“Yes!”
“Well, if I had to guess, Mrs. Moore was a mother substitute for him as well as a promise he fulfilled. I haven’t asked . . .” I cringed with the thought of it.
“You must ask!” she said with a laugh, and then she jumped up. “There’s an empty taxi.” She lifted her arm, waved, and whistled, and the yellow cab squealed to the curb. It was time for me to catch a cab to the Columbia Club for the MacDowell Colony party.
I hugged her, holding her tightly “I love you, Belle.”
“I love you too, Joy. Be safe.”
I climbed into the dingy back seat and waved good-bye to my best friend. I didn’t know when I would see her again, but even her words would not keep me with Bill or in New York for very much longer.
CHAPTER 30
Sir, you may correct me with your rod.
I have loved you better than I loved my God
“SONNET X,” JOY DAVIDMAN
In the following months in New York, I wrote as if sentences were blood, as if they would save me. I pressed out articles and short stories, anything to find enough money to leave. Yet none of my work sold. I poured out my life’s hours for nothing.
In private, I emptied sonnets from my heart, missing England and Oxford and yes, Jack. Sometimes I wrote these poems to God, sometimes to myself, and sometimes to lost love. The old Underwood clacked so long and harsh I heard it in my dreams, as if even my sleeping self typed in vain.
If I had known all my life that some place like the Kilns and some men like Warnie and Jack existed, I would have been able to bear burdens with more ease. Surrounded by the ragged warmth of old furniture, stained rugs, and walls made of books, it was like living in a land of stories. I couldn’t help but believe that I should have been there all along, that I was meant for it.
I gathered the memories like wool to keep me warm: Walking Shotover with Jack and Warnie. Listening to their childhood stories. Awaking to the English countryside beyond my window, the sunlight luxuriant even in the icy cold of winter. The miniature whitecaps on the lake during a wind, and the stark hibernating gardens of the Kilns.
The pubs. Eastgate, where we’d met and then gone numerous times for a pint and a grouse. Ampleforth and Headington. The Bird and Baby. The quiet evenings and the songbird mornings. The smoke-filled common room and the chatter of men’s low voices wandering down the hallways of the rickety house.
In the first weeks after arriving home I checked the mailbox even when I knew the mail had not yet been delivered, afraid that Jack would never write me again, frightened that I’d delivered the final blow to our friendship with my abject need when I left. Then a letter arrived, and with it the ache of our misunderstanding at my departure slowly dissolved.
Joy:
Dear Jack,
Maybe this pain is punishment for the things I’ve done in my life.
Jack:
It is dangerous to assume that pain is penal. I do believe that all pain is contrary to God’s will. You must leave Bill, Joy. There is no reason to stay with such misery.
Warnie:
We’ve had the flu here, but we are both working jolly hard on our new books. How is your work on our little project? Is our Queen Cinderella coming alive?
One night I stood in front of the mirror and attempted to see what Jack must see: my brown （not blonde!） hair was beginning to thread with gray; the lines on my face were etched deeper by the day. I leaned closer and looked at the downward turn of my lips, the thin lines resistant to all moisture creams, the extra fold on my eyelids, the half spider web that seemed to be sewn overnight from the far corners of my eyes. There was nothing to be done about any of this, what time took from me, and despair again grasped my hope in its hand and squeezed it dry of life.
I sank to my desk, and in handwriting tight with heartbreak, poured out my sorrow into yet another sonnet.
You have such reasons for not loving me.
A knock came to my door; I closed my eyes, girding my heart to deal with another blow dealt by Bill’s hammered words. But it was Renee who entered.
“Joy,” she said, “I can’t live this way anymore.” She took one hesitant step forward. “My heart is breaking, and our shattered friendship has destroyed me.”
“Can we stop this then?” I asked. “I want a divorce as badly as you do, Renee. Can we work together to bring this hell to an end? In the name of family and peace?”
“Yes.” Her eyes were swollen with grief, and her pretty face contorted. “You don’t love Bill anyway. You love someone else—I can tell. How can you be feeling hurt?”