Mercy Read Online Free Page B

couldn’t have chosen a more disarming scent. August would bottle it if he could, anoint himself daily, lift his scented inner wrists to his nose.
    “To my husband.”
    “Oh.” The sound thickens in his throat.
    “I had to,” she blurts. “I didn’t want him to—I couldn’t bear—on our wedding night—I just had to lie.”
    “I see.” Two tiny words are the most he can choke out. His inner picture of her alters dramatically, the butcher’s dark handprints lifting from her flesh, leaving it suddenly, startlingly pristine. The thrill is undeniable. It winds, bone after thorny bone, up his spine.
    “Is it a sin, Father?” she asks softly. “I mean, I know about the lying, but the other—”
    “Well, no, not exactly.” He swallows, gets hold of himself and tries again. “But you understand that marriage is a sacrament—that the
act
of marriage is, well, sacred.” The words ring hollowly in his head, bounce around his sinuses, the hidden flaps and recesses of his throat.
    “But it’s not a
sin
?”
    Eagerness in her tone. He feels panicked, a small clawed thing surrounded by fire. “Cast your mind back to the ceremony,” he says quickly, “to the words of Saint Paul. ‘Just as the Church is subject to Christ, so also let wives be subject in all things to their husbands.’ ”
    “Yes, Father,” she presses, “but what about all the women who
wouldn’t
, who died because they wouldn’t? Didn’t God make them saints?”
    “Those women were different. They weren’t married, for one.”
    “What about the Virgin Mary? She was married to Joseph, and God loved her best of all.”
    “I—” He falters.
Virgin
. No longer blue and serene, the word mutated into something forbidden the moment she gave it voice.
    “I feel,” she whispers, “like I mustn’t. Not with him. I feel like it’s
wrong.”
    He should contradict her, he knows, build a tower of Scripture, ring it round with holy tradition and invite her inside—but he doesn’t.
Virgin
, is all he can think. Virgin.
    “Three Hail Marys,” he croaks, forgetting she has yet to say the act of contrition.
    “Is that all?”
    “That’s all.” He retreats into the absolution, lowering himself into the Latin as into a dark and familiar pool. “Go in peace,” he concludes, returning reluctantly to his mother tongue.
    When she stands, the creases of her dress fall open to release a fresh waft of pepper and sage. His glands respond, producing two thin streams to well up shamefully beneath his tongue.
PORK: POPULAR RETAIL CUTS
    Thomas wakes with a diagram in his mind—parts provided, some assembly required. Mathilda’s slender back is turned, swathed in a thick white nightgown. She was at church for most of the afternoon, unresponsive at the dinner table, asleep before he could switch off the light. He traces her shape with his eyes, feeling himself twitch and begin to stiffen beneath the sheet. Surely her time will be finished soon.
    Ashamed, he turns his eyes to the ceiling, forcing his thoughts back to where they began. The hog in the locker should be plenty chilled. There’s church in the morning,so he can’t do it then. Besides, why wait when the picture’s so vivid in him now?
    He steals down to the shop. The locker’s a great relief. He stays inside long enough to cool his blood, then shoulders the carcass, lifting the gambrel stick free of its hooks.
    It’s not long before he breaks a fresh sweat, sawing and trimming, inspiration driving him hard. He’ll mar the meat in places, but it can’t be helped—now he’s started, there’s no going back. He carves his components, then carries them to the refrigerated front case for display. It takes some rearranging—he has to remove two of the barred shelves to make room.
    He moves quickly, ever conscious of the leaking cold. Down on his knees, cheek pressed flat to the glass, he mounts cut on cut, shoving skewers to hold them in place. Rectangles of jowl pile up to make the