A Gift Upon the Shore by Wren M.K

Author:Wren, M.K. [Wren, M.K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Itzy, Kickass.to
ISBN: 9781626811003
Amazon: B00DTTQBDE
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2013-12-29T05:00:00+00:00

Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears

Today of past Regrets and future Fears. . . .

—EDWARD FITZGERALD, THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM (1879)

“And that spring, Luke courted me.”

Stephen looks at me curiously. All he knows of courtship is garnered from books he’s read. On this clear April afternoon, we’re outside on the deck, a limber-limbed boy sitting with his legs drawn up, arms wrapped around one knee, and an old woman absorbing the warmth of the sun on ever-aching joints and talking about her youth, about courtship.

Such an ancient ceremony, courtship. Homo sapiens was born with the rituals encoded in its genes, rituals as old as bisexual reproduction. I laugh, imagining trilobites wooing their mates with skittering minuets in the deeps of the sea; brontosauri circling one another in ponderous sarabands; smiladon yowling arias to show off his scimitar fangs.

Stephen asks, “What did Luke do to court you?”

I study him, wondering if his generation won’t invent some sort of courtship rituals, even if their pairings are determined by necessity.

“Luke produced prodigies of labor that spring, Stephen. He looked at the pigpen and said, ‘You and Rachel built this.’ ” And I try to imitate his indulgent tone. Stephen laughs, probably because to him I sound like Jerry. “I admitted as much, and Luke said, ‘I’ll build you a new one.’ And so he did. The saws and axes needed sharpening? Our plow and harness needed repair? The roof of the barn was leaking? The gateposts had rotted? The apple trees needed pruning? And our smokehouse. . . had we also built that? He would take care of it. And so he did.”

Still laughing, Stephen asks, “What did you do?”

“What could I do but . . . love him?”

In that halcyon spring Luke was easy to love. He was as powerful and graceful as a rutting buck, as solicitous as a bowerbird. He was easy to love because he tried in every way to please me. He couldn’t, not in every way, not a man of his philosophical mold. But he tried. And he tried to please Rachel. He had to please her in order to please me, and he understood that. But he wanted to please Rachel, as a child wants to please its parents, a student its teacher, an acolyte its master.

Stephen rouses me from my memories. “Did Luke write the story of his journey?”

“Oh, yes. Jeremiah has it now. Maybe he’d let you read it. It was an arduous process, the writing of that story, but Luke took great pride in it. And Rachel inspired him to read books other than the Bible and to listen to ideas that were new to him. She told him a myth is the essence of an event. She told him to read between the lines and finally applied that principle to Genesis. She showed him glimpses of the universe.”

Glimpses. That’s all he’d open

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