In and out of the house Rob’s father came and went, restlessly, hungering for the children, but shy of them because they made him think of Rob and suffer. And he was not in David’s passionate life of school and play, nor in Mary’s life of daily growing. Mary turned away from his painful smile at her to laugh at Joan, because Joan laughed easily. She always made Joan laugh and knew she did.
“This granddaughter of yours is going to be a tease,” she said.
“Is she?” he answered. “Yes … Mattie isn’t so well,” he said at last, “else I’d bring the children to spend the day.”
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. But her eyes were watching Mary secretly. Mary was staring astonished at her own small hands, moving them this way and that. She tasted them suddenly, carefully and critically and Joan laughed. She must not miss a moment of Mary. Nothing really mattered except Mary, inquiring the universe of her two small hands.
Rob’s father hesitated. “She says you oughtn’t to take care of the children. It worries her.”
“But I am caring for them.” She forgot Mary and her hands. She looked at Rob’s father sharply. This was the moment she knew must come. She waited for the words shaping on his tongue.
“She — she thinks — you oughtn’t take care of them. She’s heard about your situation.”
“Did you tell her?”
“No — she heard it in the village — gossip. She came home from the missionary meeting and asked me. I told her I knew. She blamed me some for not telling her.”
She leaped to her feet. “I shall go to see her,” she cried. She wavered and sat down. “No, I won’t. You’re the one to decide, Mr. Winters. Look at me! Am I fit to have the children?”
She was begging him at first. If he denied her, then she would fight for them. The words stuck in her throat, a gorge. She shook back her hair. “Do what you like for yourself, but the children are mine,” she said loudly. “I can work to feed them — you mustn’t think of money. They’ll be happy here. Look at David!”
They looked. He was flying in from school, his black hair tumbling, his cheeks faintly red, beginning to round.
“I’m starving!” he shouted.
“There’s bread and apple butter ready in the kitchen,” she cried.
“I want to do my duty by my son’s children, Joan,” said Rob’s father gently. “I am fond of them, especially as David grows older.”
She stared at him, thinking quickly. She must think of something to force him. He was talking on. “If Mattie should feel it her duty we could find a respectable woman to help.” He was staring into the lighted lamp, talking.
“You don’t understand, Mr. Winters,” she cried. “They’re mine!”
She stopped, helpless before his stupidity. Oh, the stupidity of these good stubborn people! Her body prickled with anger. She got up and sat down again. David was coming back.
He appeared, a huge slice of bread in his hand, his mouth full. She gloated over him. She had made the good food ready, knowing this moment would come. Then she was tricky. She took him by the shoulder and held his wiry body in her arms. He did not give himself to her. He was full of impatience to be away.
“David, want to go live with your grandmother?”
They looked at each other. The boy forgot to chew in his consternation. “I won’t go.” he said. She felt his body stiffen. “I can’t go. I’d have too far to walk to school next year. I’m going to try for the junior baseball team.”
“You’ve never played baseball,” said Rob’s father mildly.
“I’ve thrown a lot of rocks,” said David hotly. “You don’t know how many rocks I’ve thrown at the people in Chito. I throw good!”
She wanted to laugh, but she must not. She said gently, releasing him, “You’re not going. Go on out and play.”
“I wouldn’t go,” he paused to tell them. “Because this is my home.”
“I don’t know where David gets his temper. Rob was so gentle,” Mr. Winters said.
“Rose was stubborn as a mule,” she answered in triumph. “You’d better leave him to me.”
They looked at each other. She kept her eyes on him, steadily, willing him. What a gentle good face he had! What troubled serious blue eyes, innocent and stubborn in goodness! She was not good, and she did not care. She would have what she wanted now. She had to make a life.
“They’d be a great trouble to you and Mrs. Winters,” she said. “Mrs. Winters is so busy in the church. And she does so much in the village. I remember how she used to do—”
“Doggone it!” he said suddenly, looking at her. She laughed. Oh, it was good to laugh. He rose, his eyes twinkling. “I’m not going to say you’re a good woman,” he protested. “You’ve run away from your husband and you don’t come to church and you’re as good as kidnapping my own son’s children.”
“Come in as often as you can,” she begged him. “And tomorrow I’ll dress the children up and bring them to see Mrs. Winters — that is, if David doesn’t have to play ball!”
He turned at the door to say, “Don’t be afraid of Mattie — I’ll tend to her.”
“I’m not afraid of anybody,” she said tranquilly.
The year flowed on into deep autumn again and there was the first frost. In the field next to her meadow her neighbor’s corn was shocked and pumpkins stood naked gold, waiting.
She lived day upon day, from end to end of every day, abandoned to each day. Never did she get up from her bed in the morning to plan, “Today I must do this and this,” nor did she ever at night say to herself, “Tomorrow …”
She lived as much a creature of the hour as any bird or beast. The hour brought its need and she fulfilled it. The pressing haste of wife and mother was not hers. She lived within no circle. No one came to her door to urge her to the church or to a meeting of the women. Because she was not in the beaten path of living they let her be, shy of what they did not understand. Neither was there anyone to cry her down, or if they did, she did not hear it and did not care.
She came and went about her business in the village as decently as any wife and they were puzzled by her decency and let her be. Only she never went into church. She could not enter it anymore. Where God had been was now only silence. Her spirit cried a truce with God.
One day there was a knock upon the door and she opened it and saw the new minister. She asked him to come in, as she asked anyone to come in who stood there, and waited for him to tell his errand.
He began brightly and quickly. “You are in my parish, Mrs. Pounder, and I have missed your face in the congregation.” She fixed her eyes on him fearlessly and strongly, and he began again. “God is ready to forgive us if we come to him.”
“Forgive?” she said clearly. “For what am I to be forgiven?”
“God …” he began, the sweat breaking out a little on his lip.
“If there were a God,” she said quietly, “I could not forgive Him.” He looked at her bewildered and went away soon. She watched him trudge down the road. I spoke exactly as Mrs. Mark would have spoken, she thought, amused.