LaVyrle Spencer - The fulfillment

Mary was lying awake when she heard Aaron's steps on the gravel. A glance at the alarm clock in the moonlight showed it was well past midnight. Jonathan was snoring lightly, and she lay listening to his snores and waiting to hear Aaron come into the house downstairs. Glancing at the clock again, she wondered if she had really heard footsteps. Ten minutes had passed, and Aaron hadn't come in. Climbing over the foot of the bed, she jostled Jonathan, who rolled over. He made a snuffling sound but continued sleeping. Grabbing her chenille robe from the back of the bedroom door, she made her way into the dark upper hall, where no moonlight touched the floor. The familiar railing guided her down the squeaky stair more surely than any moonlight could have done.

Aaron was home, all right, sitting on the back porch step, looking all worn out. His elbows rested on his knees, and one hand hung limply down while the other massaged the back of his neck. If it hadn't been for the moving hand, she'd have thought he was asleep. "Aaron? You okay?" she whispered. "What're you doing up?" he asked. "I couldn't sleep for wondering about Agnes. Is everything all right down there?" "Yeah, it's just fine. The baby's a boy." "A boy…" she repeated, her voice like the trailing-away note of a mourning dove, wistful and uncertain. "Did you see him, Aaron?" "No, not yet," he said, and he knew she wanted to hear far more of it than he was able to tell her. He patted the step beside him and hitched himself over a bit. "Come on out," he invited in an indulgent tone. "There's room for two, and I can tell you're not going to let up till I tell you all I know."

She eased the door shut behind her and squatted on the wide step above him, hugging her long robe around her ankles and knees against the damp. "It took a long time, did it?" she asked as she settled.

But he didn't reply, as if he'd forgotten he'd invited her out there. "Aaron?"

At the sound of his name he seemed to waken. "Oh, longer for Clem and Pris than for Agnes, probably."

She laughed. "Honestly, Aaron, the things you say. No sympathy for poor Agnes?" But her tone was not accusing. "Now tell me about it." "I would if I knew more, but I spent most of the day with the kids in the barn, then riding into town to fetch Doc Haymes." "Aah," she said, a little disappointed. "Best let Agnes and Pris do the telling, Mary. They know more of it than I."

She was disappointed for sure. She longed to hear of the birth. She wondered about all Aaron couldn't tell her, about all the mystery involved in a birth that no one but a mother could know. She huddled there while he puzzled in silence over thoughts of his own.

As if he'd come to a decision, Aaron straightened, then leaned his elbows back onto the step behind him with a weighted sigh. "Ah, I think I've been a damn fool," he mumbled, more to himself than to Mary. "You trying to convince me or you?" "Not me, for sure. I don't need any convincing."

She said nothing, waiting for him to go on when he chose. It was cold. She curled her bare toes away from the concrete.

He half turned on the step below her, so she could see his face profiled with the moonlight behind it, and he saw her bare feet on the same cold concrete step. He moved and took them onto his warm thigh and covered them with the hem of his Sunday suit jacket, which he still wore. Over the hem he placed his hand, and between Aaron and Mary there was a natural warmth that had nothing to do with his taking her feet upon his thigh to warm them. He did it without conscious thought, for they'd always had that care- less way between them. They'd always counted themselves lucky at the friendship they enjoyed, knowing Jonathan was not the reason. They'd have been friends even if Jonathan were neither Mary's husband nor Aaron's brother. "I hurt Pris tonight, on purpose, something I never thought to do. We argued and I ruined her day for her-after the birthing and all. I shouldn't have done that." "Is all the blame yours? It takes two to anger, doesn't it?" "It takes two to do a lot of things." Then he grew quiet, the silence more telling than the words. "So it's finally come to that?" "Yes, finally. She'll have it no other way. And damn my hide! I'm just not ready. But she can't see it my way, and I can't see it hers." "You've given her reason to look at you with marriage on her mind, Aaron, you can't deny that. You've seen no one but her for a good year now. Could be she's a right to expect more than walks in the moonlight." "Maybe I've a right to expect more, too."

Once he'd said it he felt coarse and guilty, and he supposed he must seem so to Mary. "That's what you fought over, then?" "Aha," he confessed, "I told you I'd been a damn fool." "Well, I reckon many other men have been equally as foolish as you, then." "It ought to be Jonathan I talk to about this," Aaron said.

"Jonathan isn't a man for talking, though, is he?"

It was true. Aaron had always been able to talk with Mary far easier than with Jonathan. "A man's needs can sometimes be bigger than his common sense, you know? And women have a hard time understand- ing that. But a woman's needs are so different." "A woman's needs aren't different at all, and don't you think they are. We all want pretty much the same-marriage and love and children." "In that order?" "Most of the time." "It doesn't always happen so for a man." "That's nature, Aaron." "Yeah, well, nature's been giving me a hell of a time lately, then." "Maybe it hasn't been easy on Pris, either." "Whose side are you on?" "I can't take sides, Aaron. You know I can't. I care enough about both you and Pris to want to see you happy. Both of you."

She paused. "But you see, Aaron, there's something you should under- stand, and it's what happens to a woman when another woman has a baby. It's like nature plays a trick on her, makes her think of it as her own. Hearing the news the first time, she'll hold fast to her own belly, just as if it were growing there. And no matter who the father is, for a time he seems special-as if she herself had been touched by him. Why is it she asks so many questions of an expecting woman? Well, it's because the more she hears, the more she shares-the discomforts and the joys. She hears about the quickening, and for a time it's hers, too. She hears of a heartbeat, and it might as well be beating inside herself. And the birth-she takes a share in that, too. And to see a newborn child is to want one of her own, whether she already has two-or twelve. It doesn't matter. Because that's the trick nature plays on her. It makes all women think of babies in terms of themselves."

Under his hand Aaron could feel her toes, curled tightly now, as some might clench a fist in intensity. "You plead Priscilla's case too convincingly for it to be only her case," Aaron said, smoothing his hand over her feet, looking down at them. He looked up at her, huddled shiver- ing above him. "I'm sorry, Mary, for being selfish and going on about myself."

She drew her robe tighter about her. "No, Aaron, that's not true. If you're selfish, then so am I, but I don't see us that way. I see us as two people who have to talk about what needs saying." "Don't excuse me so lightly. I should have had more sense than to go on-" "More sense than to what?" She cut him off. "To air a few feelings that needed airing? That's all we're doing, you and I."

And it was all they were doing. But it occurred to Aaron how unseemly it would be if anyone knew how freely they'd talked. Here in Moran Township the straitlaced matrons would not understand that a talk so personal could take place innocently. He was amused at the thought of some pucker- faced old harridan pursing her mouth in sour shock. Gossip was the thing they thrived on, and Aaron disliked it. "Oh, but if the town gossips could hear what we've been talking about, they'd choke in their sleep."