I Shall Be Near to You (3 page)

Seems to me a wedding ain’t the time to trot out war talk, like there ain’t a new casualty list posted outside the church door and enlistment posters up at the Mercantile calling for fresh volunteers, but I keep my mouth shut and focus on the stained-glass window behind Preacher’s head.

‘What then, are the principles of unity, of marriage, set out by our God? God tells us in Genesis that it is not good for man to be alone. He also tells us in First Corinthians that a wife must not separate from her husband …’

‘Why ain’t God said a thing about husbands going off to war?’ I say under my breath, making Betsy giggle and Mama give me a look.

‘… for although Eve led Adam astray, he did not forsake her, but was cast out in sorrow and in pain with her, to create a new home out of adversity. This same sorrow and pain and adversity strikes within our nation now, taking so many away from their communities, their homes, their wives, breaking apart our unity. I say to you that as a wife must submit to her husband and remain loyal to her husband, so must a state with its nation.’

Once Preacher says that, there is a stirring in the pews. I twist and crane my neck to look across the aisle and behind me and there is Jeremiah, jiggling his knee, sitting so straight and looking so handsome, like a man I don’t hardly know in a fresh brown suit and his hair all neat. I am willing him to look at me when Mama clamps my thigh.

‘Without Love,’ Preacher says, ‘there is nothing, and that is why I charge you to take the love you bear for each other and build a new Union …’

I don’t hear a word else that Preacher Bowers says. Instead I tug at the
tips of my fancy lace gloves over and over, until Mama clasps my hand tight in hers. She only lets go when Papa reaches out to help me stand.

Preacher asks my Papa, ‘Who gives this woman to be wedded to this man?’ and there is Jeremiah standing right across the aisle.

And then Papa leads me forward and with the whole church at my back he puts my hand on Jeremiah’s elbow. Jeremiah looks at me and before he walks us to the altar he whispers in my ear, ‘You look so pretty,’ and it is different than when Mama says, ‘You look prettiest
when
 …’

Preacher is still talking but not one bit of it stays in my mind. There is just Jeremiah taking a deep breath. His hands shaking. His eyes meeting mine: my something blue.

When it is my turn to say the vows sealing me to him for the rest of my days, I barely hear my own words until Jeremiah gets that soft, hungry look of his as I promise to be his faithful and loving wife. Then Preacher says we can kiss and Jeremiah’s mouth is hard on mine. I hold him fast even with the whole church of people watching because at least for now he is mine.

A
N ICY SNOW
covers the churchyard, but Jeremiah steadies me through the gate and across the schoolyard, every step crunching until we climb the schoolhouse steps and there is the hollow sound of wood beneath our feet. That schoolhouse don’t hold good memories, nothing but Miss Riggs’ ruler or Eli Snyder telling everyone I had hair full of nits, or Carrie Jewett singing songs about my cow-stink. I haven’t stepped foot in here since Papa got Mama to let me quit schooling and Jeremiah keeps his hand at the small of my back, pushing me forward, like he knows it’s no place I’d choose to be.

The woodstove inside is already burning, but I am shivering with cold, my leather boots soaked through. Jeremiah closes the door behind us and then he comes to me.

‘You’re so cold,’ he says. ‘Maybe we ought to stand by the stove …’

‘Maybe you ought to come and keep me warm,’ I say, and smile up at him, at this thing we can do now that what we are to each other ain’t a secret.

We stand right inside the door, Jeremiah at my back, his arms around me, waiting for everyone to come give us their congratulations and best wishes.

The desks are pushed back along the walls and the churchladies have all laid their best tablecloths and set out cookies and sweetbreads made special. At the front, on Miss Riggs’ desk, is Mama’s linen embroidered tablecloth, and sitting there is our wedding cake, a ginger cake from my new sister-in-law Sarah.

‘You all right?’ Jeremiah asks.

‘I just want to go home,’ I say, turning into him. ‘It’s too much, all these people looking at us, talking about us.’

‘It’s only nice things they’ll be saying.’

But I know how those churchladies talk, and their daughters judge, and I don’t tell him how I already heard Mrs. Jewett saying if people wanted to make a fuss over something they ought to be baking for soldiers’ boxes instead of some farm girl’s wedding.

Jeremiah takes my hands, holding them out wide as he takes a step back. ‘I ain’t missing this for the world,’ he grins. ‘When else do I get to show off my pretty new wife?’

My cheeks flush but I look from under my eyelashes at him, trying not to think what he means by
when else
.

The schoolhouse door opens and Jeremiah moves to stand beside me. My stomach drops like we’re standing back in front of the whole church.

Our families come ahead of the rest of the congregation, Jeremiah’s Ma, Mama and Betsy, our papas behind and then Jeremiah’s brothers and their wives and children. Jeremiah and his brothers are cut of the same cloth, their straight mouths and blue eyes and coffee-colored hair from their Ma, their long bones like their Pa. But Jeremiah is like cloth that has been washed to a softness, where James and Jesse are stiff and dark like fabric fresh off the bolt. Their wives, Alice and Sarah, ain’t a thing like me. Alice is big eyed and Sarah is quiet and both of them ain’t a thing but gentle.

They come at us fast, all at once. Mama beams like she has got every
one of God’s blessings and takes her place next to me, kissing me on the cheek. Jeremiah’s Ma stands straight in her lace collar next to him, looking at me like she is counting my flaws. But Papa takes my shoulders in both his hands and kisses my forehead. ‘You make me proud.’

It warms me from the inside out when Papa turns to Jeremiah and says, ‘You take care of my girl.’

Somehow Sully, standing a head taller than the rest, and Henry and Jimmy get themselves to the front of the line, and with their huffing they must’ve run across the schoolyard to get here quick. Those three boys are all proper with my Mama, but when Jimmy lingers over Betsy, too nervous to even shake her hand, Sully bumps past and takes mine like he aims to kiss it, like I am some fancy lady.

Henry pumps my arm up and down and then leans in to whisper, ‘You ain’t taking Jeremiah away from us, are you?’ and before I can say how I ain’t the one going anywhere, he turns to shake Jeremiah’s hand.

When Jimmy can’t hold up the line any more, he comes, saying, ‘You look real nice, Rosetta. I told Henry you’d clean up good.’

Henry and Jimmy’s Pa put his stamp on every one of his babies, giving them each his same sturdy build and ruddy coloring and crazy teeth, except Jimmy got all the freckles and smiles.

The people keep coming: the Prices with their daughter Harmony who only ever looks down at the floor, old Miss Weiss who tells me I look real fine when everyone knows she’s as blind as can be. Mrs. Waite, who used to be Elsie Callison, only two years ahead in school, steps up to me, her face pale against her black mourning dress, little Charlotte on her hip, that baby wearing black ribbon armbands too. Mrs. Waite glowed like a lantern the first months after she married Clarence Waite, was round with child not even six months later. Then Mr. Waite left for his ninety days, thinking to get a nest egg before the baby was born, and now he ain’t ever coming back. She rests her hand on my shoulder, swallowing back tears, and says, ‘I hope you’ll be happy,’ before hurrying past Jeremiah without saying a thing.

And then my attention snaps to the Snyders, who oughtn’t to have
bothered showing, not when Mr. Snyder and my Papa don’t do a thing but argue over water rights and Eli Snyder ain’t ever caused nothing but trouble for me. But of course they are here, with Mrs. Snyder being a particular friend of Jeremiah’s Ma. Jeremiah takes my hand tight and I hold everything inside a deep breath, reminding myself to be a good daughter-in-law. Mama is gracious to the Snyders and I make myself be like her for once, shaking their hands pleasant as can be.

When Eli steps forward I pretend he is nothing more than one of Sully’s carved figures come to life, with thick bones and coarse features. Eli grabs for my outstretched hand but before anyone can see how bad it’s shaking, Jeremiah moves to meet him, standing right in front of me.

‘Eli,’ Jeremiah says, ‘I didn’t think you’d be coming.’

Jeremiah’s Ma purses her lips together and then Eli’s eyes meet mine over Jeremiah’s shoulder. ‘Congratulations on getting yourself a wife,’ he says. ‘She managed to look real pretty today.’

Jeremiah says, ‘I think she does every day,’ and drops Eli’s hand to take up mine again. ‘’Scuse us, we’ve got a cake to cut.’

And then he drags me forward, putting his arm around my waist, and I let myself lean into him. He nods, all polite to everyone as we thread our way to the front, but out the side of his mouth he says, ‘We’ll go soon. Just wait ’til you see the big bed we’ve got at home.’

J
EREMIAH DRIVES THE
cart right on past the Wakefields’ barn. ‘I ain’t having Mrs. Wakefield walk from the barn to the house in her wedding dress,’ he says when he sees me looking confused.

And then he turns the horse off the main lane, ’til we come to a small clearing and the Little House, a box of a cabin with a window on either side of the door where me and Jeremiah used to sneak to play marbles. Jeremiah only barely has the horse pulled to a stop next to the porch before I am peeling off the quilts, to see what he has made of this place.

‘Don’t move,’ Jeremiah says, and he jumps out and runs in front of the horse, wrapping the check rein around the porch railing before coming to
my side of the cart. When he holds out his hand like I am something special, I laugh. But he don’t hand me from that cart like a fine lady. As soon as I gather my skirt to step down, he gets one arm behind my back and the other at my knees and swoops me off my feet.

‘Hold on!’ I shriek, and it ain’t what I mean, but Jeremiah grabs tighter and carries me up the two steps onto the porch before kicking open the door.

‘Our house,’ he says when he sets my feet down on the freshly whitewashed floor. ‘What do you think?’

He leads me into the kitchen. There is a faded blue braided rug, and below the front window at the table is the bench my Papa made as a gift, a folded-up quilt on the seat. Jeremiah has tried to make it nice.

He takes my hand, his mouth starting to go straight. ‘You ain’t saying anything.’

‘It’s just right.’ It is so easy to make him smile.

‘The horse,’ he says. ‘Don’t go anywhere.’

And he walks out of the house, leaving me there to dig through the hope chest for the sheets Betsy and I hemmed and the double wedding ring quilt, to take out the few dishes Mama could spare. Seeing those things don’t make the place feel like home, don’t make me feel like a wife. Without Jeremiah beside me, all I feel is like a guest in someone else’s house. But that is just because we ain’t had a chance to make this Little House ours yet.

‘W
E
’
VE GOT TWO
days,’ Jeremiah says when he comes back, banging the door shut, his boots clomping on the floor.

I am keeping my hands busy, working to get a fire going using wood from the full box next to the hearth. I spin to see him, dropping the flint, my heart sinking to think he is leaving so soon.

‘Two days for what?’ I ask, the words out of my mouth before I see Jeremiah is smiling.

‘For our honeymoon. For learning to be together, like man and wife, without worrying over chores. For practicing,’ he says.

I blush to hear him say it.

The first time we practiced together was almost four years ago, for a different thing altogether, back when I asked Jeremiah to teach me about fighting.

It took me days to finally get Jeremiah alone because the O’Malleys never did take a hint and there’s no good excuse to walk all the way to the Wakefield farm.

I finally caught him as he turned the corner past the Mercantile, calling his name so loud it scared even me.

‘Jeremiah! I’ve got something to ask you,’ I said when I got up next to him.

‘Okay.’ He stepped back like I was a wild animal, might bite him any minute.

‘Can you teach me to fight?’

His breath came out so loud I wondered how he could keep so much air inside him. Then he grinned.

‘What do you want to learn that for?’ he asked. ‘Is Eli still bothering you? I swear that boy ain’t fit for the slaughterhouse.’

‘It ain’t Eli,’ I lied, because I didn’t want no more trouble. ‘Do I need a reason?’

Jeremiah squinted at me. Then he shrugged. ‘There ain’t a thing to it. You’ve just got to punch and not get punched.’

‘There’s got to be more than that!’

He shook his head. ‘No, it’s about that plain. And you go for weak spots.’

‘You talking about male parts?’

His mouth dropped. ‘It ain’t only that. There’s other weak places.’

‘Like what?’ I tugged on his arm. ‘You’ve got to show me.’

Jeremiah looked up and down the dirt road, like he was checking for spies. He took my elbow, dragging me to the side of the road, under the shade of an oak. Then he put his hands on my lower back. I almost jumped away, but for his stare.

‘Here, where the kidneys are,’ he said. ‘You punch there. And then here—’ His hands brushed across my stomach and I sucked in, quivering but standing firm.

‘And here.’ He touched the very tip of my nose. It was the first time he touched me since Carrie made me so mad I broke Miss Riggs’ inkwell and Jeremiah walked me all the way to Doc Cuck’s. I can still feel his arm around my shoulder like he thought I might faint from the blood my hand was dripping.

I tried to think about anything but Jeremiah touching me. About where I’d like to punch Eli the next time he said something mean. About the trees behind Jeremiah’s shoulder, their leaves going orange and red.