Chapter 33

'Berto

Through lunch and the drive home 'Berto avoided one topic, for he wasn't comfortable bringing it up till they got home. For some reason the place they lived seemed safer, or at least better, for that discussion. It's become a haven for me, he realized, a place where I can talk about anything with her.

When they did get home Toni pulled off her jacket and tossed it, with her purse, on the coffee table, and sat down on the sofa, pulling 'Berto down beside her. "Thank you for this," she said.

"For what?"

"For going with me to church – for going along with my desire for a church wedding. I know that you're doing it only for me, and that you don't believe any of it. I appreciate your willingness to compromise in order to please me."

"Toni, I..." He realized that what he was about to say wasn't, after all, as true as he had expected it to be, and changed it. "I didn't dislike it as much as I'd thought I would. It wasn't something I'm ready to do every week, but it wasn't so bad. I can do it for a couple of weeks in order to get the church wedding."

"I am glad that it was easier on you than you'd expected. I'm not insisting on a church wedding, after all, to harass you – it's something I need, but I don't want my need to upset you."

"No, it hasn't upset me ... except for last week, and that was my fault." He paused, trying to phrase his next words exactly right. "I noticed this morning that, whatever has happened over the past seven years, church is still important to you."

She nodded. He noticed the faraway expression on her face, and the slimness of her brown arms as they emerged from the short sleeves of her blouse. Yes, black looked good on her, however little he ordinarily liked it. "I hadn't expected to become so engrossed in the service," she said finally. "I thought I hadn't missed church – no, that's not exactly the truth. I thought I didn't miss it so much. I thought that my shame and my sin had so separated me from God that I wouldn't be comfortable in church, and so I missed it some but not a great deal. But once the service started, it was as though I were home for the first time since 1999."

She took a breath, and clasped her hands over a raised knee. 'Berto, though he was focused on what she was saying, couldn't help noticing how Toni's biceps swelled just a little as she pulled on her knee. "It's not that I don't feel at home in this house, or with you," she said. "I do. I feel completely at home here, and since you've moved in this is very truly my home." She smiled, and took off on a tangent. "They say that home is where the heart is, and if that's true, wherever you are is my home from now on. My heart is in your hands, now." She rocked back a little bit, still holding her knee with her clasped hands. "But this morning, sitting in that pew, I felt like I'd come home to a place that I had walked out of long ago, and where everyone had been waiting ever since to welcome me back."

She looked directly into his face, now. "I don't know why I felt that way. I know just how unclean I am, and how unworthy I was to be there with those good people, and in the presence of God. But that's how I felt."

'Berto reached out and drew a fingertip along her forearm. "Toni, I wish you'd quit putting yourself down that way. I know why you say those things, but ... but they hurt me, and I don't believe a word of it, and you don't deserve that kind of grinding down. I wish you'd stop." He shrugged. "As for church, I noticed that you took to it like you'd never been away from it. About the only thing that might have tipped me off that it was the first time in a long while was that you sang in such a quiet voice that I could barely hear you, like you were almost ashamed to be singing."

"You didn't sing at all, 'Berto."

He knew she was changing the subject, but granted her that much. "I didn't know the songs, and even if I did, I don't believe what they say. I've got flaws in spades – you'd probably say I'm sinful. I've talked to you to an extent about how I was before we met. I've been promiscuous, I've been drunken, I've shown no respect at all for myself or for women ... but I've always tried to be honest, and being with you has made me want even more to be honest. And I honestly don't believe those songs, and so I can't honestly sing them."

"I know, 'Berto – I wasn't criticizing." She unclasped her hands and let her knee go, and tucked both her legs under her, the looseness of the pants not hindering her catlike bonelessness. She leaned forward and put her hand on his cheek. "You don't know how much I appreciate your honesty. I know that you won't lie to me – that you won't deceive me with other women, that you won't tell me you love me just to make me feel good. I know that you really do love me. And I would rather have you honest, and not singing, than dishonestly singing." She drew her index finger along his lips, and then touched the finger to her own lips. "I didn't know you, when I first loved you, as well as I know you now; in fact, I didn't know you at all. But I have to believe that my heart knew then what my mind knows now – that you're a good man. And that goodness is one of the reasons why I love you so much."

"I'm not nearly as good as you are, Toni – and don't go into your self-pity mode either. By church standards, I suppose you're pretty wretched, but I don't judge you by church standards. I think religion is nothing but a pile of rules that make it hard to be happy – I know, I know, you don't think so, and I'm not trying to start a fight. I'm just telling you where I'm coming from. You believe it's wrong for us to live together without being married – I don't. I don't think there's a thing wrong with us living in the same house, sleeping in the same bed. I don't think there's a single thing wrong with all that even though we're not married. Yes, I do want to marry you, but not to satisfy some religious rules. It's because I love you. And it is that standard by which I judge you. I don't hold what you did with Garry against you. I don't hold what you're doing with me against you. As far as I'm concerned, you're doing good, and not evil."

"You know, 'Berto, that I can't agree with you. But ... but your faith in me is something ... something I really, truly appreciate."

He saw that her eyes were bright, and he leaned forward and kissed her forehead, and her nose, and finally her lips. She reached out her hands and placed her palms on his cheeks, and held him, and returned his kiss. It was a long kiss, and when they finally broke apart they remained close, their lips almost but not quite touching. 'Berto's hands were on her shoulders, and hers were still on his cheeks, and it seemed to him that this was their most intimate and passionate connection.

Toni

She had felt at home during the service. She'd hardly articulated it to herself, and certainly hadn't expected 'Berto to notice, but he was exactly right. Despite her shame, despite her certainty that God hated her, she had fit into MJT Christian Fellowship – at least it seemed so to her – as though she'd been going to church there all her life. Part of that, of course, was the fact that it wasn't different in the essentials from the church she'd grown up in. There were differences – there always are, for people are different – but mostly it was a familiar way of doing things.

But it was more than that, and Toni was so accustomed to not allowing herself to think along certain lines that it was hard for her to realize it, or admit it. It wasn't only that MJT was like her childhood church. It was, also, that she enjoyed being with God's people, with God Himself.

As she and 'Berto slowly withdrew from each other after their kiss, her mind was in turmoil. How can I enjoy being with God and His people when He is against me? Shouldn't I feel His wrath, instead of feeling like He's accepting me? It wasn't a question she could ask 'Berto. Not only was he hostile toward her faith – what was left of it – he simply didn't know enough to answer the question. But who else could she ask? No one, she thought. There's no one left who can counsel me. I've got to figure this out on my own.

She put her hand on 'Berto's knee, her fingers gently massaging. She looked into his gray eyes – and at his face, the scraggly mustache, the boyish contours just now shaping themselves into the features he'd bear as a mature man, the lips that she'd just kissed... I have never loved anyone the way I love him, she thought. The idea shocked her, but she realized it was true. I loved Garry, truly and well. I know that now better than I did when he was alive. I know it better than I ever did. But 'Berto has captured my heart with a completeness that I cannot possibly understand.