The Fulfillment Read Online Free PDF

still hadn’t returned. Then when the milking was done and Jonathan returned to the house, Mary said she’d seen Aaron heading for town and figured he’d gone after Doc Haymes for Agnes.
    So Jonathan went to sleep that night with the question unasked, but through the following day it remained in his mind just as he’d rehearsed it, and by the end of the day, when they were all three in the kitchen around the big old claw-foot table, he was tense from the weight of it.
    One thing worked in his favor. Agnes Volence had had her baby last night, and Mary had that queer urge to talk about it, like she always did after news of a birthing.
    â€œWe’ll have to all go down there to visit, as soon as it’s respectable. Maybe the end of the week or so.” She was mending something she held on her lap, and she didn’t look up.
    Aaron was drawing a handful of cookies from an old molasses pail in the middle of the table. He glanced at Mary, reading her intention immediately.
    â€œYou wouldn’t be planning to do a bit of matchmaking while you pay your little social call, would you?” he asked.
    â€œWhy, Aaron, no such thing. It’s just common politeness to visit the new parents. You know that.”
    â€œIt’s not common politeness to go calling within a week of the birth. Agnes will more’n likely still be in bed.”
    â€œAnd what better time to take a cake down there than when they’re likely to appreciate it?”
    She looked across at Aaron and put the thread in her teeth to bite it off. When she bit something off she was prepared to chew it, and he figured the sooner he made his peace with Pris the sooner Mary’d let up on him. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “We’ll see. What do you think, Jonathan?”
    And then Jonathan did the strangest thing. He jumped. Or flinched, rather.
    â€œJonathan?”
    Mary couldn’t see Jonathan’s hands, for the oilcloth cover hanging over the edge of the table hid them from sight. But she could tell he was wiping his palms on his thighs.
    â€œIs something wrong, Jonathan?”
    â€œWrong?” But Jonathan had a frog in his throat, and he had to clear it before he could continue. “Just that everybody is having babies but us.”
    He didn’t look at Mary, so he missed seeing her eyes drop quickly back to the work on her lap.
    â€œExcuse me…” Aaron rose from his chair as if to leave.
    â€œNo. I want you to listen,” Jonathan said, staying his brother with a hand on his arm. “I got something to say, and it’s for both of you.”
    Aaron glanced at Mary, but she kept her eyes on her needlework. He sat back down slowly.
    â€œWe’ve been married seven years now. That’s a long time. And there are no babies.”
    â€œI think this is between you two, and I’ve got no place in it.” Aaron started to rise again, but a word from Jonathan stopped him.
    â€œStay.”
    And though Aaron stayed, he did so reluctantly while Jonathan went on.
    â€œWe all here know what happened when we were boys—how we both got the mumps, Aaron, you and me. They left me”—here Jonathan swallowed—“I mean, we all know I can’t father babies.”
    â€œWe don’t know that for sure, Jonathan,” Mary said. “I haven’t given up hope.”
    â€œWell, I gave up hope, Mary, and you’re just fooling yourself anymore,” Jonathan said.
    â€œThere’s no call to hurt her,” Aaron said quietly, remembering what they’d talked about the night before.
    â€œWell, this place needs children, and they won’t spring from me.”
    Jonathan’s palms were cold and damp on his thighs. His tongue, like a thick, swollen cork, threatened to stop up his mouth.
    â€œBut you, Aaron, they could spring from you.” It came out half question, half something else. But it was out. Before he dissolved in his own