One week after Stanford left, the paintings were shipped to Minneapolis. Stanford and Laurie had assumed all the details, for Stanford hadn’t minced words with his partner. Eric had nearly died in December, and Lynne was on some bizarre religious tangent, not having him admitted to the hospital. Laurie wasn’t as taken aback by Lynne’s actions as Stanford was, but Laurie was surprised that both Snyders were considering the Catholic faith. Stanford had sneered at that wording; the Aherns had finally succeeded in dragging two more converts into the church, although Stanford held out hope that Eric’s misgivings about the pope would ultimately keep him from…. Then Stanford had sighed. He didn’t know what, if anything, that people had to do to become Catholic. Laurie had teased that it wasn’t akin to being Jewish; in all probability, Eric wouldn’t need to be circumcised. Stanford had blanched as Laurie laughed. Then Stanford had called Eric, confirming that the paintings had indeed left for the Caffey-Miller Institute.
Much of early February Eric spent painting portraits of his wife, but he was back to his previous technique. The impressionistic portrait, as Sam and Renee called it, was drying in an upstairs storage room, but when Lynne napped, Eric was on the phone with the contractor from last year’s renovations. In May, after some of the thicket had been cleared, Eric wanted a small outbuilding constructed, just for his artwork. All the upstairs bedrooms would be needed, Eric and Lynne had discussed, and actually, the guest room closest to the master bedroom would be where Lynne would give birth. Renee had requested that, in order for Lynne to have a separate place to recuperate. Lynne balked at first, then agreed; Eric could sleep in their bed for the first few nights, and it would take no time to rearrange that room, currently designated as the nursery. Eric and Sam replaced the crib with the double bed Eric and Lynne had previously used, and by the middle of February, Nurse Ahern was satisfied with the arrangements.
Lynne saw Dr. Salters, who was pleased for Renee’s foresight. Not that Lynne would need to be in bed for as many days as hospitalized new mothers, but that it would be handy to use the nursery as a labor room, of sorts. Dr. Salters had smiled, noting that if a home birth worked out well, Eric and Lynne could consider delivering their next child in that same room. Eric had laughed, while Lynne had quietly giggled. The couple had decided to use birth control for the first few months, once they could again make love. Neither felt guilty about it, for Lynne wanted to enjoy their first child’s babyhood, and while she held no qualms that Eric would leave, who knew what might happen in Minnesota? The last that Laurie had written, Seth was pleased for the paintings, as were other patients. Perhaps Eric’s gift would extend a wide measure of healing.
The weather remained dismal, but Eric and Lynne rarely ventured out, except for church and catechism classes. Eric finally addressed his papal concerns with Father Markham, and to Eric’s surprise, the young priest acknowledged that he too, at times, wondered the same. The men had a long discourse on the subject, easing some of Eric’s fears. Lynne seemed to have no such worries, but then all her thoughts centered upon the baby. But Eric had started to question his choice of a Catholic faith. He also wasn’t comfortable with how Mary was so venerated, but to that, Father Markham was unyielding. As the Mother of God, Mary was without sin, and had not engaged in any marital relations with Joseph. Jesus had no flesh and blood brothers, as some translations of the Bible attested. Eric left that meeting feeling torn, but he kept those thoughts from his wife, and from the Aherns too.
Renee had wanted to host a baby shower for Lynne, but Lynne had said it wasn’t necessary. To Eric, she claimed that the women Renee would have invited were the same who had talked behind Lynne’s back when Eric had been away. Lynne’s pull to Catholicism had nothing to do with those gossips, and a shower would have seemed hypocritical. One evening in late February, after a long painting session, Eric and Lynne cuddled on the sofa. As the fire crackled, Lynne spoke her heart; her growing faith in God was far removed from church social circles. She didn’t want to join any of their societies, and if it made her appear aloof, even snobbish, she wasn’t bothered. “I want to learn about Christ’s life and sufferings and how that relates to my life, to our lives.” She sighed. “Maybe we’re too old to immerse ourselves in something that seems, well, something that the rest are born into.”
She smoothed her blouse over the baby. “I mean, I want her to know Jesus.” Then Lynne smiled. “My goodness, that sounds archaic. But it’s the truth. The peace I’ve found in going to mass, and all you endured, I can’t discount that as fantasy. God is real, I know that in my heart. Maybe that’s all I need to say on the subject.”
Eric kissed her head, then stroked her hair, which now fell just past her shoulders. “You wanna take communion, but that’ll only happen if….”
She nodded, then sighed. “I do, and yes, only if I’m a member of the church will that occur.”
“And you want her to be baptized.” Eric gently patted the baby. “I want that too.”
“But you don’t think everything Sam and Renee believe is kosher.”
Eric laughed as Lynne chuckled. “No, I don’t. But honey, I also don’t think that God puts a huge emphasis on these sorts of delineations. The Jews are his chosen people, and as Gentiles we’ve just been brought into the fold relatively recently. To them, we’re still wet behind the ears.”
Lynne struggled to sit up, chuckling as she did so. Then she stared at her husband. “You sound like, well, not like the man I married. What’s happened to us Eric?”
He caressed her face. “Well, we’re older now.” He smiled. “Lynne, people change, and sometimes it’s not slow at all. The last two years have been tumultuous to say the least. They’ve also been the best years of my life, even when I was far away from you.” He softly kissed her cheek, then wiped away a few tears that had fallen. “I wanna share our beliefs with our son or daughter, but maybe we need to fully explore what those beliefs mean to us.”
“Do you think we’ve rushed into our decision?”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t say that, but I will say that you’re right, perhaps it’s harder for someone not born into a certain faith, any faith, to accept without question established tenants. To us, the pope has always been a figurehead of a religion, and Mary a symbol. Now we’re being asked to believe they have, well, supernatural aspects to their human characters. I have no problem believing that Christ is God, and was a man.” Eric laughed. “But then why am I so bothered by other details? Faith is faith, is it not?”
Eric expected her to smile and shrug. Instead Lynne laid her palm along his cheek. “I’ve watched you change into a bird Eric, I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes. And that you come back home, and return to this form.” She placed her hand along his chest. “Miracles happen, I know that as sure as sitting beside you. Our baby’s a miracle, your healed foot is another. You lived through that fever, Sam nursed you last year. I know what I feel here, in my heart.” She set his hand between her breasts, then she wept. “I wanna take communion, and I want our baby baptized, I believe in the validity of those sacraments. I also believe you turn into a hawk, does that make me crazy? But I also have a few, well, doubts.” She sighed, but kept Eric’s hand on her chest. “And while you might change again, I’ll never have undisputable truth about the pope or the Virgin.” She smiled. “Sometimes I think about Mary, she was half my age thereabouts. An angel appears, telling her she’s gonna have a baby, but not just any baby. And she accepts it without question.”
Eric smiled. “Well, she had one question.”
Lynne nodded. “But that was just to assess exactly how it would occur.” Then Lynne giggled. “I don’t think she was sinless, and I don’t think that Joseph remained married to her without being with her.” Lynne shook her head. “Good grief, that’s strange to consider. But they were human beings; he was gonna be her husband before this even happened. Maybe the pope and priests make the decision to maintain celibacy, but Joseph was just a man and….”
Lynne
began to cry. “I wanna step into church with the full acceptance of all these tenants. I want to belong to that, I wanna….” She took a deep breath. “It’s like when you told me what happened to you. Until I saw it, I was so disturbed, not by what you’d said, but that I still loved you, and wanted you to tell me it was a lie, that for some inexplicable reason you’d fabricated this bizarre falsehood. I loved you so much, oh Eric, I’ve never told you this, but I just ached inside, wondering why you spoke those words. I thought to myself, is he crazy, why would he hurt me like this, tear us apart? Because for those few days, I really wasn’t sure I could stay with you, I really didn’t know at all.”
A brief silence filled the living room. Then it was broken by a cracking piece of firewood. Lynne took a deep breath and continued. “The day it happened, I was freed. Watching you scared me to death, but then suddenly all my previous fears were gone. You’d been telling the truth, it wasn’t some elaborate lie. I watched you fly away, and all I could think was thank God.” She laughed. “That’s the truth. I didn’t have any faith, but that’s what I said to myself. Thank God he actually turned into a hawk, because now I can stay with him, how crazy is that?”
Lynne looked at her large belly. “There it is baby, the biggest secret about your parents. Daddy turns into a bird sometimes, and Mommy thought he was a lunatic until she saw it occur.” Then Lynne met Eric’s gaze. Tears fell down his cheeks, and she spread them along his skin. “Maybe all our questions about these curious religious beliefs are just straws in the wind. Maybe it doesn’t matter at all, because what’s real is what’s inside us, in our hearts and in my womb. This baby isn’t any more than any other baby, but it’s very special to us. And to God; I think he wants us to raise our child with faith, a Catholic faith perhaps, or maybe not. But with some sense of beauty that isn’t related to tangible items, not even your paintings.” Lynne smiled. “Or not the ones most will see. Eric, the canvases you sent to Seth, I know you won’t paint anything like those again. But that’s the beauty I’m talking about, something so esoteric that only certain eyes can view it. I hope Laurie sees them, but other than him, that’s all who I know of that matters. You realize we’ve never even met Seth, yet he’s a huge part of our lives. I pray for him every day, and I know you do too. And maybe one day you will meet him, I suspect that’s inevitable.” She sighed. “You’ll meet him perhaps as a hawk, or maybe he’ll get better, and we’ll both be introduced to him. But at this moment, he’s as real to us as God is; we take it on faith that he’s in Minneapolis. Many parts of our lives are accepted on faith. Some are just easier to understand than others.”
Eric grasped her hands, then used them to dry his face. “I’m sorry I hurt you so badly.”
“You had no other way to tell me. If I’d seen it without that warning, I don’t know.” She kissed the backs of his hands, which were still damp from his face. “That angel warned Mary, or maybe it wasn’t a warning at all. It was a test of her faith. You tested me, and I passed, and in December, God tested us. And every time you change, maybe God is testing you. You always come home Eric, you’ve never, you’ve never….”
“What Lynne?”
She swallowed hard, trying not to cry. “You’ve never allowed yourself to be harmed. Even when it nearly killed you, you still fought to come home in one piece. How many times could you’ve been attacked or shot at or….” She cried, then wiped her face. “What you endure, what you suffer is brutal. Yet you’re here Eric, and here.” She patted the baby. “What does all that mean?”
He didn’t answer with words, but pulled her close to him, stroking her head as finally a dam burst. Lynne cried hard, praying as she did so. She asked for guidance, and for more faith. And she thanked God for a multitude of blessings as her husband rocked her back and forth, telling her how much she was loved.
Chapter 51