The Surrendered

SIXTEEN

IN THE DAYS AFTER SHE SLEPT tucked beside Sylvie, June crept about quietly as she dusted in the cottage, departing without saying a word. Sylvie was distant and distracted, staying and reading in the bedroom while June did her chores in the front, and then whenever she was outside it seemed she would allow herself to be surrounded by other children, who instantly formed about her like a buzzing hedge. June was afraid that she had somehow defiled their bond, had imperiled everything she had been pla

For what had happened? She wasn’t sure herself, save for the imprint of Sylvie’s body on her hands, the arid, smooth skin that had been almost burning to the touch, if perfectly stilled, solid, this live ingot. It was only at night, in the girls’ dorm room, well after the lights were extinguished and the other girls finally fell asleep after their incessant chattering, when she was on the threshold of slumber herself, that a seam of pressure pushed up through the trunk of her body, this ache coursing through her arm and to her hand, and which made her reach again for Sylvie, though there was only herself. Throughout the bunks there was stillness, but in her own cot there would be movement, shifting, the tiniest travel in the cot’s metal feet, and in the morning she’d awake enervated and bewildered and loathing herself yet again for pushing away the only person she loved. Her desire, she could see, was only ruining her chances for the future. She must only be a good daughter. She knew the grip of her thoughts had better be as steely as ever, as though she were alone again on the road, when her body was wild with hunger, every last cell of her about to burst in all directions with its emptiness but her mind furiously gripping at the rails. She had to be the implacable train. The unswerving force. She must do whatever she had to, to keep moving ahead.

One night, when June thought Ta

“You’re only thirty-four, dear. Other women we know have had children as late as that. My mother gave birth to my brother at thirty-six.”

“Dorothy had six of you, before him.”

“She lost several, too, you know.”

“She didn’t lose five,” Sylvie said miserably. “Not every one.”

Ta

“It’s not your fault. It’s not at all.”

“It is my fault. Perhaps I’m not the cause, but I’ve exacerbated the situation, and I’m as culpable in the end as if I were. I’ve been negligent. I’ve been a poor husband, by every measure. Not only these past months in Korea but for years now. It’s why I returned instead of staying over in town, to tell you how sorry I am, for the way I’ve willfully disdained your unhappiness, when I should have redoubled my efforts to help you. To be with you. I’ve been selfish, and terribly self-righteous, too. I’m asking if you’ll forgive me, Sylvie. If you’ll try to forgive who I’ve been and let me come back to you.”

“Forgive you?” she cried. She was trying to say something now, but she was gasping from low in her chest, shuddering, and June was sure that she was going to confess to him, admit what he may have already known, but he was shushing her, telling her that there was nothing she needed to say. June slowly stood up to peer over the sill and through the gauzy curtain and saw him embracing her in the lamplight as she sat up in her bed. He stroked her mussed-up hair.

“Let’s start again, darling. I’ve come to have a renewed belief in our chances. I want to try for us again. We can still take children home with us, but I want you to believe that we can have our own. Can you do that for me? Will you?”

“Yes,” she said, wiping her eyes, her nose. “I will, for you. But I think it’s too late, Ames.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“But it is,” she said hopelessly. “It’s too late.”

“It’s not!” he said, his voice loud enough to buzz the window glass. He paused, then spoke gently again: “It’s only too late if you believe it so. We have no chance otherwise. None at all. We must want the same thing, which hasn’t been the case for a long time. It’s not mysterious to me anymore.”

He bent down and kissed her on the forehead, and the cheek, and then on the mouth. She didn’t turn away. Perhaps she was not wholly with him but she wasn’t fleeing, or flinching, and when he pulled on the sides of her nightgown she simply raised her arms so he could lift it from her body. Her ribs showed starkly. He clasped her there and pressed his face into her breast and as they lay down on the bed he put out the oil lamp, sending the room into perfect black. June ducked, afraid her silhouette might be visible. For another half-hour she remained crouched in the near-frosty night air, listening for the scuttle of lovemaking as she did in the storeroom next to Hector’s quarter but hearing in the end only Ta

The next day was bright and glorious, the hillsides awash in a gaudy autumnal display. The shimmering glow was bounding inside of June, too, despite the terrible headache and congested chest that she’d awoken with after finally going back to the dormitory, her hands and feet and face numb with the freezing air. And she was finally realizing now how she ought for the moment to desist, pull back, force herself to recede from Sylvie, and from Ta

As for Reverend Ta

“I am fine,” she said, trying to smile for him, even as her temples pounded.

“Perhaps you ought to rest for the day. You don’t sound yourself.” He patted her shoulder. “You can see if Mrs. Ta

“I don’t want to disturb her,” she said, and instead headed for the dormitory, imagining with near certainty that he was nodding approvingly behind her. She would show him her restraint. Show him that despite all the fights and other troubles she had caused she was a worthy girl at core, exactly the kind of hard soul he must be here to save. She was not being so crafty or calculating, as she was exercising a differing form of the same capacity for self-discipline and self-direction she’d always possessed and counted on, but now applying it to self-reform. Was true maturity to be found in this measure of control? If so, it was a jubilant feeling. Yet as she lay down in her cot in the empty dormitory, the first rush of a fever welling in the back of her neck, in her joints, the thought occurred that it was in fact Hector Bre