Chapter 40

After supper and a shower, I climbed into bed while Cecelia brushed her teeth. Darlia had protested a bit at going to bed early, but Cecelia had stifled the protest – just how I didn't know. I didn't much care at that point; all I wanted was to lie down with Cecelia next to me.

And when she was done in the bathroom she did get in next to me. She snuggled up against me, lying on her side while I was on my back, her head on my shoulder and my arm around her. Her hand rested on my chest, spread flat, and I could feel the thin fingers radiating from the callused palm. I brought my right arm around, and squeezed her tightly for a moment, holding on desperately as though I were drowning and she were the rope that would save me.

When I relaxed she said, "You are tired, I know. But I perceive that there is also a mental component to your exhaustion tonight."

I took in a deep breath. "Yeah. I got a moral question that I'm having trouble answering."

"Perhaps I can help you with it."

"You might could," I said. "I've never known anyone more upright than you." I thought of how to frame the matter. "Lemme put it this way. If you saw someone breaking into a neighbor's house, what would you do?"

"I would call 911 – unless of course it were my husband, in which case I would withhold action until I knew the reasons for his violation of the law."

I was too tired to chuckle, though I felt it. "Yeah, it was me – you know me too well for me to try posing a reality as a hypothetical. I burgled the suspect's house today. And it occurs to me that there's a problem ... that creates a problem with your notion of helping out in the office."

"In what way?"

"I committed a crime called burglary. The cops could also charge me with criminal trespass, maybe one or two other things. I burgled the guy's house, though I didn't bring anything away with me except knowledge so there was no larceny. You are now in possession of knowledge regarding a crime. What do you do with it?"

"I know, Darvin, that you committed this crime in the interest of justice. You were not there to enrich yourself, or to harm an innocent person, but to obtain evidence you could procure in no other way. Shall I report your offense to the police? Shall I, in so doing, secure the punishment of a small crime while rendering justice in a larger matter problematical? I am not being rhetorical, my husband – if you direct me to do so, I shall report what you did."

"You say that," I told her gently, "knowing what my answer will be."

"I at the very least make a well-educated guess at it," she said, and I thought from the sound of her voice that she was smiling, though in the dark I couldn't tell.

"But the point is that if you worked for me, you'd know of more than one crime. I know your proposition was that you do Marla's job – file, pay bills, like that. But the job would inevitably make you aware of more of what I do, and sometimes I do things that are at the least questionable, and sometimes just plain illegal. I always have what I think are good reasons, yeah – but the actions are still what they are. Whatever my reasons for breaking into the guy's house today, I still broke into his house, and you know about it, and if you don't report it you're concealing evidence of a crime. I imagine they could get a charge of accessory to stick, if they knew about it."

I felt Cecelia's kinky hair scraping my chin as she nodded. "I see the dilemma I would be in. If I did work for you, and you ordered me – as employer and husband – to remain silent about crimes of which I might obtain knowledge, I would do so."

"Just like that?"

"Darvin, you have not, to my recollection, given me any direct order at all in the years of our marriage on any fundamental issue. Nor do you, I think, cherish any conceit that you could effectively order me about; you are sufficiently aware of my obduracy that you would not waste your breath. Yet I am your wife, and that means that I have submitted myself to your direction. That I operate as independently as I do is as much a testament to your liberality as it is to my autonomous nature; I would have no choice, as a Christian, but to yield if you wished to exercise greater restraint over my life. I am quite grateful to you that you have allowed me such vast freedom. Yet because you are my husband – because I know your heart and its goodness, its commitment to our Lord and to justice – I would obey your command in this matter."

"Sounds like you've been doing some thinking."

"I have had years to think of these things, Darvin," she said. "And you are aware of my greater analytical tendencies. For me not to deal in such 'thought experiments' would be akin to you not speaking barbarous English."

I grinned in the darkness. "I can talk right when I want to, you know. It's just that I don't usually want to." I placed my right hand on her hand, where it rested still on my chest. I could feel the thin gold of her wedding ring under my palm, the only ring she habitually wears. "And I guess I shoulda known that at least in principle this wouldn't be new stuff for you." I curled my fingers under hers and held on. "But I don't want to subject you to this. I don't want you to have to decide not to turn me in, even though I've broken the law, just 'cause you're my wife."

"I'm certain that you don't break the law often, nor lightly. And my own interest in justice combines with my love for you in my decision. I do not think that the problem you pose is insoluble."

"Maybe not. But I'm facing a problem of my own – for can I justify to myself putting you in a position where you have to make that choice? Do I have the right to put you in that position?"

She squeezed my fingers. "There was a time when husbands had the legal right to decide whether their wives lived or died, in certain circumstances; Joseph could have, without censure, caused Mary's stoning had he possessed such a mind. There was a time when a wife could not, legally, own property; her house, her money, all she had was, under the law, ultimately her husband's. Men have, with perfect legal justification, done a great deal to women." I felt her shoulders moving as she shrugged. She had on her sleeveless nightgown tonight, and I ran my hand gently down her arm, feeling the knotted muscles that even in relaxation lent contours to her arm that many women don't have. I kept rubbing her soft skin as she spoke. "You would never do that – not only because the law doesn't permit it nor society countenance it, but because your own sense prevents you.