Free Hers the Kingdom by Shirley Streshinsky Page B

she said, dull and dulling. Rather, she functioned in bursts of energy so intense they could not be long sustained. I could only wonder at the reasons for my rich harvest of letters.
         It became my habit to walk to the Four Corners to the post box. I told Mama I did this for the exercise, knowing she could not deny that need. I did not tell her that I needed the solitude as much. Often enough, the things Willa saw fit to commit to paper made me feel as if I had stolen documents on my person. I knew that Mama would not venture beyond the rose garden at the rim of the yard, so I was safe to read Willa's letters, hidden by the big elm in the abandoned churchyard, through all of that summer and into the fall.
         Willa was sly enough to send, in the same post as an o letter, another addressed to Mama and Pa, so that no one suspected my bounty. Outwardly, my days were little changed. No one guessed

that my life shifted that summer. The letters were at the center of my thoughts; they occupied me. The most important moment of my day was the opening of the post box. The deepest pleasure was settling down to read page after page of Willa's large, rushed handwriting.
         I do not mean to say that Willa told me everything. She did not, for instance, speak of fears or doubts—I think that she did not often allow herself to think of them. But she did confide surprisingly intimate matters. More than once my face would flush as I sat in the churchyard, leaves falling all about me.
         She told me, in vivid detail, about her wedding night. "It has happened," she wrote, "I am a wife, I am truly, wholly, wonderfully a woman. I never knew, had no idea, how it would make me feel, this physical merging with a man. I know, I know, I know what I said, but I was wrong. What did I really know? Nothing. I wish I could make you understand the exquisite pain of it."
         The letter, thicker than most, arrived on a warm Wednesday, a somnolent summer day that wrapped close around me. Settled in the churchyard, near a chinaberry tree, I read—ignoring the stickers from wild oats that had embedded themselves in my stockings, ignoring everything but the words on the paper.
         "We came to the rooms that had been arranged for us at the Lick House (much the most exclusive and without a doubt the most aristocratic hotel in the city—Owen's words). I stood in the doorway and took a long look at the whole of the large room, as if it were a stage setting. In truth, the most important scene of our wedded life was to be played there. A new timidness came over me; I felt awkward in the presence of the man who was my husband in name, but not yet in body.
         "As soon as the door closed behind us and we were alone—wonderfully alone—I stood in the center of the room feeling wickedly free. My husband busied himself with our valises. I watched him with a cataclysmic fascination. He turned and, seeing me, stood perfectly still. I do not know how long we looked at each

other, perhaps not long.
         "The room itself was almost too perfect, too exquisite, the scene of an illicit encounter, except that we are licit. The appointments were exquisite, neat, and in perfect place. Perfect, perfect, perfect . . . you see how often I use that word? There were elegantly embroidered towels hung on the washstand, each precisely folded. The massive bed was all carved and gleaming. I ran my hand over the shining wood and felt . . . sinful.
         "I felt as if we were alone, at long last, for the first time in our married life. Private, removed, out of reach, out of time. I felt dizzy with excitement.
         "Owen touched the back of my neck and I felt something hot flash through me. He kissed me then, my first true kiss. I felt as if all the time in the world had gathered in the room, and that I could stay on forever.
         "Except that we were dusty and vile from the long journey, and I could not abide the thought of going to my