Wading Mary

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The falling in place didn't happen right away. No. It crept up in subtle ways and, when I finally realized it, I pushed it aside. I thought the fractures would heal, unattended, before a break occurred.

There was a lovely limbo in between leaving the Big Man and starting again with the Producer. I found myself with three weeks off and, luckily, I had some money stashed away to live on (those were the days). So, the Mormon and I took advantage of it.

He, first, took me to his friend's house in the Hamptons for a weekend. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I have an aversion to automobiles; especially when it comes to driving them. The Mormon had a truck and he often used it even for local errands. I felt pretty safe when he was driving. Except for the night we left for the Hamptons. It was a torrential downpour. He pulled up to my apartment on Grand Street and by the time I got from my front door and into the truck I was soaked through. Lightning flashed across the sky and thunder made the earth shake.

Are you sure you want to go tonight? I asked, timidly.

"Yeah. This is great. It'll be a fun drive."

Yeah. Fun. I swallowed hard, buckled my seatbelt and didn't breathe for approximately two and a half hours. I have inherited anxiety from my mother. So I spent most of the trip with my eyes closed afraid I'd be too annoying employing the imaginary breaks in front of me the entire ride. If I was driving in that weather I'd have the speedometer at about 2.5 miles an hour. No more. Maybe less. And I refused to talk to the Mormon for fear of distracting him from the road. It was raining so hard you couldn't see more than a foot in front of the car. At least, I couldn't. We eventually arrived at the house. I, white-knuckled and light-headed, finally allowed my breath to return to its normal flow. It had not stopped raining. It had just continued to get worse.

We sat in the rain looking at the small, white house about 30 feet in front of us. There was a small lake in between us. The Mormon said the keys were hidden under a brick to the right of the doorway.

How do you know the guy who owns this house? I asked.

"We used to date."

Oh. For a long time?

"Not too long. We had only been dating about a week or two when one day he ran across the room, jumped in my lap and asked me to marry him. He moved a little too fast so I ended it."

Understandable.

"But he lets me use this place from time-to-time. Or we come up with his new boyfriend for weekends."

Cool.

"Are you threatened?"

No. And I wasn't. But there went my plans for a marriage proposal that weekend.

"So, let me leave the car running and the lights on and I'll go find the keys and open the door."

I watched him intently as he jumped out, held a hand over his eyes to shield them from the rain and plunged through the puddle. He was so unlike anyone I had ever dated. Anyone I had ever met. He was a man from Utah. He grew up on a farm, a real, honest-to-god farm. He was tall and broad like someone who spent their life working on the land. We didn't have land to work in South Philly. We had a back yard that was about 10' x 20'. We had concrete sidewalks in the front. The Mormon had spent a summer working in a slaughter house. His job slicing the throats of cattle. I would look at his hands sometimes and imagine them drawing the cool, steel blade with a firm sure hand across the hairy necks of the helpless animals. I spent my summer's working at the gift shop in the U.S. Mint. I would have liked to have sliced the throats of some not-so-helpless tourists.

Suddenly, he was knocking on the door of the car. I was startled and looked at him, eyes dancing in the light reflected from the house and laughing. I opened the door.

"Where were you?"

Thinking. Sorry.

"Come on."

I unbuckled my seatbelt and before I knew it, he swept me up in his arms and carried me over the puddle and deposited me on the front step. I laughed, breathless, and called his name. He was already on his way back to the car to get the bags.

I turned into the house and looked around. It was small, cottage-like. But tasteful and well-appointed. It was going to be a nice few days.

The next morning, we awoke early to sunlight streaming in the windows. The room was entirely white. The comforter on the bed was white. The sheets were white. The curtains were white. The light was white. The room was aglow like heaven. I pushed the covers aside and threw my head over the edge of the bed and let the light hit my face. It was warm and comforting and I was glad the rains of last evening had stopped.

"Let's go to the beach," he said.

It's February, I responded. But ok!

As we opened the front door of the house there was water about a foot high everywhere.

I can walk this time, I said and winked at him.

He cautiously backed out of the driveway and we made our way through the water. We passed a house I had not noticed last night in the rain and the darkness. In the front yard, surrounded by water, was a statue of Mary; her arms spread wide at her sides, her robes gently brushing the cold water by her feet, her head tilted down and to the side as if contemplating her reflection in the black water. We stopped and the Mormon took some pictures. I wanted to ask her what she saw in herself, the wading Mary. Did she feel trapped or comforted by the surrounding water? Did she want to dive in and swim away or just stand there and accept it all, whatever 'it all' was?

I watched he slowly fade from sight as we drove away and turned a corner and headed off to the beach.