The doorbell rang at ten past seven.
Leo opened it and found Maude in a dress. Black this time. Short, shorter than anything she'd come over in before, the bottom was high up the pale full curve of her thigh and trimmed in a thin red ruffle. Two narrow straps over the shoulders, more decoration than support. The neckline cut down in a soft sweetheart curve, the inner halves of her chest pushed up and pressed together by the size of them, the valley between them deep and smooth. A small red bow sat dead center where the cups met, drawing the eye exactly where it was already going. More red trim ran along the inside of the neckline. No belt. The dress didn't need one, it followed the shape of her on its own, gripping the shape of her waist and flaring back out over the wideness of her hips. Her legs ran long and pale below the hem, the toned line of her thighs lifted into a small flex by a pair of red high heels with thin ankle straps. Red toenails behind the open peep of the shoe.
It was handmade. He didn't have to ask.
"Hi, Leo."
"Maude. Come in."
She stepped through the door without hesitating. Her eyes met his on the way past, held there a second longer than he'd expected, then set her handbag down on the entry table.
"I'm sorry — I didn't think I was even going to make it tonight. But then Ned got a call from his folks and had to drive out. I put the boys down for their nap right after. I came over the second I had the door closed behind me."
"It's okay, you're here now."
"I can't be long. The boys nap for an hour. That's all I have."
"Got it."
She paused. Her hands found each other in front of her stomach, fingers laced and resting against the smooth black of the dress, the motion pushing her bust an inch higher in the neckline. The pale upper slopes of her chest swelled gently over the sweetheart cut as she did it.
"You said on Monday you were going to find me those passages."
"I did."
"Did you find them?"
"I did."
A small even breath out, the kind she'd clearly been holding behind her teeth since she arrived. The breath made the whole top of the dress strain and ease. Half a second of relief on her face before she put it away.
"Good."
She said it like a woman receiving a delivery she'd been waiting for. There was none of the flinching avoidance Leo had been expecting for after yesterday, no apology, no soft circling around what they'd done on the couch the last time she was in this house. Marge's approach was to worry and address what happened while Maude just straight up pretended nothing ever happened.
She stepped past him into the hallway, and the perfume came with her, something light and powdery, and so did the silhouette of the dress from behind. The skirt was too short and too fitted to swing, it shifted with her hips instead, a tight little side-to-side motion, the red trim ticking along the back of her thighs. The fabric hugged the wide round shape of her rear so closely. Her hips were wider than the rest of her by a measurable margin.
'She made that this week,' Leo thought, closing the door. 'She made that this week and decided yes, this is the one I wear over to read Scripture with the man I had my tongue in yesterday.'
"Couch?"
"Couch is fine."
She walked ahead of him. He let himself watch the swing of the skirt for the four steps it took.
Upstairs, somewhere over the second guest bedroom, the floor gave one soft creak. Manjula moving from the bed to the desk or doing some stretches.
…
She sat at one end of the couch with her knees angled toward him and her ankles crossed, feet tucked, back straight, hands in her lap with the fingers laced. Sunday school posture. The dress did not match the Sunday school posture.
The hem rode up high on her thigh just from sitting and a thin band of pale skin showed almost all of her thighs. And the press of her thighs together as she crossed her legs forced her chest forward and up another half-inch into her cleavage. The deep crease of her cleavage had become more pronounced now. Leo could see the freckles scattered across the upper slopes, the faint blue trace of a vein near them.
Leo set the Bible on the coffee table in front of them. He'd left it open already, ribbon between two pages he'd marked the night before.
"I told you on Monday I'd find you the passages. I want to read you two of them. Both of them are about the exact thing you've been worrying about."
She didn't respond. She just nodded, a short, almost grateful nod, and folded her hands tighter in her lap. The motion pushed her bust together harder.
"The first is in Genesis."
"All right."
He picked the Bible up and let it rest open across his thigh, angled so she could read along if she wanted. She didn't lean in to read. She watched his face instead.
"Sarah and Hagar. You know the gist of it?"
"Sarah couldn't have a child. So Abraham had Ishmael with the servant."
"That's the part most people remember. Let me set it up."
She nodded.
"Abraham and Sarah were married and old at this point. Years past being able to have kids. And God has already promised Abraham multiple times that his descendants will outnumber the stars. Whole nations are supposed to come from his seed. But Sarah's barren. Infertile. She can't produce proper children. She's lived her whole life knowing she can't deliver what God promised to her husband. After enough years of waiting, she stops waiting."
He found the verse with his thumb.
"This is Sarah, speaking to Abraham, her husband."
He read aloud.
"'Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her.'"
He let it sit.
"It was her idea. She brought her handmaid, Hagar, to him and told him to have sex with her. Abraham did. Hagar had his child on the first try. She got pregnant."
Maude was watching the page now.
"It got messy after. Hagar mocked Sarah for being infertile, Sarah was furious, drove her out into the wilderness. But God doesn't punish Hagar for any of it. He doesn't punish Sarah either. He sends an angel down to find Hagar."
He moved his finger down the page.
"The angel of the Lord, speaking to Hagar."
"'I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.'"
He set the Bible back down on his thigh.
"What do you think it means?"
She had a Sunday-school answer ready. Of course she did. "It's about… God's promise to Abraham. That his descendants would form a great nation. The covenant."
"Mm."
He didn't argue. He let her hear how short his agreement was.
She glanced at him, then at her hands.
"It's about being patient with God's plan," she tried again. "About… about not running ahead."
"Maybe."
He turned a little on the couch toward her.
"What do you think Sarah felt, though? Not the moral of the story. Sarah, the wife who was infertile. When she couldn't give Abraham what God promised. Descendants. Capable children."
Her face changed. He watched it. She put a hand up unconsciously and touched the base of her own throat with two fingers. The pink polish on her nails matched her lipstick. The flushness on her face spread fast.
"I think she was… I think she felt like she was failing him, her husband."
"Yeah."
"Like she'd done something wrong. Or was being — being —"
"Punished? Punished by God?"
"Yes."
A long silence.
He let her think about it. Saying it only once.
"Maude. You already told me God isn't going to give you healthy children with Ned. Sarah knew that about herself, too. And Scripture didn't condemn her. The Bible gave her a way through. But in her case it was her own fault, while for you, it's your husband's fault."
She didn't answer. Her eyes were on the open page.
She reached for the water glass on the coffee table and took a small sip. When she set it back down there were two pink lip marks on the rim where her lipstick had pressed.
"Do you want me to keep going?"
"…Yes."
"There's one more I need to read you. Same book, a few chapters later. I want you to listen to all of it before you say anything."
"All right, Leo."
He turned the page.
…
He read Genesis 38 next.
"This one's about a man named Judah. He was one of Abraham's great-grandsons."
He found the page.
"He had three sons. He married off the oldest, Er, to a woman named Tamar. In the Bible there is a law that says if a man dies childless, his brother is supposed to step in and have sex with the widow so she can have a child and the line continues. It's a duty."
"All right."
"Well, Er, the son who married the woman, died young. Since she had no child yet, the second brother, Onan, was supposed to have sex with Tamar to give her a son. He refused. God killed him for it. So now the duty falls to the third son, Shelah. That's when Judah, the father of all of them, stepped in. He wouldn't allow it. He's afraid Shelah will die too. He sends Tamar away, back to her father's house to live as a widow, and tells her to wait until Shelah is older. But it was just an excuse. He never intended to send him to her."
Maude's hand had come up unconsciously and was resting flat against her own collarbone, just below the bow of the dress. Her fingers brushed the upper edge of the neckline.
"So Tamar, the widow, took care of it herself." Leo read aloud.
"'She put her widow's clothes off from her, and covered herself with a veil, and sat in an open place by the way to Timnath.'"
He looked up.
"Timnath is the road her father-in-law, Judah, would be passing through. She knew his route. She covered her face. She sat at the side of the road. Judah came down it, saw her, didn't recognize her. He thought she was a prostitute so he went in and had sex with her."
A faint sound came out of Maude's throat. He kept reading.
"He didn't have payment with him, so he gave her a pledge. His signet ring, the cord around it, his staff. Personal items. Items that would only have been his. She became pregnant that night. Then she went home, took the veil off, put her widow's clothes back on, and waited."
He turned the page.
"Three months later word reached Judah that his daughter-in-law was pregnant. He didn't know it was him. So he said bring her forth, and let her be burnt.'"
"He calls for her execution. She comes to him. She pulls out the signet, the cord, and the staff. And she says — "
"'By the man, whose these are, am I with child. Discern, I pray thee, whose are these, the signet, and bracelets, and staff.'"
"And Judah looks at his own pledge in her hand. And he says — "
He paused before reading the verse.
"'She hath been more righteous than I.'"
'So much bullshit in here,' thought Leo. 'Seriously, how can that be righteous? Whatever, I should be thanking the bible for sending me this alley-oop.'
He set the Bible down.
"That's the line Scripture lands on. Not that she sinned. Not that she deceived him. More righteous. And the child she conceived that night, the one she got by waiting at the side of the road in a disguise, his descendants eventually became King David. And after David, eventually Jesus Christ."
Maude had moved, he realized. Not by much. At some point during the reading her knees had drifted from angled toward him to almost touching the side of his thigh, and the hand that had been laced with her other hand was now loose in her lap, fingers trailing absently along the red trim where the hem cut across her thigh. The skirt had ridden up another inch in the shifting.
"What do you think of that one?" he asked.
She took a breath like she'd been waiting to be asked and dreading it.
"It's a… it's a hard story."
"It is."
"Tamar — she —" Maude stopped. Then tried again. "She didn't have a child. And the law said she should have. So she —"
"She did what she had to."
"Yes."
"And what does Judah say about her, at the end?"
Maude's voice got smaller.
"That she was more righteous than him."
"Mm."
He let that sit a second.
Then he leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees, the Bible balanced loose between his hands, and his voice came down another notch.
"Maude. I want you to look at both of those stories together. Sarah and Tamar. Look at what they share."
She didn't move.
"Two women. Both of them were not going to get the children God meant them to have through the husband they started with. Sarah's body wouldn't bear. Tamar's rightful man who was supposed to be her child's father wouldn't help. Either way, the line was going to die. The promise was going to fail."
He glanced up. She was watching him.
"Both of them got the children anyway. Whole nations came out of the two of them. The covenant kept moving forward. But in both cases, the seed didn't come from inside the marriage they started in. Sarah's husband had his child by her servant. Someone close by. Tamar got hers from her father-in-law, but secretly, on the side of a road. Across the street. Neither of those is what most people would picture when they think of how a child of God's promise gets made."
He let it hang in the air.
"And in both cases, Scripture doesn't condemn the women. It calls Sarah obedient and it calls Tamar more righteous than the man. And the children that came of it… both of those bloodlines run all the way down to David. And from David all the way down to Jesus Christ."
He set the Bible down on the coffee table this time, gently, like he was setting a very full glass on a very thin shelf.
"That's what I found this week, Maude. There is a way through. Scripture has answered this question before. Twice. Both times the women came out blessed, and the children came out blessed, and the line kept going."
"And remember yesterday? The verses you told me about how bad it was to not produce straight arrows? This is the path forward to have ones that are."
She didn't speak.
She was looking down at her own lap now. Her hands had stopped moving along the trim. The knuckles had gone a little white where she'd folded them back together. Her breathing had quickened.
"They didn't agree or know about it?" she asked quietly. "Beforehand. Tamar and Judah."
"No. The husbands didn't know about it when it was first done."
"They didn't know."
"They didn't know."
"And it was still… God still —"
She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't have to. She was finishing it inside her own chest, and Leo, watching the rise and fall of the dress, could see exactly when she got to the end of it. The breath caught somewhere high in her throat. Her shoulders went small.
The first tear came down before she'd registered it was coming. It rolled clean from the corner of her eye to her jaw, took a small unsteady detour around the curve of her cheek, and stopped at her chin. The second one followed it on the same line.
"I'm sorry —" she started.
"Maude."
"It's just — the way it —"
"Come here."
He didn't reach for her first. He just opened his arm.
She came.
She came across the small distance on the couch in one shaky motion, and her face went into the side of his chest like she'd been wanting it there the whole time. Her hand came up and flattened against the front of his shirt. Her shoulders shook once. Her breath came out hot through the cotton of his shirt against his ribs. One of the thin straps of the dress slid an inch off her shoulder when she pressed in against him. She didn't fix it.
He brought his arm down around her. He let his hand settle in the hair at the back of her head and just held her there. He did not say a word.
Maude felt so tiny in his arms. She cried for maybe forty seconds. Quiet the whole time. Her free hand stayed flat on his chest, fingers spread, and he could feel through the dress where her body was pressed full against his side. The warm yielding weight of her chest squashing against his ribs, the soft heat of her bare upper arms, the curve of her hip pressing against his thigh, the small steady tremor running through her whole body and not letting up. The strap that had fallen had taken the front of the bodice with it by half an inch on that side, and out of the corner of his eye he could see the pink lace edge of her bra where it crossed the upper curve of her left breast.
He didn't move his hand from her hair.
After a while the breathing evened out. Her shoulders dropped.
She lifted her face.
Her cheeks were wet. Her lipstick was a little smudged at one corner from the cotton of his shirt. Her eyes, blue under the smeared blue shadow, held on his for a long second, and then on his mouth, and then back up.
She tilted her chin.
He met her.
The kiss was slow. Her mouth was soft and warm and faintly salty from the tears. His hand stayed in her hair. Her hand stayed flat on his chest. He let his other arm come around her waist over the dress and drew her in by half an inch, and the whole soft warm length of her settled against his side with a small grateful sound at the back of her throat. Her body pressing into his felt like heaven.
He didn't go anywhere with his hands. Palm at the small of her back, over the dress, where the fabric pulled in tight at her waist. Fingers in her hair. The pace was slow this time.
Her mouth moved against his. The faint waxiness of the lipstick. The tiny wet sound when she shifted the angle and came back in. Her hand on his chest curled, took a small handful of his shirt, and held it. Through the front of his shirt he could feel the firm push of her left nipple stiffening, a small hard point pressed up against his ribs.
She pulled back first. Enough to find his eyes.
She didn't say anything nor get up.
She let her forehead come down against the side of his jaw and stayed there. Her breath moved warm and even across his throat. Her hand stayed fisted in his shirt.
He didn't bring up the reading. He didn't bring up the kiss. He kept his hand in her hair and let her stay where she was.
A full minute went by.
Eventually she straightened. She slid the strap of the dress back up onto her shoulder with two fingers like she was only just realizing it had fallen. She wiped under one eye with the side of her thumb. She looked at the smear of pink that came off and reached past him for her handbag.
"I have to —"
"I know."
"The kids will —"
"I know, Maude."
He stood when she stood. She smoothed the front of the dress with the same small fast motion she always used, ran her fingers under both eyes, and turned toward the door without quite looking at him.
At the door she paused. One hand on the frame.
"Thank you for finding those passages. I understand."
She nodded. She stepped out into the cool evening air. Her heels touched the porch boards in a clean little rhythm. She did not look back.
"Oh, and Maude... I really liked that dress."
He closed the door.
…
Leo was in the living room.
The water glass was still on the coffee table. Two pink half-moons on the rim. The Bible was open to Genesis 38 with the ribbon laid across the page where he'd left it.
He looked down at his own shirt.
Just under the collar, on the white cotton over his chest, a single pink mark from the soft edge of where her mouth had pressed against him while she cried, and a fainter ghost a few inches up from where she had kissed him.
Leo picked the Bible up off the coffee table. He looked at the open page. He read the last verse one more time.
She hath been more righteous than I.
'She hath been more a slut.' Leo joked.
He set the ribbon in. He closed the book.