Firefly (28 page)

"She'll be fine, Julie.  I said it was a small thing.  She cut her lip and blackened her eye, that's all."

Julie didn't seem very relieved.  Her brow remained puckered, and her eyes, though they didn't turn away from him, seemed still to be asking questions.

Something told him he needed to bring her back to reality from some curiously distant thoughts.  "Aren't you going to take these dishes to wash them?" he asked gently.

"In a few minutes.  Please, Dr, Morgan, I need to talk to you.  I know you'll tell me I should ask questions like these of my mother, but I can't.  She wouldn't give me answers; she'd just tell me...well, she wouldn't give me the kind of answers you can.  You're a doctor."

The rambling gave away her nervousness.  She sat at the table and linked her fingers around her coffee cup, barely half full.  Morgan, afraid he'd be called to task for his lie, busied himself refilling his own and then stood discreetly against the oak cupboard, three or four feet away from the table.

Pieces of a very unattractive jigsaw puzzle began to come together in his mind.  The girl's apparent dislike for men, her parents' insistence that she be made to look as unattractive as possible, her constant burden of guilt and responsibility, her almost hysterical concern for Willy when he was hurt, her lack of the usual modesty when Peg Baxter delivered.  And now her breakdown over the discovery that one of Nellie's soiled doves had been beaten up by a customer.  Morgan didn't delude himself any longer.  Julie had heard Burton's comments and interpreted them correctly.  Morgan would only be hurting her further himself if he continued to lie.

"I'll do my best, Julie.  Ask me anything you like.  I'll give you the most honest answer I can, and if I don't know the answer, I'll tell you so."

She swallowed some coffee, then looked at him.

"Can Mr. Burton hear us?" she whispered.

"No, I closed the doors, and he'll be asleep soon anyway.  I gave him a light sedative in his coffee, and he was yawning before he finished your lunch."  That seemed to reassure her, but Morgan went one step further.  "And whatever you tell me I'll keep in strictest confidence.  You needn't worry that I'll tell anyone, not even your parents."

"I didn't think you would."

How trusting her eyes were then, as wide as they had been before in fear but open now and believing as they met his.  She didn't smile, but for almost the first time since he had met her, Morgan thought she looked hopeful.

Chapter Seventeen

"I meant to tell you last week, but we were so busy," Julie began.  The words came slowly, calmly, with no hint of strong emotion.

"Tell me what?"

Her hesitation prepared him for confirmation of his suspicions but not for what she said.

"My father has given his permission for Hans to marry me." She added quickly, "No date has been set for the wedding, because Papa wants to wait to see how Mama responds to your treatment.  He seems pleased with her progress so far, but of course it's really too early to tell much, isn't it?"

"Much too soon."  It was a prayer as much as an agreement as he struggled not to reveal his reaction.

"I'm sure the wedding won't be scheduled sooner than October, when Hans is finished with his harvest.  Do you suppose you'll be able to tell about Mama by then? That's three months away."

Morgan remained wary.  Not once had Julie referred to the wedding as hers or even "ours."  And there was no excitement in her proclamation.  How could a woman, even one as sensible and reserved as Julie Hollstrom, not shout the news to the world?

 "I imagine we can make a fairly accurate guess about your mother's progress by then, but I can't promise anything at this point."

"No, of course not.  Anyway, I wanted to tell you about this before I started asking questions you might think improper for a single woman."

"Nothing is improper except ignorance, Julie."  Against his better judgment, Morgan left his post by the cupboard and came to sit with her.  "I don't suppose your mother ever told you what we euphemistically call 'the facts of life.' It's nothing to be ashamed of, or frightened of."

It's beautiful, it's sweet, it's wonderful, it's glorious
, he wanted to tell her as all the old feelings rushed back at him. 
When it's right, when a man and a woman love each other, there is nothing more exquisitely delightful in the whole world.

But that wasn't the kind of answer he could give Julie Hollstrom.  He had the feeling it wasn't the kind of answer she wanted to hear.

"Oh, I know the mechanics of it."  Her hands found the corner of the tablecloth to twist.  "Rinton, Indiana, was a farming town, so I kind of grew up knowing 'the facts of life.'"

She tossed the wrinkled corner of checkered cloth away and swallowed her shyness.  With a directness that threw him slightly off his guard, she met his eyes steadily.

"I want the truth, Dr, Morgan," she said.  "I saw Hans and that girl from Nellie's Saturday night.  He slapped her and dragged her down the alley.  No, don't try to tell me I was mistaken.  I confronted him yesterday after church, and he didn't deny it, so don't you."

That surprised Morgan almost as much as Julie's stern defiance.  He hadn't expected Wallenmund to own up to his sins so readily.  Then again, maybe Hans didn't consider his actions very sinful.

"He said that what he did with that girl was something he needed to be a man.  Is that true?  Do men really 'need' women that way?"

Of all the questions he had expected her to ask, this was not among them.

She looked so innocent, waiting for his reply, and yet when he searched her eyes he found the fear that still lurked.  He was certain, however, that at least at this moment she was not afraid of
him
.  She did indeed trust him, and he felt a stir of pride at that.  He had done little enough to deserve it, but he would do his best to keep it.

He also knew that what he was about to tell her could not help but hurt.  If she had come for reassurance, she would not get it from him, for he could not give it.  He was going to call the man she had agreed to marry ignorant at best, a liar at worst.

The truth hurts, he had been told so many times, but lies destroy.  He would not see Julie Hollstrom destroyed.

"Some men do have needs, Julie, just the way Hans told you.  But some of us consider the physical relationship we have with a woman to be a very special thing."  Strange phrases started into his head even as he tried to keep his concentration on a calm, sane, respectable answer to her question.  "Men sometimes get this proprietary feeling about their women, and you know as well as I that an adulterous woman is rarely tolerated by her husband, while a woman is expected to ignore her husband's indiscretions."

He was off on a tangent, expressing what he thought must be Julie's feelings, though she didn't seem at all hurt that Hans had strayed.  Maybe she just thought that, as a still unmarried man, he was free to indulge his lusts any way he chose.  Morgan chided himself for putting his own opinion into the picture when he had only been asked for facts.

"I'm sorry, Julie, I didn't mean to rant and rave that way."

"But what you said is true.  Women do accept their husbands' infidelities.  What choice do they have?"

Julie Hollstrom still had a choice.  She was not yet bound to this man she had promised to marry.  Morgan, shaking his head to silence the insanities of dreams he could never realize, determined to make her aware of that choice.

Don't let her marry the bastard
, insisted one of those crazy little insanities, one that wouldn't be shaken loose.

"Not all men are like that, Julie.  From the day I met Amy, I never touched another woman.  I never wanted to.  I waited three years before we were married, and I never regretted it."

"Hans has waited six."

No, he hasn't,
Morgan wanted to spit out. 
Hans has just been biding his time, entertaining himself with the whores.  And I'll bet he never gives you a second's thought while he's lying with another woman.

But when Morgan tried to phrase that vicious answer in more suitable terms, he looked at Julie and knew he didn't need to.  She understood completely.

"You loved Amy very much, didn't you?  More than you think Hans loves me."

He felt awkward.  He'd let himself get caught up in his old feelings again and said things he shouldn't have.  He lifted his coffee cup to give himself a chance to think, but the cup was empty.  Even the dregs had dried, leaving only a dark ring on the bottom of the cup.

"I can't judge his feelings, Julie.  I shouldn't have said what I did, and I'm sorry for that.  You asked me a simple question and I've made a real muddle of things.  I should have said, yes, some men need sex on a regular basis and others do quite well without it.  Some don't seem to care who they have it with, others abhor the thought of touching a woman they don't truly love."

"Like you and Amy."

"What Amy and I had was very rare.  I don't expect to see the like of it again.  I never touched another woman.  When Amy was pregnant and very, very ill, I didn't ask her to submit to my attentions.  I didn't even have any desires then, because I knew she wouldn't respond.  Without that, it would have been nothing.  That was the beauty of it, the sharing, the joy we had together."

She had never seen him like this and knew that it was the thoughts of Amy that lit his eyes with that golden emerald brightness.  He loved his wife as much now, six years in her grave, as he had the day she died.  No mortal woman could hope to compete with a memory like the one captured in Amy's wedding portrait, much less the one that lived in Morgan's heart.

Julie, accustomed to disguising her emotions, carefully hid her disappointment.  Some of it escaped, however, and Morgan did not miss the dimming of the hopeful spark in her eyes.  Where there had before been a dream of a smile on her lips, now there was only patient resignation.

He was about to apologize, for he had not realized how deeply his words wounded.  He had given her a glimpse of the unattainable, a peek into a paradise she believed she could never enter, and now she faced her marriage, which he honestly doubted she anticipated with any great joy before, with a sense of loss, for it could never be what he and Amy had had.

But before Morgan could frame an appropriate response, the man who had come Saturday with the boil on his face came again, knocking on the closed front door.  Julie went to answer the summons, as if grateful for any diversion that kept her from confessing any more.

Morgan watched her walk from the kitchen through the parlor and to the door.  Her shoulders didn't bow under the weight of her acceptance.  As though she defied disappointment, she faced her future with a kind of pride.  It made her all the more pitiable, all the more desirable.

*   *   *

He ran his fingers through his hair, squeezing the water until it trickled down his wet back.  The breeze chilled him, warm as it was, for the water had been warmer, here on the roof all day.

He shivered once, then reached for the towel he had laid on the warm tiles.  When he had rubbed his hair until it stopped dripping, he dried his body with brisk, almost harsh strokes.  Friction warmed him, and when he was done, he felt no urge to go inside.  He liked it out here on the roof, under a dark, starry sky.  Folding the towel to make a pillow, he lay down on the bare tiles and stared upward.