He says dully, “Brother Luke called it a judgment. Those were nearly his last words.”
I don’t try to answer that, but turn to the next page. “‘I told the Flock to leave the Ark before they all died. Start new someplace else. No hope left at the Ark. Getting hard to write. Told Jeremiah how to find you. Others going south. Told him to redeem me to you. Teach him what I never could. And his children. Mary, forgive me. Pray for me.’” My voice has become as erratic as Luke’s writing, and I clear my throat before I add, “It’s signed simply ‘Luke.’”
Jerry is looking south into the wind. At length, he says huskily, “My father was a good Elder, a good shepherd to the Flock, but it seemed like nothing he did helped when so much grief came down on us. I don’t understand it, why we had to suffer so much at the Ark.”
“Jeremiah, the Ark was a great success.”
His head comes around abruptly. “It’s deserted—dead! How can you call it a success?”
“You didn’t live through the years right after the End. Rachel and I searched for survivors and found nothing but death and desolation. Luke found only a few survivors and even more desolation. Yet at the Ark people lived. You’re the second generation, and your children are the third. That two more generations came out of the Ark is a miracle.”
His face is as transparent in its revelation of emotions as Luke’s was. I watch him run the gamut from grief to skepticism to amazement. He says softly, “Maybe we were driven out of the Ark for a purpose.”
“Maybe. But purpose is a human invention. We need purpose, but we impose it on ourselves.”
He ponders that, but makes no comment on it. He says, almost formally, “Thank you for reading the letter to me.”
And I wonder if he regrets as much as I do that I didn’t read it to him sooner. “Jerry, I keep it in a drawer in my room. When I die, I want you to find it. It will be yours then.”
He nods. “I’ll take good care of it.” He seems to want to say or ask more, but when he speaks, it’s only to say, “I have to get out to the north pasture.” He glances at Stephen, as if he’s forgotten why the boy is here, then departs without another word. I watch him until he disappears beyond the corner of the house.
Luke, at least you gave your son something to think about—if he’s willing to face it.
I fold the letter and slip it into my skirt pocket, then look at Stephen. He stares at my hands as if they still held the letter, a muscle tensing spasmodically in his jaw. I say, “Stephen, the story is ended now. There’s no more I can tell you.”
“Isn’t there?”
That question is so curt, so coldly adult, I am for a moment shocked and even angry. Stephen seems to realize, too late, the cold charge in his words. He turns away, holding himself rigid.
And I chide myself for my anger. I don’t know what’s preying on his mind, but it’s serious, and I must understand it. I study his profile, the tight, sculpted contours of his full lips, and I wait for him to speak, but he seems willing to outwait me. At length, I ask, “You don’t think the story is finished?”
He rises, goes to the railing, keeping his back to me, and again I wait, for the first time afraid. When at last he turns, his eyes fix on me with a gaze so full of fear and doubt I’m hard-pressed not to look away.
“Miriam told me something after morning service.”
Miriam. Of course.
“What did she tell you?”
“She said Rachel was an unbeliever.”
Rage is my first response to that, and I feel the chill of pallor in my face. How did Miriam know that? Has she been reading my diaries?
I almost laugh at that explanation, at the thought of Miriam purloining my diaries, poring over them in secret, trying to decipher my writing, laboriously spelling out each word.
No, the explanation is undoubtedly far more straightforward: to call Rachel an unbeliever was simply the worst thing Miriam could think of to say against her. She didn’t care about the truth or falsity of her accusation.
And it is immaterial why she chose that particular blade to cut the bonds between Stephen and me. She chose her weapon well, however inadvertently. In these people’s lexicon, unbelief and evil are synonymous. I needed time to prepare him for this, to teach him that there are many answers to the question of the existence of a god. But Miriam has forced the issue, and the damage she’s done may be irrevocable. I can’t lie to Stephen. Not now, with his dark, seeking eyes fixed on me. He would recognize a lie.
I ask, “Did you wonder why Miriam told you that?”
“Yes. But it doesn’t matter, does it? I mean, if it’s not true.”
“It matters. But not as much as what you feel about it. Obviously it bothers you a great deal. Does it frighten you?”
He starts to answer negatively, then pauses to think about it and says, “Yes, I guess it does.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought Rachel—I mean, everything you told me about her made me think she was good and wise and brave, but now…” The chagrin in his voice almost overwhelms his words. “It isn’t true, is it? Rachel wasn’t an unbeliever.”
He seems to be begging for a comforting lie. No, he is begging for a comforting truth, and I can’t offer it to him. I rise, take a step toward him, then stop, feeling his tension. He doesn’t want me to touch him.
“Everything I told you about Rachel was true, Stephen. She was good and wise and brave. But there was one thing I didn’t tell you. I didn’t think you were capable of dealing with it yet. And I was right.”
He stiffens, perhaps stung by that. “Then what Miriam said—it’s true, isn’t it? Rachel was… an unbeliever.”
And finally I must answer, “Yes.”
He is stunned by that syllable, staring at me as if I’d betrayed him, just as Jerry stared at me with incredulous accusation only a few days ago. But I can feel no anger for Stephen as I did for Jerry. I can only feel myself betrayed.
“Stephen, what you believe about god is your concern. It is your right as a human being to believe anything that makes sense to you. And it was Rachel’s right to believe what made sense to her. If her beliefs don’t agree with yours, does that negate her goodness, her wisdom, or her courage?”
He is as close to weeping as I am, but he won’t give in to tears. He stands facing me, rigid and trembling, his voice thick. “But if she didn’t believe in God…”
“What? Does it follow inevitably that she was evil? That’s the way Miriam thinks, the way she wants everyone else to think.”
“And you—what do you think? Are you…”
He can’t speak the words. He wants to know if I’m an unbeliever, too. Oh, Miriam, how unerringly your blade has gone to the jugular.
“Stephen, what difference does it make what I believe? I’ve never asked you to believe the way I do, any more than Rachel asked me to believe the way she did. I just want you to…”
But he is past hearing what I want, what I hope for him. He stares at me as if he had never seen me before, and I know I’ve lost him.
My scholar, my hope for humankind. My heir. As much my son as the infant who died in my womb. I’ve lost him.
“I have to go help Jeremiah,” he says coldly.
And I stand helpless, wordless, while he walks away from me.
In the vacuum he leaves, I clutch the railing for support, and the pain I feel now is shaped like grief and is of the same substance.
There have been times in my life when I knew that if dying were easy, if I had only to let go and slip into that sleep past dreams, I would do it. This is such a time, and age has eroded my will; I feel no resilience in body or mind. I am too brittle and fragile to withstand the shearing stress of this grief, of this defeat.