Ruth Morren - Lilac Spring

His eyes snapped open. Cherish sat observing him as her hand caressed the cat’s fur.

“What?” Why was she asking such a question? Simple curiosity—or something more?

“You heard me. Is there anyone occupying a special place in your heart?”

He took his time in answering, unused to such personal inquiries. The men on the yard talked about the ships they were working on, the latest cargo in port, the price of lumber. Mrs. Sullivan made sure he was well fed and clothed and noted if he was looking “peaked.” Mr. Winslow cared only that he reported to work every day and carried out his duties. And all he, Silas, ever thought about was the feel of wood under his hands and the goal he was working toward.

No one had ever asked about his heart. Finally he shook his head. “No.” Why had the answer been so difficult?

“No one since Emma?” she asked softly, referring to his childhood sweetheart from back home.

“I guess I’m married to my boats now.”

“That’s silly. You can’t be married to boats.”

He continued rocking the swing gently, looking down at the toes of his boots. “I haven’t thought about things like getting married, starting a family, or getting a place of my own since Emma passed away.” He spoke the next words slowly, articulating them for the first time. “I guess I decided then that marriage was not for me.”

“That’s nonsense, Silas.” The chiding words were spoken gently.

He shrugged. “I’m content with things as they are. I have my dream, and that’s enough for now.”

“You have a wonderful dream, and I know it will be fulfilled, but that doesn’t mean you can’t want more.”

He glanced at her again, surprised for the second time in the space of a few moments. She did remember his dream.

But she continued speaking, not noticing his reaction. “Love is the highest thing you can experience.”

He said nothing, the word making him uncomfortable.

“You loved Emma.”

“I was just a boy.” His fingers tugged at his collar, trying to think of another topic to distract Cherish.

“Age has nothing to do with it. Just think, you were a boy of twelve and you promised yourself to a girl you’d known all your life, and you loved her faithfully all the years you were here. That’s not childish sentiment. It’s a beautiful, noble thing.”

He turned away from her earnest gaze. “You’ve just become a romantic since seeing all those old castles.”

“Love has nothing to do with seeing castles! I’ve always believed in love. I’ve just become old enough to express my views better now. And there is One Who agrees with me.” She tapped the cover of the book between them. “God. He has a lot to say about love.”

“Yes, I know all about that kind of love…doing unto others….”

She looked away from him. “That sounds like doing your duty. It’s so much more than that. It’s about loving one’s Savior. It’s an all-consuming love He has for us.”

“You sound like Pastor McDuffie.”

Her lips curved slightly. “He’s the one who began making me see that being a Christian was more than just going to church on Sunday or following the Golden Rule. Do you know what I discovered through him?” Her slate-blue irises were rimmed in a deeper hue that was almost black. “How wonderful it is to fall in love with God.”

Silas turned away, her words leaving him feeling inadequate, as if he were missing some vital component in his makeup. The cat had climbed onto his lap, and he touched its fur, feeling the throb of its purr under his fingertips.

“When one realizes the love Jesus poured out for us on that cross, it becomes easy to love Him back with every particle of one’s being, to hold nothing back, to say ‘Yes, Lord,’ when He asks something of us.” She picked up the Bible and hugged it to her breast. “Don’t tell me this is just romanticism. Love is our whole purpose for existing.”

He wasn’t ready to concede any such thing. His mind went to the feel of a boat taking shape under his hands. That was life to him. He pushed the swing back with a jerk.

The cat, disturbed by the motion, got up and jumped to the floor. It stretched its back and sauntered off.

They swung in silence for a while.

Cherish sighed. “God gave us the love between a man and a woman as an—” her hand fluttered out in search of the correct word “—extension of His love for us.”

Again he didn’t know how to answer. “Someone will love you some day, Cherish, with the kind of love you yearn for.”

She tipped her head to one side, regarding him steadily. “Do you think so?”

“I’m sure of it,” he replied, wondering who that man would be and realizing he couldn’t conjure up any image of the man who would be good enough for her.

“I hope you’re right,” she answered him, and set the book on her lap. “Don’t you want to be loved again? The way Emma loved you?”

Her eyes searched his, and he had a fleeting sense of how much more wrenching and painful the death of a loved one would be to a man than to a boy. He turned away from Cherish and looked down the lawn toward the inlet beyond. The tide had filled it, just as Cherish’s words had filled his mind without any conscious resistance on his part.

“I never think about it,” he answered honestly. “I was awfully young—we both were—when Emmy and I ‘pledged our troth.’ Then we just kept the promise, although we didn’t see each other but just once a year after I came up here for my apprenticeship.

“When I turned nineteen, I asked your father for permission to get married. Although I’d already fulfilled the terms of my apprenticeship and didn’t really need his consent, he counseled me to wait until I was at least twenty-one, with more money saved up.”

He looked straight ahead to some indefinite point in the center of the painted porch floor. “His advice made sense. At that age you don’t expect to lose someone younger than yourself, just like that, even though we go through it all the time. I’d already lost an older brother and sister, and my father never came back from the Grand Banks.”

He cleared his throat, the recollection of those days coming back to him as he spoke about them. “Then she got rheumatic fever and died, just a month shy of my twenty-first birthday.” He’d felt bitter about it for a long time. Just when it had faded, he didn’t know.

“Do you still miss Emma after all these years?”

He shook his head slowly. “It’s as I said—I guess I’m married to boats now.”

“You know I love you, Silas.”

He lifted his gaze to hers, her words arresting him.

Before he could figure out what she meant, she asked softly, “Don’t you love me?”

Her big blue eyes waited for his answer. He could feel himself redden. He rubbed the back of his neck, at a loss for an answer. How was he supposed to answer such a question? Was she talking about their old familiar affection for each other, developed over the years? Or that sublime sentiment she had been describing to him? He managed to tear his gaze away.

“Well…uh…yes.”

“You don’t have to say it as if you’re going to choke on it!”

His face grew warmer. “I’m not! Of course I love you. I’ve known you since you were a little girl. You’re like a sister to me.”

When he looked at her again, she was gazing away from him.

He felt the weight of responsibility. Cherish trusted him. Winslow trusted him. How could he live up to that trust when he found himself yearning to kiss those sweet lips inches from him?

Silas lay on his bed, hearing the lap of the waves below boxing him in. He could no longer push aside Cherish’s question. Don’t you love me?