"If you don't mind my prying...what was it like to be blind?"
Timothy chuckled. "Well-"
"-because if you don't want to tell me anything-"
"-I want to tell you everything."
Timothy smiled and looked up into the pure-blue sky. He let Lucy decide what to do on their first date. She asked him to pack a picnic and to take her to the place in Colorado where one could see the most sky. The picnic basket laid unopened by the blanket, as Lucy had immediately decided that lunch could wait, and that cloud-gazing was a more important task that needed her immediate attention. Timothy indulged her, and laid down on his back beside her.
"Being blind didn't come suddenly," Timothy began his tale. "I had a disease of the eye that Dr. Mike diagnosed for me."
"Then it's odd that you got it back from a fall, yes?" Lucy asked.
"That's right," Timothy answered, sighing contentedly. "But even as my sight gradually went away, I was very afraid. Afraid that God had abandoned me. Afraid that I would have to leave my church and my town. Afraid I'd be reduced to a body in a hospital for however long my life may be. Then, the world went completely black. I felt detached from everything around me. It was almost like walking in an uncomfortable dream. I felt vulnerable and infantile. I needed to learn how to walk with a cane, and even how to eat properly again."
"And you were even more afraid then?" Lucy pried.
"No. With the darkness came sorrow more than anything. I was never going to see a glorious sunset, or the smile of a child, or the intent gazes of my congregation as I preached to them. A part of me wanted to...give up entirely."
"Did you want to forfeit your life?" Lucy asked fearfully.
"It crossed my mind," Timothy confirmed. "But I am ashamed to say so now. I know life is God's most precious gift, and nothing truly justifies the taking of it."
Timothy felt something gently graze his hand. It was Lucy's warm, gentle hand. She was weaving her fingers in between his. Timothy felt a romantic shiver run up his spine.
"I got used to being blind over time, and life went on," he recalled. "I accepted my new lot, and was even able to keep preaching of course. After a while, I even stopped begging God to restore my sight. After I stopped asking for it...he brought you, and you gave it back to me."
Lucy giggled at the flattery, but just for a moment. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard you say, you know."
"What is?"
"That I'm an angel!" Lucy declared. "I would have thought that growing up in a place called 'Hell's Kitchen' would have been a clue for you."
Timothy laughed. "Why was it called that?"
"I'm not entirely sure. It's Irish, like me," Lucy said softly. "Maybe because it was such a close, tight, overpopulated neighborhood that it was always hot and damp?"
Timothy stayed silent a moment, not knowing what to say. "Now," he finally added. "It's my time to pry."
"Then by all means, pry," Lucy whispered.
"What was it like living in New York City?" he inquired.
"Not easy," Lucy muttered. "My mother was an Irish immigrant, and my father was the son of Irish immigrants. We all lived together in a tenement that was always overrun with awful smells, the screeching of babies, and was always falling apart in some way or another. Father worked in a factory and I think mother patched clothes for a few cents a day. I remember my brother dropping out of school to work in the factory with father very early too. But mother wanted me to finish school."
Timothy listened with sympathy and interest as Lucy recounted her full story. Diseases were always rampant in the winters,and Lucy had barely turned eleven when her parents died of influenza during an outbreak.
"They died within days of each other, and I remember it well," Lucy recalled sadly. "Father went first, on a Monday. Mother never knew because she was delirious with fever. She died that Thursday, before sunrise. That afternoon, I was taken away from my apartment by my school mistress, who kept me sheltered away from all of the illness in the classroom along with a few others until my brother came for me."
"Influenza is very contagious," Timothy suggested. "It was a miracle you weren't taken too, especially as a child."
"Yes," Lucy said quietly. "The air was always think and dank. People lived so closely together that sometimes even hiccups were contagious. Homeless people would sleep in our hallway sometimes and bring in fleas. Even my family's apartment was only two rooms with a stove in the corner and a piss-bucket in the other corner."
Lucy could feel Timothy wince as she cussed.
"Heavens, I'm so sorry! Just recalling my childhood brings out some of the worst in me. As a young girl, I was taught to swear before I could read," she explained. "It was just what people in the slums did. It made us sound tough, so I suppose it was about defending ourselves. I also wrestled with my schoolmates to build up my strength, you know. Sometimes other children would wager a penny or two on who would draw blood from their opponent first."
"Gracious Lord," Timothy mumbled. "You have had it rough."
"Why do you think I wanted to go to California?" Lucy replied. "I heard stories from people passing through the boardinghouse where I worked as a maid later on. San Francisco was roomy and clean, they said. You could breathe without smelling the factories and the dust kicked up. People were kindly and willing to offer real work to anyone with a smile. I heard it all. And the boardinghouse was nicer than my old tenement home, but it was hard work with long, demanding hours, and the proprietor was terribly angry and sometimes drunk."
"It sounds like a terrible place," Timothy mused. Lucy sat up straight and quick.
"Oh no! I make it sound awful..." Lucy paused, as if she were experiencing a happier memory this time. "..but some things, even small things, about New York make it one of the best places on Earth."
Timothy followed suit and raised himself to a sitting position. He shifted himself so that he could face Lucy. His breath stilled at the sight of her hair (loose again) flying off of her shoulder in the breeze. The glint of sunlight running though her tresses gave the illusion that her hair was on fire. It was beautiful, just like the rest of her.
Meanwhile, Lucy continued her tale. "I had many friends as a child. We would play stick ball in the street. Girls could play as well as boys at stick ball. Then there was the smell of roasted corn from Peter, who sold it for a nickel on the corner by the tenement during the autumn. Some days, if business was slow for him, he would give us some free corn if we correctly answered a history question from school. The taste of roasted corn is one of my absolute favorites, even though it would get caught in between my teeth and stay there for days."
Timothy chuckled. Now, it was as if Lucy was singing New York's praises like it was El Dorado.
"My girl friends and I would spend our summer breaks from lessons climbing all over the fire escapes and sitting in a group on one of the landings highest off the ground, where the boys couldn't call us names. We would read books out loud...dime novels our families forbade us from reading, and tell stories about the boys we were sweet on. We'd pass around an apple and each take a few bites, or on special occasions, share a handful of penny candies. Days that passed like that were some of the few times I felt like not even the rich girls on the East Side had it better than this."
Suddenly an image entered Timothy's mind...a bad image. An image of Lucy walking down a city street next to one of those 'boys she was sweet on.' Did Preston have a point? Were things in New York more...liberal...than in Colorado?
"Did you ever go with any of those boys?" he asked unassumingly. Lucy looked at him with a knitted eyebrow.
"Why would you ask that?" she said, cocking her head. "What do you mean, go with? As in, kiss?"
Timothy shrugged and immediately regretted his question. Perhaps he was investing too much into Preston's suggestion.
"One time I was tricked into kissing Sean O'Malley on Christmas Eve," Lucy admitted. "He had his toadie hang a mistletoe on a fishing pole above our heads at school. I kissed him, but I didn't like him all that much. Besides, I was ten years old. I only kissed one other before you."
Timothy didn't say anything, but his face indicated that he wanted Lucy to go on. Lucy began to feel uncomfortable, but obliged him anyway.
"It was years later when I was working for the boardinghouse in Brooklyn. A young traveling dentist named Joshua Rainier was staying for a few weeks. He and I talked a little, and I may have been sweet on him myself. We did kiss on the front stoop of the house the day before he departed for Maine. He said I could elope with him if I wanted to get away from the city. Obviously, I declined the offer. I was still only nineteen. I wasn't ready to be married." Lucy smiled meekly. "I'm glad now more than ever that I refused to run away with him."
Timothy nodded, as if her answer was acceptable to him.
"Why does it matter who I kissed once?" Lucy asked. "You've been engaged before."
Timothy took her hands into his and leaned in. "It's not really traditional for a Reverend to court a woman who isn't exactly morally...well...morally..."
Lucy's cheeks went red. "Morally?"
"Morally straight."
"What does that mean?" Lucy said, her voice betraying her quick change in attitude.
"You know," The Reverend began sweating, again regretting his comment.
"No, I don't." Lucy let go of Timothy's hands and became rigid as she pulled away from him.
"A woman who has a history of being with men," Timothy finally answered. "In an...intimate...way."
Lucy's jaw dropped. "You know...first of all, I am a virgin. I would never compromise myself like that. Secondly...Preston pried into me with the exact same concerns that one night he took me to supper. It's what made me wary of him in the beginning. He was rude and presumptuous, like you're being now."
Timothy felt the color leave his face. He'd done something terribly wrong, and he knew it.
"Lucile, I am so-"
"-I can't talk to you right now," she mumbled. "I'm too insulted."
She got to her feet and slipped her boots back on before turning her back to Timothy and heading back towards town. Timothy shot up to follow her.
"Lucy! Please forgive me. I should never have brought that up," he said in a raised voice. Lucy stopped in her tracks.
"I hope you don't expect me to be pure as the driven snow, Timothy," she said. "Because we come from two very different lives, and I'm not a shrinking violet like the women around here may be. I look after my own honor, but I also refused to be a sheltered shrub until a man comes a-calling! If you can't accept me for who I am now regardless of my past in the city, then this may not lead where we want it to after all."
"Lucy-"
"-I'm too embarrassed to finish our lunch. We can talk this over tomorrow, but please let me be."
Timothy stopped. He realized in that moment that perhaps it would be better for now if he did so. Sadly, he watched as Lucy began walking towards town, alone and upset at him.
Maybe there is a reason I've been without a wife all my life...