No, her need—her obligation—to bear children was something she couldn’t escape. But this man as a lover…
She wondered why she hadn’t permitted herself to think of him as a lover before. Yes, she had been intensely aware of his maleness when they undressed him and bathed him to quell his fever. Even now that he was chastely covered, she was aware of his body, flat-muscled, long-boned, with sunburned skin evolved for northern climates. Today she had been too preoccupied with his illness to think of him as a lover.
Now… she thought about it, thought about making love. For ten years she had lived like a nun, had resigned herself to celibacy. She’d had no choice in that.
Now maybe she had a choice.
Then her smile slipped away. She was getting ahead of events. Wouldn’t it be ironic if this stranger, whom she envisioned as the father of her children, as her lover, were sterile or if he simply rejected her?
And Rachel—where did she fit into this scenario?
Mary shivered and folded her arms against her body.
Changes. This stranger potentiated changes like a magician pulling chains of bright scarves out of his sleeve.
She reached for the Eiseley and found it as difficult to read as she had to sleep a few hours ago. Yet she did at length become engrossed in the words, and she had read two of Eiseley’s essays when she was distracted by a change in the pace of the stranger’s breathing. She watched while he opened his eyes and looked around the room. Finally his gaze fixed on her, and she felt a spasm of fear. His eyes had been open before, but he had never been fully conscious, and she had never fully recognized that there was within that sick body a unique mind, one entirely unknown to her.
He looked at her for what seemed a long time, then he frowned, cleared his throat.
“You’re not Rachel.”
Mary laughed. That wasn’t at all what she might have anticipated as his first utterance. She closed the book and put it on the bedside table. “No, I’m not Rachel. She’s sleeping now.”
“Then she is here? There is somebody named Rachel here?”
“Yes, of course there is.” Mary rose, picked up the glass on the table. “You’d better get some more water down you. With that fever, you’ll be badly dehydrated.” She helped him sit up and held the glass for him while he swallowed most of the water. She saw the scars on his back and again wondered about them. When he sank back and closed his eyes, she returned to her chair, expecting him to fall asleep.
But his eyes opened, focused inward now. “I had a vision. I was walking on the shore, and I was sick and sore afraid. Then suddenly there was a woman there before me, and she had dark eyes full of wisdom and kindness. She held out her hands to me and said, ‘I’m Rachel Morrow.’ Then… she was gone. But I knew she was sent by the Lord, and if I’d just keep going, I’d find what I’m seeking.”
Mary felt as if a trapdoor had been tripped beneath her. But she reminded herself that she shouldn’t expect lucidity when he was just recovering from a serious illness. It wasn’t surprising that he was confused about the circumstances of his meeting with Rachel.
Mary said, “You met Rachel a few hours ago here in this room. Don’t you remember?”
“No, I haven’t seen Rachel yet,” he replied levelly. “Not in the flesh.”
Mary let that pass. “Well, you will tomorrow morning. Are you hungry? We have some broth for you.”
“Yes, I’d like that. But first—what’s your name?”
“Mary Hope. And you’re Luke, right?”
His mouth sagged open. “How did you know that?”
“Never mind. Don’t you have a last name?”
“My family name is Jason, but we don’t—” He stopped abruptly.
But Mary caught that potent pronoun we. So there were other survivors.
He didn’t give her a chance to ask about them. “I have to go outside.”
“Outside! You’re in no shape to go outside.”
“I… have to go to the privy.”
Mary rose. “Well, you don’t have to go outside. We’ve managed to keep the plumbing in operation. Okay, let me help you.”
He pushed the covers back, realized he was naked, and his face went red as he hurriedly pulled the covers up again. Mary went to the closet and returned with a plaid, woolen robe—a man’s robe, one of the many articles of clothing they had scavenged. He reluctantly let her help him into it, then she lighted a candle in the flame of the oil lamp, put it in a holder, and offered her shoulder. She felt his resistance to that support, but he was too unsteady to walk without it. When they reached the hall, Cleo and Candide skittered away like small, striped ghosts, while Yorick and Agate roused with threatening growls. Luke held out his hand for them to smell, with that raising himself a few notches in Mary’s estimation. Then she guided him into the bathroom, put the candle down by the sink, pointed out the clean towels for his use, and asked if he needed any help.
He withdrew from her, shocked. “No.”
She shrugged and closed the door, returned to the bedroom for the lamp, then went to the kitchen to stoke up the banked fire in the cookstove, reminding herself that she must bank the coals again before the revived fire burned out. Rachel was expert at that, at maintaining that magic glow of fire. There were still some matches left, but they were too precious to use unnecessarily. The only alternatives now were a welder’s sparker and a magnifying glass. Mary took the chicken broth out of the cooler, ladled some into a pan, and put it on the stove. Then she got a bowl out of the cupboard, changed her mind, and decided a mug would be easier for Luke to handle. Yes, there was still one left that wasn’t chipped.
Then she picked up the lamp to return to her patient and found him leaning against the bathroom doorjamb. He smiled at her, and she realized it was the first time she’d seen him smile. It was an ingenuous, wistful smile, and she couldn’t do less than return it. She offered her shoulder. “Come on, Luke, let’s get you back to bed.”
He seemed to accept her support more readily now. He said, “This is a very fine house.”
Mary wondered what he was comparing it to, but didn’t ask. In the bedroom he kept the robe on and sagged into the bed. She covered him, then left him long enough to go to the kitchen and fill the mug with warm broth. When she returned and offered it to him, he thanked her, then didn’t say another word, concentrating on the broth like a starving man. When he finished it, he asked for another mugful, but this one he downed slowly, while Mary sat in the chair, watching him.
Finally she asked, “How long have you been traveling?”
“I think… well, it must be about nine months now.”
“That’s a long journey. Where do you come from?”
He glanced warily at her. “From a place to the south.”
And he wasn’t going to be more specific. Did he think she might be a threat to the we he’d left behind? Perhaps. She was as much an unknown quantity to him as he was to her.
He sipped at the broth, studying her. At length, he said, “You’re a beautiful woman, Mary Hope.”
Again, he had surprised her. And made her self-consciously aware of her sunburned skin, of her hair cut short with no attempt at style, of her callused hands with the broken nails always stained with dirt however often she scrubbed them.
“Luke, you haven’t seen many women lately, have you?”
He looked down at his mug. “I… I was just thinking, your husband must be very proud of you.”
A probe of sorts? Why didn’t he just ask?
“I have no husband.”
“Did he pass on?”
“I’ve never had a husband. Rachel and I are the only ones here.”