Anna crept about the room, dressing. She had finished her hair and picked up her shoes silently when she heard him roll under the covers.
"Good morning," he said.
She let out a breath. "I'm off-"
"To church," he said.
"I'll see you a-"
"At breakfast,"
"Yes," said Anna, bristling slightly.
"I love you," he said, turning to face away again.
Anna sighed when she met the cold morning mist, when she was headed for her sanctuary. She took her favorite pew at the back and went down on the kneeler, silently saying the Lord's Prayer as she rocked a bit on her knees. Back here no one could watch her do it. It would look so strange, but it was the most soothing thing in her world. When she came to the line about the valley of the shadow of death she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trying to push the poison out.
It felt like poison. Even though the nightmares had worn off he was inside her still, in her tissues and her thoughts, intruding every day, sometimes several times a day, in the middle of work or a conversation she would see his smooth, smug face; when she was walking with her husband, when she was here in church. He seemed trapped in her mind and circulating like venom. She could still smell him, his cheap aftershave and the whiskey in his mouth. Why? Why couldn't she be rid of him? It was over. It had been over for many weeks now.
She looked around the church, at the tall stained glass, and thought about sin. Original sin. The snake in the garden.
When he did enter her mind, she didn't want to think of a him as a man. She didn't want to call him a man or by his name. She needed something else. Then the thought struck her: the snake. "The lean Mr. Green," she'd heard the kitchen maids giggling, and he was, lean and sinuous and meaner than a biting reptile or any animal could ever be. She needed a name like that in her mind. The snake. It would help. It would reduce him.
She prayed for a while longer, pushing the snake away. Her heart thrilled for one moment. Maybe this would do it. Maybe she could cleanse herself of the snake, if she just prayed enough.
She rose easily; her knees had been completely healed for a month now. Her heart felt lighter. She turned to leave and met the minister, who smiled and stopped. Anna paused, reluctant to speak to him.
"Good morning, Mrs. Bates,"
"Good morning,"
"We've seen a quite a lot of you lately,"
"Yes,"
"If there's ever anything I can do to help with...anything, you'll let me know, won't you?"
"Of course,"
Anna walked quickly through the church yard. Silly, she thought. It was her church, she had a right to seek solace there as often as she liked. But it did draw attention to be visiting so much more often. Anna cringed at the thought of it.
She shifted her miniature bible under arm as she pulled on her gloves, making sure not to dislodge the blue ribbon in the chapter of Mark. She couldn't seem to read it enough. It was so comforting to her that she liked to keep it close by. It calmed her.
Mrs. Hughes smiled at her as she entered the servant's door. "Anna, there you are,"
"Were we meeting this morning, Mrs. Hughes?
"No of course not. I was just hoping to talk to you about Lady Mary's trip to the new dressmaker, the one in London,"
"Yes, right away,"
"Church this morning, again?"
"Yes," said Anna, hanging her hat and unbuttoning her coat.
"Well, I've never been very devoted myself, so I've never had cause to wear this," said Mrs. Hughes, opening a handkerchief, "But my grandmother wore this and said-"
"Oh, no, Mrs. Hughes, I couldn't possibly-"
"It's been blessed," said Mrs. Hughes, "I know you're not a Catholic but I think it's quite pretty, even if small. My father was more of a Free Thinker," she said apologetically.
"No, I-"
"Only, I'll never wear it," said Mrs. Hughes.
Anna accepted the tiny silver crucifix as politely as possible, but why did everyone have to watch her so closely? Mrs. Hughes fastened the necklace behind her, then helped her tuck it inside her dress. "No one needs to know," she said, "But we should give ourselves such comforts as we can,"
"Thank you, Mrs. Hughes,"
He was sitting at the table for breakfast. Anna sat across the table and smiled at him, making an effort. He smiled back, with some resignation.
The nightmares had gradually dropped off, but so had everything else inside her. She felt very little now. She worked, she read her bible when she could and she got through the days. She was also drifting away from him and couldn't stop it. He seemed under a haze when she looked at him. She saw him, she knew she loved him, but she couldn't talk to him, not for long.
He was looking at her across the table. Her breath caught for a second but she brushed it off. She opened her log book, making notes while she forced down a bite of toast. She missed him, but she had to move forward now. She felt like a swimmer, needing to keep her limbs moving or she would sink under it all. She might make it to shore and be able to rest one day if right now she just kept moving. Her mind buzzed with lists through breakfast.
Anna finished dressing Lady Mary and several other errands, then it was time to go down the back stairs. She a stood at the top of the stairs and looked behind her. If John saw her going down he would go with her. In the first few weeks it had been a comfort of a sort, but after a time it seemed more inconvenient and less worth it, and even if John was there the snake would be too, and that was a different kind of bad. She had the ludicrous feeling that she was being unfaithful to him, because there were times when she was talking to him or walking with him that she couldn't remove the snake from her mind. And she couldn't explain why.
She paused in the doorway of the boot room with two pairs of Lady Mary's shoes, taking a deep breath to push down the familiar, but slightly milder, surge of nausea.
The snake is not here, said the business-like and efficient voice in her head, so get this done.
Anna took a break in the courtyard to read again. Whenever she saw the words on the page, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone," something inside her unclenched.
She tensed again when she heard his footsteps and suppressed the instinct to shut the book. She had nothing to hide. Still, she always seemed to want to hide. From him, from herself, from everyone.
"Which passage is it?"
"Oh, just one I happen to like today," she shrugged, not looking at him. And it was a lie. She read the same passages every day.
'You won't tell me what passage it is you like?"
"You probably wouldn't understand," she said.
"Why won't you give me a chance?"
"Because we can't really be everything to each other, can we?" she snapped, as surprised as he was, but staying the course of her feeling. "It makes no sense, John. We're different people,"
"I've upset you," he said. He waited, but she looked down at her bible again until he walked away.
What was wrong with her? She felt as if she were trapped inside a stranger, not knowing what she herself would say next or do next.
Why was she angry at him? Why did his presence grate at her so? Regret surged in her chest. It wasn't his fault, none of it, but she was acting as if she blamed him. She didn't blame him. But his presence made her feel as if she needed to be different. As if she should just be the Anna she used to be. That would never happen again. She didn't know exactly who she was, but she was not her old self anymore and could never be. And his presence just reminded her of it.
What if this was all that was left of her, this poisoned hollowness?
If she never felt differently than this, then how could they stay together? How could she keep doing this to him?
