Disclaimer: Copyrights belong to their respective owners.
WARNING: It gets a little steamy.
Chapter Seven:
Leave the Living
Mary stood at the foot of the bed, silent and still, but Clarke fell to his knees, staring dumbly into Charlotte's grey face. He took her tiny hand, her precious little hand, and felt that it was cold and limp within his. Losing Emanuel had been almost bearable; he had accepted that the boy was not strong enough to survive Typhoid, but Charlotte was so like her mother, Charlotte was Mary's life, was Clarke's joy. This loss was too great to bear and so he buried his face in the blankets and wept silently like a child.
...
Two small graves flanking on large one; Mary didn't even have to ask Clarke to have the children buried by William Bryant. It seemed unreal to be standing next to his unmoving wife over the graves of two innocent children. If it had been his funeral, he would have understood her silence, but he expected Mary's grief to overcome her. He had expected torrents of hysteria, he had expected her to go mad, to bash around the room like a caged bird, but she didn't even shed a tear.
He had wept, he had growled at doctors and undertakers; he had silenced every comforter with a single look from cold, green eyes, but Mary had not once shown grief. It wasn't until this grey morning, standing side by side over coffins that were heart-wrenchingly small beside the large grave of their father's that he understood. Mary had known too much grief; it had become air to her. She had already cried too much before.
Clarke closed the window to keep the smoke out of the house. To keep disease from spreading, the doctor had ordered Charlotte's mattress, her clothes, Emanuel's crib, everything be burned. At first, Clarke was only too happy to be rid of such painful reminders of his loss, but as he watched the children's possession slowly be consumed by the flame, he felt like he was being cheated, like they were being stolen from him again.
When he turned from the window, he saw Mary standing in the doorway of the parlour, staring at him plainly. He couldn't breathe when she looked at him like that.
"I suppose this is God's punishment for my crimes," she said caustically, approaching him with crossed arms.
"No," he replied evenly, his voice low and sincere. "It's my punishment too."
The night was far too still and Clarke couldn't sleep. He had stopped crying for the children long ago and the ache had dulled, but the emptiness seemed endless. He wondered if it would ever be filled. He had loved being a father, he had loved the sight them at meals, loved teaching Charlotte about the earth and sky, he even loved cooing at Emanuel when he was fussy.
As a botanist, he knew what it meant to nurture something and watch it grow and produce. He took comfort responsibility, in caring for things, and the children needed that from him as desperately as he needed to give it. Now they were gone and the house seemed so desolate.
For some strange reason, Clarke wasn't startled when his bedroom door opened and he turned to see Mary standing in the threshold. She looked at him mutely, her eyes saying what her lips could not. This was the Mary that had come to his door in the middle of the night, with no other option. He silently held up the comforter and made room for her beside him.
She moved easily, not swiftly nor hesitantly, to climb into bed. She seemed different from the wild animal that held his gaze so fixedly so long ago. She seemed tame, subdued. The fire was gone, extinguished along with everything else, and Clarke could not help but mourn it.
Mary nestled herself into his most willing arms and Clarke kissed her head with a sigh, understanding all too well why she was there. She needed companionship, she needed the warmth of another human being beside her, it didn't matter who, though he couldn't resist the fleeting notion that she trusted in his sympathy. He had learned long ago not to ask Mary for more than she could give, but to always give her everything she asked of him. It comforted him to comfort her, and, while it didn't bring the children back or mend the wounds upon his heart, feeling within his arms satiated the ache they always felt for her.
Clarke started a little when he felt the scalding moisture of her first tear upon his breast and settled into the mattress again when it was instantly succeeded by her second. When her shoulders began to shake, he held her closer, stronger. When her sobs echoed from her throat, he soothed and hushed her. He didn't care that her arms were only clinging to him because he was there, that he was little more than a mast to be tethered to in a storm. He welcomed the dull ached her embrace tendered him and continued to hold her back with all his might.
They fell into a new routine after that night. In the mornings, Clarke would rise with the dawn and she would sleep until the room was too bright for her to keep her eyes shut. They didn't eat breakfast, but occasionally, Mary would ask Clarke to read something from Scripture while she practiced her letters. While she and Marleen had their lessons, Clarke would tend to the daffodils, the only thing left to remind him of Charlotte.
The one thing that changed was that Mary called him Ralph. She had never before called him by his Christian-name, not even when they made love in Botany Bay, but now she seemed to always address him by it. "Ralph, dinner is ready." "Ralph, would you like some tea?" "Ralph, would you help me please?"
At night, Mary would climb in bed beside him. He always kept carefully to his side, letting her take initiative. Some nights would pass without the slightest movement from either of them, others she would inch herself up so that she was lying against him. On some occasions, he would wake to find her hand upon his but, on the nights when the pain was too much for her to bear alone, she would snake her way into his embrace and remain there until morning.
Mary Clarke: his wife.
She became dearer to him everyday. She was imbedded in his routine: he woke beside her and fell asleep to the sound of her breathing. She was his obsession, unlike any liquor or opiate man had been ensnared by. She was his great love, his great hate. She provoked and soothed him, drew him like a moth to a flame.
Her joy became his joy, so he sought to make her happy in whatever small way he could find. Her pain became his pain, so he protected her with all his might.
Still, the ocean remained, separating them, dividing them. William Bryant was caught up within its depths, and now the children had joined him. Ralph knew there would be no swimming this sea and no ship would ever ferry him across to her, so he decided to surrender to it.
"Forgive me," he whispered to her one night as her eyes stared at him in the darkness of their bedroom. "Forgive me, Mary. Forgive me, please."
Mary said nothing, but reached across the bed to take his hand in hers.
The first time they made love, was a consummation; Ralph had waited for that moment for four years. It was sweet and tentative. The second time was desire; it was passionate and desperate. The last time stemmed from elation, from the belief that she loved him and wouldn't leave him, but ended with the bitterness of betrayal.
Tonight, however, tonight was forgiveness. Each kiss was bittersweet from the tears, the pain, the lies, the anger, and the guilt that had encompassed them for so long. Tonight was purgatory for every crime they had committed against one another. Tonight, Mary's every kiss seared his skin, making him forever hers while his own lips fervently claimed her as his own.
In the past, Ralph had made love to the idea of Mary, of what she was to him, but in that they weren't Adam and Eve, twilight or morning; they were flesh and blood. They wept, they ached, they bled, and they forgave each other in spite of it all.
Tonight, they were real.
