Chapter 13

When I'd picked myself up off the floor and gotten back onto the sofa, I said, "You know, I've been thinking."

"Always wise – but don't hurt yourself. You can only take so much of it at a time."

I slapped at her foot, which she'd put right back on my chest. "I was thinking I could call Captain Mitchell and tell him what we've decided, and get the paperwork moving.

"Let's not, and say we didn't."

"Why not, Max?" I gave her foot a squeeze, and then went back to rubbing it gently. "Why not get it over with? It's going to hurt no matter what we do, so we might as well get me out, and into a civilian job."

"We've got a week, Derek. We might as well use it."

"For what? We've got a week in which to hash over the facts again and come to the same hateful conclusion? I don't see the point in that."

"You sound," she said, "like you don't believe there's any hope."

"Well, there's not. We've been over it. We thrashed it out over and over last night, and you even agreed that you didn't see any other way."

"And I still don't. But that doesn't mean God doesn't have another way."

"God can't change facts," I told her.

"Nor did I say He can. But maybe He can, even if I didn't say it."

"What is, Max, is. Whatever you think of Ayn Rand, she did see some things clearly in spite of being an atheist. Existence exists. A is not non-A. Reality doesn't change into something else, honey. It is what it is."

"And so you see perfectly what is, and know absolutely that you couldn't possibly be wrong? You know for an incontrovertible fact that God doesn't have some other idea that neither one of us has thought of? You're getting pretty smart in your old age, Derek."

I sat up, shoving her foot off my chest and putting my own feet on the floor. "Max, can't you understand reality? The rules are what they are, and one of us has to take off the uniform if we're going to get anywhere. It's either one of us leaves the Air Force, or we both get it in the neck. And if one of us has to get out, the logical one is me. I thought you were smart enough to see that."

"Are you saying I'm stupid, Derek?" She sat up too. "Because if you are, maybe I could remind you of everything I've had to learn just to be here listening to you spout off."

"No, of course I'm not saying you're stupid! It's just that..."

"Just that you're so much smarter than I am, is that it? Maybe we could trade insignia – I could give you my bars and you could give me your stripes, and then we'd be where we belong."

Our first fight – and I had no idea how it had blown up or why. All I knew was that by now I was boiling mad. "Perhaps, Lieutenant Bois d'Arc, I have offended you. I apologize."

"Don't you go all cold and formal on me, Derek! You've insulted me and told me that God Himself isn't going to be any help, and you dare be offended? What kind of man are you, anyway?"

"Sorry you agreed to marry me, Max?"

She glared at me, breathing heavily through her nose. "No – but you seem to be trying to make me sorry."

"Oh, please."

"Now there's a reasoned, rational, logical answer."

"Well, what do you want from me? I'm just a dumb enlisted man, remember?"

"First I'm stupid, now you are. You're as fickle as the wind." She got up off the sofa and went to look out the window.

"You should know about fickle."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" she asked without turning around.

"You're the woman here, aren't you?"

Now she whirled around, fury on her face. "Don't you dare tell me that my anatomy makes me inferior to you," she growled. "I'm the one flying fighters while you just grub around in the engines."

I stood up, my hands forming into fists. "That's twice now you've thrown your rank in my face. Maybe you're sorry you fell in love with a grunt. Maybe you'd be better off with another officer. Maybe you don't want me after all."

Her anger dissolved into tears, or at least it partly dissolved. "Derek, how can you say that? I've risked my career for you. I've risked losing the thing I love above all else, for you. I'm willing to sacrifice everything for you. How can you look at me and say that I don't love you?"

My heart was hard, and her impassioned plea bounced off. "You're the one who sounds like you're ashamed of me. I'm proud to have an Eagle driver for my fiancée. But you sound like being engaged to a jet engine mechanic embarrasses you."

"No, Derek! Can't you think? I love you. I love you more than I love my own life. I love you more than I love flying Eagles. What do you want from me?" She burst into racking tears.

"I'd like some respect, for one thing. Where on earth is that wifely submission you were so proud of?"

She raised her face to mine. Her cheeks were wet, and her mouth was twisted in anguish. "Respect? How can I give you what you won't even give me?" she asked in a desolate voice. "Submission? That's a really low blow, Derek. You'll get that when I get the love my husband is supposed to give me." And she ran into the bedroom and slammed the door. And though I didn't hear it, I knew that she had locked the door behind her.

I looked at the window where she'd been standing. It was a sunny afternoon, but I couldn't enjoy it. Somehow, in a way I couldn't understand, we'd already had our first fight, less than 24 hours after she'd accepted my proposal. And now that she was locked in my bedroom, my anger vanished, and my own tears came, and I fell down on the sofa and wept the cushion wet.

The sun was beginning to set, and I was in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee, when I heard feet on the linoleum of the kitchen floor. I turned around, and Max was there, her face wrecked with sorrow. "I'm sorry, Derek," she said.

"Honey, I'm the one who ought to be sorry." I put my cup down on the counter and took her in my arms. She leaned against me, her shoulders shaking.

"You were right, you know – about submission. It's not just when I agree with you that I'm supposed to submit to you. I'm supposed to submit when I disagree too."

"I don't want you to be a doormat," I told her.

"Nor do I want to be one. That's not submission, that's surrender to tyranny. But you're going to be my husband. That means you're going to be my earthly head – I've accepted you as such already, you remember. And even when I'm right and you're wrong and we both know it, I don't have the right to defy you. I can disagree with you, I can try to persuade you to my point of view, but I don't have the right to rebel against you."

"Maybe so, Max. But I don't have the right to treat you like a doormat. I don't want to be a domineering husband. I don't want to get started down that road. And I was trying to force you to my viewpoint. I misused my authority, darling. Please forgive me."

She raised her face, fresh tears on her cheeks. "I was going to ask you to forgive me."

"I'm the one who was wrong, Max."

"We both were. But while I was in there, telling God what a jerk you were, how much I wanted Him to change you so that you'd listen to me, He told me to listen to Him. I'd told you I'd submit even though we're not married yet, and there I was demanding that He change you into my vision of the ideal husband. And He broke me, Derek. I'm sure I'll grow proud and hard again, and need another session with Him sometime or another – probably a lot of sessions during the coming years. But He broke me down until all I could think of was my faults. I forgot yours, beloved, because all I could see when God got through with me was my own. I won't deny that I need to forgive you – and I do, freely, gladly. But you need to forgive me too, Derek. I've sinned against you. Please forgive me."

I looked down into her face, which was so pale that the freckles stood out like dots of paint. I bent down slowly and kissed her. "I forgive you, Max. I will always forgive you. I can't help it." I kissed her again, more firmly, and longer. When I pulled back I said, "How can I not forgive you? I love you."

"You sound so desperate."

"I am. I love you desperately. I'm ready to do desperate things for you. Unless God shows us another way out, I'll do a desperate thing. I need you desperately. And the thought that I might have driven you away drives me to desperation."

"Okay, so you're desperate." Her giggle was faint and weak, but it was genuine. "I see that you no longer insist that God's hamstrung."

"While He was talking to you, He was talking to me too. There's a book I've always meant to read, and never have, but the title says a great deal: Your God Is Too Small. My God, Max, was too small. I thought that He couldn't come up with something I didn't see. But He might. I'm not ready to claim that He will. But He might. I'm not omniscient, after all. I can't see all the variables and possibilities."

"None of us can." She reached up and brushed my hair back. "Another thing you said – you're desperate at the thought you might have driven me away. Derek, you can't drive me away. Do you remember the night we danced in your living room?"

"Yes."

"That Toto song..." She took a breath, and then sang the lines softly, her eyes on mine: "'It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you, there's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do.' Derek, we haven't said anything official yet. We don't even know the date yet, much less the form of the ceremony. But I'm with you till death. That is final. 'What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.' Derek, you're a man. There is therefore nothing you can do to put me asunder from you."

I held her tightly, pulling her head against my shoulder. And then I realized I had no need to be ashamed of my emotions in front of my Max, and I loosened my hold. She pulled back and touched my cheek. "You're crying."