Herself

I must confess, I have been lax in my duties the past few days.  Consumed by the anger and fear that Nozomi’s story brought to me, I paid little heed to my charges.  They have done very well, thank the kind Father, but I nearly missed a vital moment between Myrtle and Jaquinn.  If not for my sharp-eyed sentry, young Sixta, I would not have been there for them, and who knows what might have happened then.  Perhaps that sounds dramatic, but there has always been an aura of fragility in the connection between these two, and any great commotion might have been enough to destroy it.

Thanks to Sixta, who brought me back to my charges when they needed me, that is no longer the case.

This was the weekend that they went to meet Jaquinn’s parents, and Sixta tells me that Myrtle was extremely nervous.  For the first day, however, she fared very well, greeting Jaquinn’s father and stepmother politely and exchanging pleasant conversation.  Wanting to win their approval, she restrained her more explosive traits—her loud laughter, her frank expression of her opinions—but it was hard on her, and only Jaquinn’s presence made the evening bearable for her.

Later in the evening, however, when the two were alone in their room, Myrtle lost the smile that had served her as a mask and became broody and silent.  Jaquinn noticed, of course, but for a while he said nothing, and the tension built between them.  This was the moment Sixta realized that my presence was needed.  She sent for me, and I joined my charges in the silence.

I could see right away the struggle in Myrtle’s mind.  She was fighting with herself, wondering why these people mattered so much that she had to pretend to be smaller than she was.  I would have assured her that she didn’t, that she could and would be loved without pretense, but she knew that already.  In her heart was building an irrational resentment for Jaquinn, as if it had been his idea for her to make less of herself for his family.

I would have turned to her, to guide her, but I have learned that Jaquinn is much easier to influence, that Myrtle takes guidance from him with less resistance than she would from me.  So I measured his thoughts and, on seeing them running in much the same direction as my own, I urged him to speak.

He settled down onto the foot of the wide hotel bed, right in Myrtle’s line of sight.  “So what was up with you tonight?” he asked.

She scowled past him at the television.  “What do you mean?”

“You were…really nice.”

This got a snort from her.  “You don’t want me to be nice to your family?”

“I want you to be yourself.”

Myrtle turned her scowl on him.  “You saying I’m not nice?”

“No,” he said baldly.  “Not that nice, anyway.”  He turned, crossing his legs under him, and pulled Myrtle’s feet into his lap.  “I mean, when Sarah asked you what your contingency plan was after the dancing thing is done, I expected the whole room to explode.  But you were—really nice.”

Myrtle tried to tug her feet away from him, but he kept grip on them, and after a second she relaxed, letting him continue his massage.  She opened her mouth to speak, but then stopped herself and just shook her head.  “Not worth it,” she muttered.

“No, say what you’re thinking,” Jaquinn said.  When she remained silent, he wrapped a hand around the arch of her foot and squeezed.  “Myrtle Mills.”

The words burst from her with force.  “I think Sarah’s a twit.  Who does she think she is, telling me that my career is not feasible in the long-term?  How the hell is that her business?  And she’s not all that much older than me, so where does she get off giving me advice, huh?”  She jerked her foot from Jaquinn’s grip and leapt from the bed, pacing to the window and back with long strides.  “And I’ll tell you something else, your dad is not all that sharp either.  Aside from his poor judgment in picking an empty-headed kid after your mama, he hardly said anything when you told him that your story made it to the front page.[1]  Did he even hear you?  No, he had to go on and on about your brother’s football game.  I thought that was crazy rude.  And then they didn’t ask anything about me—don’t they care about me?  Or do they think that I’m not important—”

She stopped short, for this was the fear that had fueled all of her outrage.  For weeks she has felt the same uncertainty that I have seen between them, their mutual wondering as to whether this relationship will last.  Neither of them have had the courage to speak of the future, and I have not encouraged them to do so, wanting them each to find in their hearts what it was they truly wanted.

That night, as Myrtle turned away from Jaquinn for fear of what he would see, I saw all too well.  Myrtle, that free spirit and determinedly independent woman, now knows what is in her heart.  She was upset because she wanted to know herself a part of Jaquinn’s life, wanted it so badly that she restricted herself to win his family’s approval, and for that wanting she resented herself.  It was quite a tangle of emotion, and I did not quite know how to work through it.

So instead, I allowed Jaquinn to do it.

Filled with as much assurance as I could give him, he got up from the bed, crossed to Myrtle, and took her face in his hands.  Gazing into her eyes, he said, “Sarah is kind of a twit.”

A burst of startled laughter lightened the air between them, and they smiled at one another.

“It doesn’t stop her from being one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met,” Jaquinn added.  “And I like her because she doesn’t try to be my mama.  And she makes Dad happy.  As for my dad, he and I have already talked about my newspaper story—which, I guess you didn’t notice, is pinned to the fridge.”

“Oh,” Myrtle said.

He ran his thumbs across her cheekbones, watching their progress with warm eyes.  “And as for not asking about you,” he said softly, “I told them that you have some rough history with your family, and they didn’t want to press, because they know how important you are to me.”

Myrtle’s dark eyes softened until even Jaquinn could have seen down into her thoughts.  “Oh,” she said again, and meant something completely different.

Jaquinn bent his head and kissed her very gently, a kiss that meant more to her than all the thousands of kisses he has given her since they met.  “You be yourself, Myrtle Mills,” he whispered, “because yourself is what I love most in all the world, and even if my family doesn’t absolutely love you—which they will, by the way—you still are going to be in my life for a long, long time.”  He stepped back, looking at her, and grinned.  “So they might as well get used to you soon.”

That made her laugh, and she jumped up into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist and kissing him with all her strength.  Knowing these two and the way they express themselves, I excused myself, but I returned later to find them lying in the tangled bed, because I knew she would say it and I wanted to hear it.

It wasn’t until they had turned off the lights, until Jaquinn’s eyes had closed and his body had relaxed.  Myrtle, who had watched his face the whole time and who was completely, utterly content, whispered into the dark, “I love you, too.”

And his arm came up around her shoulders and squeezed, and she smiled and nestled her long self closer to him.

So all is well.  On the remaining days with Jaquinn’s family, Myrtle was at her ease, by which I mean she was blunt and honest and confident.  True to Jaquinn’s guess, his father and stepmother did love her, and they saw that Jaquinn loves her, too.

I owe Sixta a debt for her vigilance, and for the lesson to me that I should have more for my charges.  But it encourages me that even amid powerful doubts, two people can come together and make a connection that will hold them to one another for years to come.  It makes me glad to know that doubts do not always win.

I hope that Nozomi reads this post.  I hope she finds the same encouragement in it that I do.

 

[1] As in, of the newspaper.  For journalists, to have work appear on the front page is a mark of great honor.