“The money will come, Davy. We will find a way. We always find a way. God is with us; I know that.”
“How can you know that?” His face tightened.
I closed my eyes; I reached inside for the calm, centered space—around the corner from my ego, bypassing my grasping need and fear, and then opened my eyes to look directly at my son. “I can’t know, not like that. But I trust.”
CHAPTER 33
Saying I must not love him any more;
But now at last I learn to disobey
“SONNET VIII” （PREVIOUSLY TITLED “SONNET OF MISUNDERSTANDINGS”）， JOY DAVIDMAN
December 17, 1953
The small courtyard at Avoco House was but a miniature and dirty replacement for the gardens and land outside our Staatsburg house, but it was better than concrete. That December morning my sons played a game of their own making outside the open door while I packed for our first outing to visit Jack. I placed sandwiches in a basket, a thermos of hot tea, and blankets.
It had been a year since I’d seen Jack and Warnie; anticipation swooped in my chest, down and under, up again. A year since I’d written the “Sonnet of Misunderstanding” on the RMS Franconia as I returned to America—all about leaving Jack and what he must believe about my feelings, how he seemed to send me away with an indirect command not to love him in any other way but philia.
“Boys,” I called out to the courtyard, “I’m getting dressed, and to catch the train we must leave in an hour. Please don’t destroy your outfits.”
“Okay, Mommy.” Davy didn’t glance toward me at all but continued in his invisible sword fight with Douglas.
My heart swelled. I was in London with my sons. Starting a new life was never easy, I reminded myself. There would be bumps along the way.
I’d decided on Dane Court school for the boys—only a half hour away by train, and it allowed parents to visit as much as possible. As soon as the boys settled there in January, I would find a job and start writing again. A life could and would be built.
My courage couldn’t flag now.
“It’s odd,” I’d told Michal over drinks the previous night. “One would believe that being a Christian would keep me in my marriage, but it is the trust in God that allowed me to start a new life.”
She’d laughed and shaken those soft curls. “Being a Christian isn’t what most think it is—all rules and regulations.” She clinked her glass with the red lipstick stain on the rim against mine. “It is all trust and surrender and transformation, at its best.”
In my bedroom, three outfits were spread across my bed. The tweed dress with the cinched waist that showed off my best assets. The flannel trousers with a wool jacket and a white collar. And a gray wool skirt with a matching jacket. I shivered in the cold and snatched up the dress, packing the remaining two outfits in the valise.
I slipped on my girdle and rolled the parts of myself I wished I could hide into the thick fabric. I fastened my bra and slid the dress over my body, letting it fall around me, and then turned to the mirror. I added a blue chiffon scarf I’d splurged on during my last journey to England. What woman would Jack see now?
The three of us locked the doors, and soon we arrived at Paddington Station, each carrying our own bag and me one long box with a Christmas gift inside for Jack. Although we weren’t staying Christmas Day, I wanted it to rest under his tree.
I held my sons’ hands under the grotto of smog-stained steel and glass towering over us. Douglas leaned his head back to stare at the ceiling. “It’s so dirty,” he said.
I pointed up with my gloved hand. “If you squint away the smoke, you’ll see it’s beautiful. Look at the intricate scrollwork and arched windows.”
The sun filtered through the Victorian filigree decorations and glinted against the metal and open iron in snowflake patterns onto the concrete floor. Men and women, children and crying babies in arms, swarmed like fish in a closed pond, moving in circles and vying for position.
Douglas straightened his head and stared at me but didn’t reply, and even if he had it would have been drowned out by the tinny, high-pitched voice over the loudspeakers announcing train arrivals. Baggage trolleys wheeled by with frantic travelers while other passengers sat reading or chatting on the S-shaped benches as if they had all the time in the world. The police with their bright-red hats hovered over the crowd, eyeing everyone with suspicion. This was my new world.
“The 144 to Reading and Oxford, now on platform 6,” a voice bellowed over the speakers, and together, a little bundle of three, we hustled across the concrete floor to the double-sided platform.