Anger, my old and familiar companion, surged. “You’re spouting theology and empty words. I read what you wrote about sex—that it’s either in marriage or else total abstinence. But sometimes love changes things. Or love should change things.”
He reached for his pipe and then his hand dropped as if even that was too much energy to muster. “We can’t just surrender to our every desire—man must have his principles and live by them regardless. Our nature must be controlled or it can ruin our lives.”
“But how?” I sounded like Davy when he asked ten million questions as a child, never satisfied with the first or second answer.
“If I attempt virtue, it brings light to my life. If I indulge desires, I invite fog and confusion.”
“Oh, Jack, that logic takes no account for the heart. How can you tell a heart what to do? I’m incapable of such things.” I turned away from him, desire’s fire alchemizing to anger.
“I’m trying,” he said. “Because I must.”
“I think it’s time for you to leave.” I took a step toward the back door, not wanting him to see the pain quivering on my face and the frustration shaking my body. His logic would not quell or explain.
“Joy.” His voice was soft, but I didn’t turn back to him.
“Your logic,” I said as I opened the door to enter the house. “It offers no rest for the heart.”
He was instantly next to me, his hands on my shoulders to spin me around to face him. “Don’t turn from me,” he said. “I cannot bear that. If we can’t indulge in eros, surely we have all the beauty that remains in philia.” He pulled me close to wrap his arms around me. Twilight turned to night and my head rested on his shoulder and the palm of his hand was on my neck, stroking my skin with gentleness as if consoling a small child after a frightful storm.
But this wasn’t fright he was trying to subdue; this was desire. His mind might twist firm around logic, but his body divulged the truth.
It was he who let me go, and gently touched my cheek before leaving me quaking without another word.
CHAPTER 43
Blessed are the bitter things of God
Not as I desire but as I need
“BLESSED ARE THE BITTER THINGS OF GOD,” JOY DAVIDMAN
Spring, 1955
Three months passed until I was able to return to the Kilns for the rising of spring. Touch between Jack and me came easier now, a hand on the knee or wrist, a hug in greeting or farewell. But still Jack was chaste in the way he knew how, keeping that last inch open.
“You know,” I said, handing Jack a pile of letters I’d answered for him that morning, “when your first letter arrived I was afraid to open it, believing that Warnie might have written instead of you.” I tapped the pile now in his hands. “Now I feel sorry for the poor bloke who receives my reply instead of yours.”
Jack shook his head. “For some of these questions posed, your answers are better than mine. The recipient should feel privileged to have your hand in it.” His voice was subdued, quieter than usual, and I took this to be a cue for peaceful work. I too sat, settling into my chair across from him. Pages of Queen Cinderella in my hand, I began to edit my work but found my mind wandering.
It was spring holiday at the Kilns. March of 1955 had arrived not quite like the lion it was rumored to be, but more like a heralding of all goodness and light. My sons ran through the Kilns and through Oxford as if they’d lived there all their life. The Screwtape Letters was out in paperback, and I was editing Jack’s biography and indexing Warnie’s history book. Our days together were languid, long and comfortable.
What a flip,
I’d written to Belle just the night before.
I once shared a bed with Bill, was part of his writing and his life, and yet I felt such contempt. And here I share love, esteem, and need, and yet not the bed. It’s taking some adjustment, but I won’t give it up. Not as long as he wants me here.
When I glanced from my pages, Jack was staring at me. His face, that endearing face, his sleepy eyes hooded.
“What is it?” I asked, knowing the curtain that fell over his dark eyes when something bothered him. No more could he hide from me than I from him.
“Now that I’m settled into Cambridge and have more free time, I’m dry as a bone. I have no more ideas, Joy. What if I’m done?” He leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. “Really bloody done?”
“What are you talking about?”
Jack rose and strolled across the room, his hand out as if seeming to miss his walking stick. He stood in front of the window, pulling aside the blackout curtain and pressing his palm against the window. “Maybe it’s over for me. My writing, that is.”