A chaste kiss, no doubt. At least, Jerry will think it that.
They are half-siblings. Luke was their father, but they had different mothers. I wonder what Miriam would’ve been like if they’d had the same mother, if they’d both grown up in Luke’s household.
I watch them walking toward the bank until I can no longer see them. The house is set too far back from the ravine for me to see the foot of the path. I return to my chopping.
Jerry is, in a sense, Miriam’s lover. But then he’s also Esther’s lover, as he was Rebecca’s before she died. I don’t suppose I’ll ever forgive him for his part in her death. I know she wanted to try again to have a baby, but she’d had two miscarriages already.
But Jerry still has his two lovers. That is, he has sexual intercourse with Miriam and Esther at intervals determined by their menstrual calendars and the days they are most likely to conceive. That calculated approach to coitus is unavoidable. Jerry is the only adult male here, Miriam and Esther the only fertile adult females. Even the risks inherent in inbreeding between half-siblings must be accepted if new generations are to survive. There are six children now, but that’s not enough, especially since Isaac may not live to produce any offspring.
My knife slips, missing my finger only by good luck.
Yes, it all sounds so calculating, like breeding livestock, but these people grew up with that kind of calculation. And in fact, Jerry does love both Miriam and Esther, but in the same sense that he loves the children, he loves the crones, he loves me. He doesn’t know what it means to be in love, but he loves, deeply and steadfastly.
And Miriam? If what she feels for Jerry can be termed love, it is a jealous love, as her god is a jealous god. No doubt she feels maternal love for her children. Or is that possessiveness? Or am I coloring her with my fear? All I know is that she seldom laughs, and I’ve never seen her weep.
I fear that absence of laughter and tears. It doesn’t indicate a lack of passion, but rather the opposite: a passion that is too volatile for its vessel.
By the time Miriam and Jerry reach the top of the beach path, I’ve filled the basket. I rise, grunting at the aching stiffness that occupied my knees while I sat. Jerry waves at me, strides across the grass, while Miriam approaches more slowly, watching Jerry, watching me.
I see Luke in Jerry always. He’s tall and thin like his father, but that thinness is deceptive. He is all muscle, flat and hard, his hands strong and armored with calluses. Shadow runs to him, and Jerry feints playfully with her until he has her galloping in wild circles, then he calms her with a few words. When he reaches the deck, he offers me an ebullient, “Good day, Mary!”
“Good day to you, Jeremiah. It looks like you and Miriam had good luck in the tide pools. Good day, Miriam.”
She smiles, although it doesn’t reach her eyes, but before she can speak, Jerry says, “Miriam, you’d better go take care of the mussels.”
That rudeness is typical and particularly annoying because he is always blithely unaware of it. I see resentment congeal in Miriam’s eyes, but it isn’t directed at Jerry. I get the brunt of it, deep and laced with jealousy. She picks up his bucket and hers, mounts the deck steps, but at the door pauses to say, “Jeremiah, we need some wood split for the stove.”
I restrain a smile. She’s restoring the real chain of command as it pertains to household tasks. Such things are her domain.
But Jerry only nods. He doesn’t recognize the subtle reprimand in that reminder. When the door closes behind Miriam, he says, “Mary, we saw some whale spouts today.”
That’s something else I’ve lost with my failing sight: the brief puffs of mist that mark the passage of the gray whales on their migrations from Alaska to Baja in the spring and back again in the fall.
“Did you? Well, that’s always reassuring.”
“Yes, I guess it is, but I keep hoping one of them will get beached close by where we can get at it. I know how much you love them, but we could use the oil.”
I laugh at that, then lean down to pick up the basket of kelp. “I’d better get this to the compost.”
“No, Mary, I’ll take it,” he insists, reaching for the basket.
But I refuse to relinquish it. “Jerry, I’m quite capable of carrying it. I may be slow, but—”
“You can’t carry it with your cane.”
“I can walk without my cane if I’m careful.”
He smiles, placating now. “I know, but I’m going out to the garden anyway.”
With a sigh I surrender to his kindness. Besides, Stephen is coming around the corner of the house with Isaac tagging along behind him. “All right, Jerry. Thanks.”
He departs, pausing on his way to talk to the boys, and I go into the house to wash the kelp slick off my hands. When I return, I find Stephen occupying one of the chairs, while Isaac sits cross-legged on the deck beside Shadow, and she patiently tolerates his unintentionally rough petting. Stephen watches him with the protective eye of an older brother, although Isaac is not his brother. Not genetically.
Stephen looks up at me. “Isaac isn’t feeling good today. Bernadette said he shouldn’t work in the garden. Is it all right if he stays with us?”
Isaac grins at me, blue eyes clear as the sky, his copper red hair shining in the sunlight. Freckles are powdered dark against his pale skin, and he is too thin, too small for his ten years. He constantly coughs and wheezes and doesn’t seem to notice it, nor does he seem to notice the malformed foot that makes him limp when he walks, stumble when he runs. He is Miriam’s child by an Arkite, and she’s the only one here who doesn’t dote on him.
Miriam mistrusts imperfection. Perhaps she fears it. But she probably won’t have to deal with it much longer in the form of her asthmatic, crippled son. He won’t survive another winter if it brings another onslaught of pneumonia.
She calls him god-marked.
I lean down and press my hand to Isaac’s forehead. It seems cool, rather than hot with fever. He says, “I’m all right now, Mary. Bernadette gave me some tea.”
“Well, if she says you’re not to work, you won’t. Not today.” I go to the chair next to Stephen’s, reach for the diary in my pocket. “Isaac, did Stephen tell you what we’ve been doing?”
He shakes his head, and Stephen answers, “No, I didn’t tell him. I haven’t told anybody.”
I’m a little surprised at that. And a little relieved.
I nod without comment. “Stephen and I have been studying some history, Isaac. Mine and Rachel’s.”
“Is that history?”
“On a smaller scale, it’s as much history as the fall of the Roman Empire.”
“But that was a long time ago.”
Stephen puts in quietly, “Just listen, Isaac. Don’t argue with Mary.”
Isaac draws his knees up, wraps his arms around them, and looks up at me expectantly. I open the diary. It’s more a prop for me than a necessity. I read it last night, polished each shard of memory. “All right, Stephen, where were we?”
“When Rachel asked you to stay at Amarna. But you didn’t give her an answer then.”
“No. I couldn’t. I think I knew my answer, but I had to wait until I felt stronger physically and emotionally. A week later I wrote to my boss at IDA. She telephoned me within a few days and offered me a promotion if I’d come back to Portland.” I laugh, remembering that small, but vital triumph. “That’s when I told Rachel I’d like to stay, to make Amarna my home. And then…” I turn a page. “Then spring came to Amarna.”