Blessings by Belva Plain Read Free Book Online Page A

contagious, in the same way that Mom’s worrying was contagious. At home she felt an underlying anxiety, even when conversation was pleasant enough; she felt a vague fear that things— what things?—might at any minute crumble, that there were no supports. It felt good to be with a person who was happy. Happiness made you strong.
    Toward the middle of their second month together Peter kissed her. Afterward she remembered her first thought: This kiss, unlike any other, means something. It was late one afternoon and raining, so that there were hardly any people out to see them. She was holding an umbrella when he took her in his arms; letting the umbrella drop, she reached around his neck, and they stood like that for a long time in the soft rain.
    For another week or two there were more such fervent, innocent embraces, becoming each time more and more disturbing, as they pressed against each other with the heat of their bodies flaming through all the layers of heavy cloth. When he let her go, her nerves were alive. When she trudged upstairs to her room, she felt as if part of her had been torn away. Not enough, she thought. It’s not enough.
    “It’s not good like this,” Peter said one day. “We have to do something about ourselves.” And as she did not answer, he said, “We need each other, Jennie. Really need. Do you understand?”
    “I know. I understand.”
    “Then will you leave it to me to plan everything?”
    “I leave it all to you. I always will.”
    “Oh, darling Jennie.”
    All that week before the great change was to come, she could think of nothing else. She had always slept in pajamas, but now she went out and bought a pink nightgown trimmed with ruffled lace. Her moods fluctuated. Sometimes she felt the excitement catching in her throat; then she read poetry or turned the radio to splendid music, something that soared in triumph, like Beethoven’s Ninth. She felt like crying. Then she felt like laughing. As the weekend came closer, a thin strain of fear crept into her spirit, and she was afraid of the fear, afraid that it would be there to spoil the joy.
    But he was very gentle, and she need not have been afraid. When the door to the motel room closed, he turned toward her with an expression so reassuring, so loving and protective, that all fear vanished. Tactfully he dimmed the strong glare of the overhead light, leaving only a lamp in the corner. With none of the haste or roughness that others had described, or about which Jennie had read, he took off her clothes.
    “I’ll never hurt you,” he whispered. “Never in any way.”
    And she knew it was true. He would never willfully hurt anyone. The beating heart under the hard male chest was soft. So she came to him willingly and gladly.
    She never got to wear the fancy nightgown. In the morning they laughed about that. They took a last look around the drab room and laughed about that too. It had been warm and clean, and that was enough. They would be back.
    How exquisite was the world! The way a sparrow left its tiny arrow-shaped prints on the snow. Pyramids of apples, sleek as red silk. The smile of a stranger holding a door for her to pass through. All were beautiful.
    Yet sometimes—rarely, it is true—before falling asleep or while dreaming over a textbook, Jennie wondered whether these marvelous feelings could last through four more years. Four years! It was forever. And a little chill would shake her.
    “Don’t leave me, Peter,” she said aloud into the darkness.
    He told her gravely one day, “This is forever, you know.”
    “We’re very young to know our own minds,” she answered, testing, waiting for his denial.
    And it came: “Only a couple of generations ago people married at sixteen. They still do, in some places. We’ll just postpone it, that’s all. Get there a little later, when we graduate.”
    “That’s true.”
    Best not to think about it too hard. If you don’t think about a good thing, it will happen.
    “I have