The Fulfillment by Lavyrle Spencer Read Free Book Online

come back.”
    She couldn’t help saying it, even though she knew it wasn’t so. She wanted him to know how he’d hurt her.
    â€œYou know that’s not so, Mary. This is where you belong.”
    â€œYes. In your bed, not Aaron’s.”
    â€œYou’ve been seven years in my bed, with no babies.”
    â€œAnd you need one that bad, you’d send me to Aaron?”
    â€œIt was a way that come to me, Mary.”
    â€œWell, it’s no way at all.”
    Jonathan inhaled deeply. “I said it all wrong, I know. I meant to say it better, so you’d understand.”
    â€œOh, Jonathan, it doesn’t matter how you said it, it only matters you did. There’s no good way to ask a thing like that.”
    â€œBut don’t you see? It’s something I wanted for you, too. I see you going year after year and still lookin’ like a child yourself…and everybody else has got more kids than they need. I can see the need in you.”
    â€œBut you had no right to ask it of Aaron and me.” In an impatient voice she continued, “It’s not a seed you just borrow like a punkin seed, Jonathan. You might want a punkin like the one in your neighbor’s punkin patch, but planting a punkin seed is different than a man’s.”
    He was quiet then, still lying with his head on his arms, looking at the ceiling. After a space he said, “I had such plans for the place, you know, always thought of working it into something even better to pass on to a son.”
    She lay, like him, staring at the ceiling.
    â€œI was proud of all those plans, too, Jonathan. That summer I came from Chicago to Aunt Mabel’s—why, I had no intention of staying. I was only coming to help her out for the summer. When you came along in Uncle Garner’s threshing crew and started talking about this place, I could nearly see it before you ever brought me here. You made me proud of all the plans you had, and I was willing to share them with you. But this plan now—there’s no sharing it.”
    â€œAre you sorry you came to this place with me, Mary?”
    â€œI’m not sorry I came, Jonathan, only sorry about this…this obsession you have, about the baby.”
    â€œObsession?”
    â€œYou’ve got it in your head that without a son you’re working for nothing. But that’s not true. You’ve got…we’ve got…a lot. And yes, I’d like a child, too, but I’m not willing to sell my soul to get it. I’m not going to let the need of it change me like it has you.”
    â€œChange me?” He turned his head to look at her beside him.
    â€œDidn’t it change you, Jonathan?”
    He didn’t answer.
    â€œWell, then, how did you come to where you could ask what you did tonight?”
    He knew she was crying then because she turned her face toward the wall.
    â€œI did wrong, Mary,” he said, and reached out to touch her, not knowing much about comforting her, for he’d never had much cause to do so.
    â€œOh, Jonathan, how can we face Aaron in the morning?”
    â€œWe’ll weather it, Mary.” It sounded hopelessly inadequate even to Jonathan, but he didn’t know what else to say.
    â€œHow?” Her crying was audible now.
    He patted her arm, leaning above her on an elbow. “We’ll weather it somehow,” he repeated. Her arm under the nightgown was warm, folded across her chest, and he could feel it rise and fall with her breathing. She never cried, and Jonathan realized what a feeling of concern those tears had evoked in him. She was such a child—and he hadn’t thought to hurt her this way. How could he take away that hurt?
    â€œWe could try again,” he said, moving his hand onto her breast, feeling her stiffen at his touch.
    â€œThis way? And then you think this will wash away all the sourness of today like you wash away the clabbered milk from a pail? Well,