Chapter 6

We ate supper at the Hawk House and drove back to the motel. It was still early, and we unloaded the car and then went for a walk. We had no program in mind; we just set out, and went where we felt like going. Cecelia held my left hand, as her custom has been for 11 years now, and Darlia held Cecelia's left hand – as her custom is. Cecelia had been uncharacteristically quiet through supper, and remained so for the first half hour or so of our walk. I didn't try to make her talk – I knew she was thinking, and you can't make Cecelia do anything anyway. If she respects your authority and your competence she'll do as you request without question, but if you try to force her, she'll balk – and no Missouri mule is more stubborn than Cecelia resisting tyranny. I kept quiet – because I had no wish to spark obstinate resistance, and because I knew that when she was ready, she'd speak.

And she did. As I said, she was quiet for 30 minutes or so. Then, out of the blue, she said, "Darvin, I dislike being in the position I'm in."

"What position is that, C?"

"I find that on one side I have your commitment to justice, your respect for the law, your affection for your old department, your memories of this town, and your friendship with Chief Thomas. On the other side I have my own desires, my concern for Darlia, and the fact that this is our vacation. I have been trying to reconcile these conflicting sets of priorities, and I cannot do so – at least, I cannot do so in a way that I approve of. I don't like, Darvin, having to engage in such an exercise, particularly when it proves fruitless."

I looked over at her. Her face wasn't scowling, as it had been in the chief's office, but there was a small frown which brought her eyebrows together. "I'm sorry, Cecelia. If you want I'll take the badge back."

"I know you would do so if I requested it. I have half a mind, as you would say, to make precisely that request. I wish you hadn't agreed to the proposition without consulting me."

"I guess you know that Harry made the proposition in private for a reason."

"Yes, I do – and while I understand his reasons, I am still unhappy with your agreement absent consultation. Darvin, you have your own mind, and it is a fine one; your intellect has never caused me to regret marrying you. Indeed, I have never had any reason at all to regret marrying you. Your mind certainly is one of the reasons I love you. It is active and independent, as it ought to be. Yet you are not completely free; your mind, as with the rest of your person, has an attachment which you cannot lightly ignore."

"I know, Cecelia. I'm not trying to set myself up as an independent state here."

"Nor have I said you are, Darvin. I am simply advising you of my position."

"Your position, Cecelia, seems to be that I ought not to have said aye, yes, or no until I had your input."

"Would that," she asked, "be such a terrible burden?"

"Perhaps I ought to be asking if letting me make decisions subject to your approval is such a terrible sin."

"What do you conceive that I hold to be the sin – the decision itself, or the qualification that it is subject to my approval?"

"Either ... both ... I don't know. All I know is that I told you in Harry's office that if you said no I'd turn the badge in, and you said go ahead and keep it – and now you're lecturing me in such a way what I think maybe I ought to have resigned then and there."

"Is that what you think I'm saying?"

"I don't know what you're saying, Cecelia!" I burst out. "You talk about maintaining my independence of mind, and then turn around and tell me how upset you are that I made an independent decision – except that the qualification means that it's not all that blasted independent."

Cecelia's fingers tightened on mine, not with the gentle pressure that I was accustomed to, but in anger. "Perhaps, Darvin, you ought to listen to what I'm saying; then you won't be in doubt as to my position."

"So this is all my fault?"

She stopped in her tracks, and pulled at my hand till I turned to face her. I could see the lines around her mouth that told me she was angry – as if I needed further proof after the way her hand had crushed mine. "Darvin, I have not said that, nor do I believe it, nor do I intend it. If I have implied such a thing, it was inadvertent and I apologize." She took a deep breath. "I do not mean to berate you, my husband. Perhaps I'm just allowing my disappointment at the disruption of our vacation to color my tone, and possibly even my words."

How do you stay angry at someone who, in her own anger, finds the capacity for apology? She was at least as upset as I was, yet she was apologizing to me rather than indulging her wrath. All I know to do when I get to the bursting point is stomp away till I cool off. Cecelia has learned to stop dead in the midst of a flaring temper, and apologize – just when apologizing is hardest.

I took my own deep breath. "No, C, I'm the one who ought to be sorry. You're right – I should have been more considerate. And when you tried to say so, I ought to have listened instead of getting defensive." I took off my hat and ran my hand through my hair. "It's just that so many circumstances combined to make it basically impossible for me to say no. Maybe Harry manipulated me – I don't think so, I don't think he's that kind of guy – but maybe so. Whether he did or not, it all came together until I couldn't see any other alternative, though I didn't like the choice that seemed impossible to avoid. I did offer you a veto – but I should have realized that by offering you a veto over an extant decision, instead of letting you have a voice in the decision, I was putting you in a hard position. I could have stopped him right in the middle of the oath of office, but it didn't even occur to me. I didn't realize it what I was doing to you; I was blind, I guess. I am terribly sorry, Cecelia."

She bowed her head, contemplating the ground, perhaps, or her toes – or her own thoughts. When she spoke her voice was soft and gentle. "It seems we both have been rather more selfish than we would like to think ourselves capable of being." She raised her head and looked me in the eye. "I said that I would permit you to carry out this commission, and I will. And this time I grant that permission not under an imagined duress, but freely, knowing that if you were capable of refusing it, you wouldn't be the man I love. Since I love you as you are, I have to take you as you are – even when you are imperfect. So I do take you as an imperfect man – but one whom I love dearly. Come here and kiss me."

I did. While we kissed, Darlia – who had heard the entire conversation – wrapped herself around us, and when Cecelia picked her up she kissed us both with a fervor which she displays only after we've emerged from an argument. We don't shield her from the reality of our lives; we would rather she see us as we are, than offer her a portrait with the marks of a knife where the artist has scraped away the warts. And she'd seen some warts this trip; Cecelia and I have learned the hard way how not to fight, and when we do fight how to keep it from destroying our marriage, but we're still fallible and we don't always live up to our intentions.

The next day was Sunday. After the tension of Saturday afternoon Cecelia and I had decided to do something we hardly ever do – skip church. We both enjoy going to church, just as we enjoy gathering with our family in Leanna ... well, her family, which I've married into and think of as mine. That's how we look at not only our congregation in Albuquerque, but at the church as a whole – they're not merely people who believe the same things we do, but people who have a blood relation to us. It's just that the blood comes from above, not from our parents.

But a family doesn't punish you for not being at the door like clockwork every week. We go to Leanna for a month each year to visit our family, but if we had to miss a year Daddy and Mama wouldn't chastise us, and Bella and Albert, Cecelia's siblings, wouldn't hold it against us. They'd love us anyway, and understand that sometimes the best-laid plans of mice and men really do go astray. And so it is with the church. It's nice to be there, and it's got plenty of benefits, but if you miss you won't lose your family. They'll understand that at times you just have to be elsewhere.

Deciding not to go because of a difficult afternoon wasn't a casual thing, though. We don't take church lightly, for we don't take God lightly. But we were exhausted, and needed the sleep, and though in my experience the people who say it are precisely those who don't live by it, it really is true that you can worship God out on the lake or in the park or in your own living room. And Cecelia and I hold, as an ideal, the goal of worshipping God every day, every hour, every moment. We strive to do everything – eating, drinking, playing with Darlia, even resolving an argument – as if it's a service to God. Again, we're fallible, and don't always live up to the ideal, but striving to reach an ideal and failing is far better than abandoning ideals because you can't perfectly abide by them.

We slept late that morning; in fact, I didn't wake up till nearly 11. What woke me was Cecelia's quiet voice as she read to Darlia. I recognized the words; they were the magnificent closing paragraphs of Revelation, surely one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible. I came fully awake in time to repeat with Cecelia, "He who testifies to these things says, 'Yes, I am coming quickly.' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen."

When she finished Cecelia looked up from Darlia's Bible – for that's what she held in her hands – and smiled at me. This was the full bore, trillion watt smile that would have made Helen of Troy look like a burned out light bulb. She uses it seldom, but it's more precious because of that. I just looked at her, lost in the beauty of that narrow face, with its thin lips and broad nose and, around the eyes and corners of the mouth, the lines that only genuine character gives – not wrinkles, but the manifestations of a powerful and unique personality. "I didn't mean to wake you, Darvin," she said, closing the Bible.