“Yes,” I replied. “A very brand-new year.”
Back in London, January’s gift was deep snows with fat snowflakes and bitter cold, which brought me the flu. Set in bed for a week, I had much to think about with my new Cinderella book. Warnie had sent valuable books and research. Although I couldn’t get my brain to work well enough to write, I could make it read.
A deep and broken part of me wanted to give up on the writing. Smoke’s low sales in America seemed the last disappointment I could tolerate. Good reviews and all that, but otherwise a loss. Soon it would release in England and I waited, hoping that Jack’s preface and large name on the cover would help. Money was an ever-present worry.
Jack settled easily into Cambridge, and we both wondered aloud how he ever could have thought of turning it down in the first place, much less twice. We spent as much time together as we could—whether I was editing his book or helping him choose a hearthrug for his room. I hand-delivered pages with the excuse that he needed them straightaway, but really just to be near him. And he too stopped in London for no other reason but to linger at my side. He met more of my friends and even accompanied me to the Globe Tavern to meet the sci-fi boys, where he was both revered and stared at with curiosity.
Although I had a busy social life and was beginning to find my place in the London crowd, I missed Jack when he was gone; I was at peace when he was near. What category of his four loves could possibly contain this definition?
The evening was cold when he and I stood in my backyard, bundled in our coats and scarves as he smoked a cigarette and talked about a meeting he’d had at Cambridge. Twilight fell across his face, lighting it aflame.
I turned my palms up and let the light puddle there on my gloves as if it were resting before disappearing. “Look at that,” I said.
“Patches of Godlight.” Jack touched my gloved hand as if he too could hold the twilight.
We paused, both of us seeming to hold our breath. He wrapped his fingers through mine and drew me closer as he dropped his cigarette to the ground. We were face-to-face, only inches between us. Neither of us spoke.
I was afraid to move, to speak, to break the twilight spell that held us both in its Godlight. With his other hand he touched my cheek, the fuzziness of his glove tickling my skin. I leaned into his palm just as Sultan had once done with me, and he allowed that tender moment before dropping both his hands and taking a step back.
My breath held, and the tremor of desire flamed below my stomach. “Why do you stop yourself, Jack?” I asked, my voice deep and quiet.
“Stop myself?”
“I need to understand why you stop yourself from kissing me, just when I believe you will.”
“Oh, Joy.” He hesitated. “I don’t want to cross over to eros and destroy the love we do have. I can’t lose you or this deep, abiding friendship. And the church forbids our union. In their eyes, you’re technically still married. And I’m an old man—too old to start again or change.”
I took his hand again, pressed it to my heart. “I’ve watched what’s happening to poor Princess Margaret. I see how the Church of England views divorce; I’ve watched from afar the abdication crisis of King Edward, how his love for Wallis made him choose between the crown and love. He chose love. Sometimes that’s what happens; love is preferred, but usually not. Usually the crown or the god or the family or the duty is chosen. I understand this, of course. Lives are altered. Completely settled, lovely lives can be altered by love. And who wants change? Hardly anyone at all.” Frustration crept into my voice. “But I don’t understand why you keep the most vulnerable pieces of your heart from me. Why do you draw near and then fall back? Because I can feel your love.”
“Joy.” He exhaled my name and took a step not closer but farther away, as if I had pushed him, and maybe I had. I dropped his hand.
“I’ve spent all of my life in an attempt to find Truth and moral good, and then to live it. I can’t discard my moral habits for feelings, which are just that—feelings.”
“The virtues,” I said. He’d written about them at length, and I discerned that they were as ingrained in him as the wrinkles now radiating from the corner of his mouth and drooping eyes.
“They are my footholds for moral goodness. Morality is about choice.”
“You think God is judging you for wanting us, or because I’m divorced?”
“God doesn’t judge by internal disease but by moral choices. We must protect our hearts.”