And All Our Wounds Forgiven Read Online Free Page B

sharecropper’s cabin.
    “Bobby had saved a seat for me in the balcony in the middle of the first row,” she resumed aloud, unaware that she had been vocally silent. “I looked down to the high-backed chairs on the pulpit and there, in the middle, directly in front of me sat John Calvin Marshall.
    “He was leaning to his right, listening to the college president speaking quietly in his ear. However, his eyes looked out into the chapel at the students coming in with little of their usual noise and talking.”
    She paused. “This is where it gets hard, Andrea. I want you to understand, but not because I want your forgiveness. I committed no sin and therefore do not need absolution. People want adultery to be a morality play in which virtue always resides with the wife. But an adulterous love is moral. I don’t know that a loveless monogamy is.”
    She stopped, sighed, inhaled deeply, held the breath for a moment, then let it out slowly.
    “I have never spoken of my relationship with Cal. For the seven years we were together and the twenty-five since he was assassinated, I have kept hidden that which gave my life meaning.
    “I never wanted to share it, even if that had been possible. Who would have understood? I continue to love him and care for him. Death is a momentary interruption of a relationship. Nothing more.”
    Her vision was blurred by the shock of unanticipated tears. She heard herself sniff and waited until she was sure she could speak without a tremor in her voice.
    “He looks up at me. A blond white girl in a chapel of a thousand black students stands out. A picture of me being arrested had appeared on the front page of the New York Times and every other paper in America.
    “I did not know he was looking for me as he watched the students come in. But when his eyes found me, I knew. At least my body did.
    “My father used to think I had ESP. I do not. I just pay attention to the flashes of light rather than wait for the beams.
    “I was ten and was in the backseat of the car, looking out the window. The sky was getting dark. Without thinking, I told my parents we should buy some candles because the electricity was going to go out. My father, the most rational and logical of men who used that steel trap of a mind to make more money than I’ll spend in this lifetime, believed me. Mother did not. He stopped and bought candles and kerosene lamps. Mother said he was spoiling me, indulging me. The storm came and the electricity went out; my mother never trusted me again.
    “I was seventeen and was driving along a street. I had not had my license long. Suddenly I had a feeling I should get out of the car. I pulled over and ran. A moment later, the car burst into flames. How many times after a plane crash do you read about someone who was supposed to be on the plane but he or she ‘had a feeling’ and decided to take another flight?
    “I try to grasp the tiny feelings that dart past like insects on the surface of a still pond. So it was when he looked at me that morning.
    “It was not love at first sight. If it had been, less would have been required of me. But love is not as much a feeling as it is a decision about who or what you admit into your soul. When he looked at me, I was not deceived by the composed exterior of John Calvin Marshall. I, that is, my body, experienced his loneliness and terror at being John Calvin Marshall, and it, I admitted him, and the loneliness, and the terror into my soul.
    “That was the defining moment of my life. I knew it then. Our eyes met, and I wanted to look away, but I chose to hold his eyes with mine.
    “Then, the college president stood to introduce him and Cal looked away. A moment later, as the college president called his name and he rose from the high-backed chair, the student body leaped to its feet and applauded. I looked around the chapel into the faces of the black students gleaming with anticipated salvation. These were my classmates, girls on my floor in