Marybeth knew she had nearly been aborted. She knew to thank God for her life, and she'd known it since she was a little girl. Her mother had been wayward – a word her mother used. The mean kids accused her birth-mother of harlotry, but Marybeth had known better. If her mother had truly been a harlot, those kids couldn't even have teased her. She wouldn't even have been alive. Marybeth was proud of her mother for seeing the light, and turning her life around on what Marybeth had imagined several times was her very own deathbed.
Perhaps, like with Abraham, Gabriel himself had come to turn her birth-mother to the light. She'd condemned harlotry in that hospital room with the vacuum whirring and that death merchant hovering over her. And she'd probably known, too, as Marybeth had learned, that in rejecting harlotry she must control her own sexual predilections for the benefit of her would-be husband – one of which she immediately realised she needed, of course. But life for a single mother is even harder than for a woman alone. If her birth-mother had kept Marybeth, she would surely have turned back to a life of harlotry.
And Marybeth had always known – always known – that if she were selfless and meek, forgiving and sweet, never prideful, never wilful, womanly and demure, then Jesus would provide a good husband for her. And He had! Or so she'd thought.
He came from good stock. His hand was firm and even. His eyes were kind. His voice was low and gentle. He had few vices and worked like a farmer. And he was comfortably endowed, her grandmother would have said, God rest her merry soul! In her high school, from which she'd graduated two years ago, some of the girls had tittered over how "well-endowed" their boyfriends were. One of them, Connie DeWitt – now, there was a harlot! – would demand Marybeth "dish" on her "man", knowing full well Marybeth wasn't allowed to date. Even if she had been, and even if she'd had a boyfriend, she never would have responded. Never prideful, never wilful. But if she admitted it to herself now, through the haze of the shock before her, she would have to say that Samuel was certainly comfortably endowed.
And now she looked at him in his kind, sad eyes, and back to the piece of paper in front of her. And she loved him – oh, how she loved him! She'd prayed for Jesus to show her a man who was strong enough to lord over her impure woman's heart. For she had those thoughts – prideful, wilful thoughts. Lustful thoughts in abundance. She'd prayed for a man to please and serve. She would focus all her lust on him – on her husband. On her father.
Her breath caught in her throat at the thought and it wouldn't budge. The great welling throb in her windpipe caused her eyes to water and her jaw to quiver. She started pulling at her long blonde hair. She released her breath but the tears began to drip. As she had since she'd been very young, she promised herself that tears were okay if only she could keep the rest of her composure. She just pictured Blessed Mary and her trials and knew her own were naught.
Her pride, her will bellowed at her: "It doesn't matter! It doesn't matter at all. He's your husband and you love him!" But she wasn't sure if that were her will or her righteousness. Marybeth wept.
Samuel reached for her hand and she pulled away. He cocked a stern look at her, and her composure cracked – just a little. (It was barely a sob.) She gave him her hands, as was his due. A wife to her husband. A wife to her husband. A girl to her father.
He spoke, as tears ran down her young cheeks.
"Marybeth, I know you think this means we can't be husband and wife anymore. I thought that too, for a time. But on the way home here, tonight, I realised – we have to continue living as one. No one can know about this – our lives would be ruined, and we'd never be able to be together again in any way. We'd be miserable – worse than miserable."
"But, but—"
