M. Wren - A Gift Upon the Shore

Mary couldn’t think of an adequate response. Rachel seemed oddly embarrassed, as if she were asking for something, not offering a gift—yet another gift—of great magnanimity. Her home wasn’t just a place where she ate and slept; it was the context of her life.

Mary said huskily, “Rachel, I can’t impose on you….”

But Rachel only laughed. “It’s not a question of imposition. If it is, then it won’t work.”

Mary listened to the wind sighing in the harps of needles and remembered Rachel’s words to her just before they retreated from Aunt Jan’s house: “Mary, let’s go home.”

Home .

It was a word to make her weep. Yet she had lived too long in the city, too long among strangers who had never, with few exceptions, become friends; people whose minds she couldn’t touch and whose motives she could neither fathom nor trust.

Why? Why was Rachel offering a share in her home, in her life?

Rachel leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “I’m twice your age, Mary, and one thing I’ve learned over the years is that loneliness can be—sometimes literally—deadly. But on the other hand, I’ve learned that just having someone else around isn’t the solution, not if you don’t have some affinity for that person. I’ve learned to live alone. It’s the price I’ve paid for certain things I value.”

Mary considered that. “What are you saying? That you don’t need me? That you’re not asking anything of me?”

“I suppose I am. And you don’t need me . Well, at the moment you need a place to stay until you’re fully recovered, but after that, you could go back to Portland, couldn’t you? Back to IDA? The government has a hard time these days finding people who can read, much less write, and with its penchant for verbosity, it’ll always need writers.”

Mary hadn’t thought about going back to Portland or IDA. That was part of the next act, the one on which she hadn’t raised the curtain. Yes, it was possible. And maybe that’s what she should do. No more dreams.

Yet Rachel was offering another dream. Rather, the old dream in another setting: a house by the sea where she could write. And a home to share with a friend. A friend .

Rachel straightened and turned to face her. “This isn’t the time for you to make any major decisions. I just wanted you to know there’s an option here. That’s all.”

Mary felt the stifling approach of tears, but she kept them in check. “Thanks, Rachel. From the bottom of my heart… thanks.”

Rachel smiled at her, then leaned back and contemplated her surroundings, totally absorbed, and Mary knew she would speak no more of her offer. Jim Acres called her “damned independent.” But there was more to it. Maybe it was simply courage.

“Rachel, have you always lived alone at Amarna?”

“Well, I’ve always been the only human occupant, except when…” She paused, as if she weren’t sure she wanted to go on. But she did. “About twenty years ago, not long after I moved to Amarna, I shared it with a young man. A lawyer.” She laughed as she added, “If you’re going to have a live-in, pick a lawyer, a doctor, or a plumber. They’re handy to have around. Anyway, that lasted two years, then Ben had a chance to join a law firm in Portland. Very prestigious and all that. So, that was the end of it.”

“He wasn’t willing to join his prestigious law firm with a live-in?”

Rachel shook her head. “That wasn’t the problem. Ben was willing to flout the stodgy mores of the firm. Or he was willing to marry me, if that’s what I wanted. The trouble was, I wasn’t willing to give up Amarna, to give up the sea, to give up my painting. It would’ve been a disaster, really, and I guess we both knew it.”

Mary was silent, watching Rachel. The years seemed to have smoothed out the regret, leaving only a patina of melancholy. “Haven’t there been other… Bens in your life?”

Rachel sent her a bemused smile. “No. I guess I expected too much—or needed too little—of men. Anyway, Shiloh was always a small town, and now it’s even smaller, so my choices have been limited. Actually, Shiloh attracted some very interesting people. You get odd demographics in a coast town. But I never met that interesting man who was also interested in me. That’s one of the disadvantages of living here, and it’s something you’ll have to consider.”

Mary tried to consider it. But what had her choices been in Portland? Brief meetings and partings, firefly encounters that left her unchanged. Except for Evan. That was in her college days. Everything seemed to mean more then. And Dean. Yes, but that relationship always had its portents of disaster, however sweet it was to be so intensely in love. “It will not last the night….” Dean made that his watchword. Yet it had, for them, lasted a year. Off and on.

She let her breath out in a long sigh. She would miss Dean, miss the constant shots of emotional adrenaline, the physical high he brought to love and making love.

Rachel said, “You’re thinking of someone you left behind.”

“Yes. Someone who preferred it that way, I think. Rachel, don’t you miss having a family, children… that sort of thing?”

“No,” she replied emphatically, “not children. I’d have been a lousy mother.”

“I don’t believe that. The way you treat Shadow and Topaz—not many children get half that much love and care.”

“That may be true. Unfortunately, it probably is. But there are already too many children in this world. As for family—yes, I miss that. My parents are both dead and have been for over twenty years. Plane crash. They went down together. I was an only child, so I don’t suppose I’ll ever really understand—or miss—sibling relationships, and I have no other relations this side of the Mississippi. As for sex…” She glanced obliquely at Mary, a hint of irony in her eyes. “That’s what you meant by ‘that sort of thing,’ isn’t it?”

Mary had to laugh. “Yes, I guess so.”

“Well, I don’t miss that as much as you might think. It’s one part of living, but I don’t believe you can have it all. You have to consider the cost of things. I am a serious painter. Since I was a child, that’s all I ever wanted to be, and that takes more than brushes and paint.”

Mary nodded, thinking of October Flowers , of the disks of short stories and essays she’d left for safekeeping with her mother. “I understand that.”

“Yes, I know you do.” Then she turned her absorbed gaze on the tree, letting the silence move in, and Mary accepted it, savored this silence that asked nothing of her, that sustained and healed her.

A rustling in the green starbursts of sword fern. But it was only the dogs still exploring. Mary pulled in a deep breath of earth-scented air and asked, “Wasn’t it the Druids who worshiped trees?”

Rachel nodded. “I guess they thought some trees had godlike attributes or were the sites of gods. If you’re going in for divinity, it seems like a good idea, spreading it around that way. I mean, investing plants and animals and natural phenomena with godhood. I think the people who put all their divine eggs in one basket lost something.”

Mary asked dryly, “What? Other than whole pantheons to keep track of.”

“Yes, well, monotheism does simplify things. But when people conglomerated their gods into one grand old man in the sky, they lost all respect for natural processes. It’s a very dangerous philosophy, because we are not a special creation. We’re products of the natural world, and if we’re going to survive, we have to live by its rules.” She paused, looked levelly at Mary. “If you’re a good literalist Christian, don’t bother trying your evangelistic wings on me.”