“Boys,” I said when I tucked them in a week before my leaving, “I love you so much. As big as the universe.”
“The universe can’t be measured,” Davy said with his new celestial wisdom.
“Exactly,” I said.
“When you come back, will you bring us presents?” Douglas asked.
“Loads of them.”
“Do you think Mr. Lewis will be as nice as the professor in his book?”
“Even nicer,” I said. “I will write to you and tell you everything about him.”
They fell asleep as easily as exhausted children can, and I stood over them, tears running down my face and into the corners of my lips.
When we arrived at the pier of the Hudson River docks that August morning, Bill stood tall and stiff as the dock’s pilings. “Safe travels, Joy.” He offered a weak hug.
I took his hands. “This is a trip for all of us. It will be a return to health, more stable finances, and vitality for our family. You see that, don’t you, Poogle?”
He turned away, and Renee came to me. She held me longer, her hug tighter. She stepped back in her red sundress and wide-brimmed straw hat and smiled. “I will miss you, cookie. Come home safely and quickly.” She kissed my cheek, and I knew there would be a bright-red mark from her lipstick.
A humid breeze carrying the pungent stench of smoke and gasoline washed over us as I held out my arms to my sons. Behind me the grand ocean liner waited, a mountain of a ship I would soon board. “Davy, Douglas. Come to me.”
One son under each arm, I drew them in a tight circle and kissed their faces, every little inch. “I will be home soon. I love you so much.” My voice snagged on the tears clogged in my throat.
“Don’t cry, Mommy.” Douglas patted my cheek. “You can bring us presents from England.”
Davy buried his head in my shoulder and began to cry softly, his glasses falling to the ground. I lifted his face and held his chin in my hand to see his deep brown eyes fixed on mine. “Look at the moon and know that I’ll be looking at it too. We will be under the same stars and the same sky. And it will carry me home. I promise you.”
We clung to each other until Bill announced, “Let’s not make this worse than it is. You must go now.”
With two more kisses on my sons’ cheeks, I watched as Bill took their hands and the foursome walked away toward Bobby and Rosemary, who stood waiting at the end of the sidewalk. It was only Douglas who looked back and waved. I didn’t move one step until they were gone from sight, and then slowly I lifted my eyes to the ocean liner. She held firm to the docks with ropes as thick as trees, and she didn’t move in the choppy waters, although all around her the water swayed, danced, and slapped against her hull. Tall white letters along her smooth ribs declared: SS United States.
Onboard, the wind was warm, and I could almost taste the sweet-salt middle of the ocean, where the heat would dissipate. I stood on the aft deck, my dress flapping like a bird that couldn’t get off the ground, and I stayed there until the Statue of Liberty was as small as a toy in a gift shop, until the last of land faded from view and the vast sea was all that remained.
PART II
ENGLAND
“。 . . you can’t keep him; it’s not as if he were a tame lion.”
THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER, C. S. LEWIS
CHAPTER 9
Love is this and that and always present
“SONNET III,” JOY DAVIDMAN
August 1952
I stepped off the SS United States onto the Southhampton docks, squinting through my glasses at the unfamiliar country shrouded in fog and coal dust. The land, and what lush green glory it held for me, rested somewhere beyond.
I dragged my luggage, a sight I’m sure for all to see, because even with the smog and dirt, I had a feeling of such lightness and gaiety that the malaise I’d been carrying for years fell off like shed skin. I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had chased me down and bellowed, “You dropped something back there!”
I had left my family in America, and I knew there were neighbors and friends who didn’t understand. Our church community scowled. Other women talked about me. And yet must not their souls die inside? Did they not feel the anxiety that comes when the inner light rises and cries out, “Let me live”？
Perhaps our Maker had stitched us each together in such a way that this was not true of all women. I could have kept on the way I was going, empty and jaundiced, sick and desolate of soul. I could have tried even harder to erase the stench of whiskey from my alcoholic husband, to scrub the floors cleaner, to quiet my troubled heart. Of course I could have, but what would it have cost me?