This was so far beyond his ken… What would a physician of the body ask? She’d been married only a week; perhaps this despair was premature. “How many times…?”
She gripped the back of the other pew for support. “Every night.”
Joseph swallowed. “Surely his ardor will fade in…” A month? A year? If she werehiswife…
She nodded again, pulled herself to her feet—merciful God, did Joseph only imagine it, or did she wince at the movement?—and turned away from him. “I will bear it. Imust.” She hurried into theaisle. “He is my husband. ’Tis all he asks of me, and all I have to give him.”
Joseph followed. “Tessa, wait.”
She was muttering as if to herself. “I want children; if this is the cost, I must?—”
“Tessa!” Joseph loped ahead of her. As gently as he could, he grasped her arms just below her shoulders. Finally she stopped her flight, though still she trembled. Joseph stooped so he could look up into her distraught face instead of down at her. She must not feel threatened; she had already suffered enough at men’s hands. “First and above all: Never think that your body is all you have to give. It is not even the most remarkable part of you.”
Her eyes flickered to his—only a moment, but her breaths seemed to be calming.
“Second: Would you allow me to consult with my father?”
Was her new gasp relief, or trepidation?
“He will not know I am asking onyourbehalf,” Joseph promised.
At last she nodded. “If I were braver, I would ask him myself. He has been nothing but kind. Butthis; ’tis so difficult to speak of.”
“I am glad you spoke to me. You can, Tessa, always—no matter the problem. I will find you a remedy.”
Joseph went immediately to his parents’ house. The sign declared his father at home. Through the open window, Joseph saw him at his desk. Yet Joseph lingered on the sidewalk as if he were mired in quicksand. How exactly did one begin such a conversation with one’s father, with the rapist of one’s mother? But who else could he possibly ask? Joseph wished Hélène and Liam were already married. Sometimes his fatherseemedso compassionate…
Joseph hesitated so long that his father looked up from his medical journal and peered through the window. “Is that you, Joseph?”
He made sure no one on the street was close enough to hear. “Your offer of a medical-sacerdotal consultation…”
“It remains open.” His father stood, pulled the door wide, and smiled. “My door isalwaysopen to you, son.”
Joseph was careful to shut it behind him. He closed the windows and the door to the hall. Keeping his eyes on the rug, he crossed to face the desk where his father waited. He felt he should not sit, and he could not look at his father. “The marital act…it should not be consistently painful for the wife?”
“It should not.”
“If itispainful, might there be a medical reason?”
“There might. I don’t suppose this woman described thenatureof her pain to you?”
“No.” Joseph gulped the word.
“Could you not persuade her to see me?”
“I promised her anonymity. She is understandably reluctant to speak of such matters.”
“Then I must find my way blindfolded. But in my experience, it is most likely that her husband is simply a fool.”
I think that is very likely.
“This couple, how long have they been married?”
Joseph could not be specific without betraying Tessa’s confidence. “Not long.”
“Did both of them enter the marriage as virgins?”
“Yes.”
