he said, catching his breath.
Crossing her hands behind her back, she swayed back and forth. “Me?”
He laughed. “You.”
A knock on the door raised his gaze. Releasing her, Gerritt opened it at last. Sunshine flooded the room, and for a moment, he blinked. Shading his eyes, he gazed into the face of the sheriff. “Sheriff? Can I help you?”
Maire’s hand encircled his arm.
The sheriff touched the brim of his hat. “Mrs. Finnegan,” he said. “Mr. Finnegan, I regret having to do this and it being so early in the day.”
“What’s wrong?” Maire asked. Her hand tightened on his sleeve.
The sheriff sighed. “I’m afraid I have to put you under arrest for the murder of Daniel Bragg.”