“Oh, honey! What will they do to you?”
“I dunno. But I can stand up to it. I can stand it now. You’ve made a man of me at last.”
“Oh, my God!” she cried. “I didn’t. I tempted you away. I don’t know what I’ve done to you. Without me you wouldn’t be in all this trouble.”
He faced her steadily. “Without you I’d never have found myself, an’ that’s God’s truth,” he said solemnly. “I’m your man, honey. You made me. I was afraid of every one, picked on by every one, an’ then you came along an’ set me free!”
“Our love!” she cried. “It was that set us both free so’s we found ourselves. But that ain’t all. Last night, Tim, I understood more. It seemed like I was shoved right down into the heart of life. I had a kind of a vision—maybe it was only a dream: I’d been asleep, I know. I stayed awake ’til real late, just sitting there in the dark an’ knowin’ what I’d done to her. It seemed like I’d go crazy; I couldn’t cry; I thought my mind was about to split. An’ then at last I did: I cried, an’ cried, though it didn’t do her no good. I kep’ thinkin’, ‘This don’t do her no good. My tears can’t help her any now.’ But they helped me. My head stopped feelin’ so tight after that. The awful splashes on her waist quit hollerin’ out, ‘Look! Look!,’ an’ at last I dropped off into a doze; an’ when I waked up things was different. It seemed like I’d shifted in deeper than I ever was before.”
She brushed a dark strand of hair back from her brow, then she dropped her hand to his and he held it fast, staring up into her face, whose look of wider apprehension seemed reflected on his own as well.
“It was like I’d been stretched,” she went on slowly, feeling for words, “stretched into knowing bigger things, an’ shoved deep down where you ain’t yourself alone, but where all the rest of the folks is, too, all kind of bound together—all brothers an’ sisters—an’ where nobody lives to theirselves, or dies to theirselves. An’—an’ now I got to stand straight with the world.”
He nodded, “I know. I understand.” It was the old familiar phrase which had linked them so close together. They were silent for a long moment, drinking understanding and courage from one another’s eyes in the communion of their spirits.
He spoke at last. “I’ll go ’round to the police this mornin’ an’ turn myself in. Or maybe it would be better to go straight to Camp Lee.”
Her clasp upon his hand tightened, but she spoke steadily. “I’ll go home to Hart’s Run.”