Gerry Fenn and Sue Gates's romantic relationship

Gerry Fenn and Sue Gates’s romantic relationship persists through separation, doubt, and renewed emotional recognition. Sue has tried to leave her love behind by turning toward religion, church work, and caring for Ben, but discovers that spiritual fulfillment cannot answer her need for mutual romantic intimacy. In a later crisis, Gerry invokes that love to persuade Sue to take Ben away from danger; she goes, while the relationship’s larger future remains unsettled.

Love and the Search for Another Refuge

Sue has tried to fall out of love with Gerry Fenn and, for a time, to despise him. Her efforts to redirect herself toward religion, work at the church, and time spent with Ben have brought some compensation, and she has found renewed spiritual awareness. Yet Sue recognizes that this renewal has not fulfilled her emotional needs. The two forms of attachment are not interchangeable: religious life cannot replace or extinguish her love for one person.

Her understanding has changed over the weeks preceding the scenes. At first, Sue considered physical love unnecessary, with its dependence, jealousy, responsibility, and emotional complications. She had thought she might be better off without those trials, especially when the other person could not be depended on. Gradually, however, she came to feel that loving and being loved on equal terms mattered to her, complications included. She had sought refuge from romantic attachment only to discover that it and spiritual life were both important to her.

Jealousy and Gerry’s Vulnerability

The realization sharpens when Gerry Fenn leaves Sue to care for Nancy Shelbeck. Earlier that evening, he had hurriedly told Sue that he had found the American at a church in Barham in a state of shock, asked Sue to look after her, and left to see Monsignor Delgard with something important to show him. Sue wonders what had frightened Gerry and Nancy, and what had happened at the church. She also recognizes that there is a relationship between them.

Sue knows Gerry’s apparent insensitivity can be deliberate: he is aware of the reactions he provokes and sometimes prefers a reaction to inertia. But his desperation that evening does not seem like a game of lovers. He needs Sue’s help, and the fact that Nancy is another woman with whom he has a relationship does not alter that immediate need. Sue nevertheless admits that the possibility Nancy matters to him has affected her. Gerry’s newly apparent vulnerability may also have moved her; she cannot settle on a single explanation for the force of the encounter. Fear of losing him brings her feelings into sharper focus rather than making them easier to dismiss.

Trust Put to the Test

Later, amid the gathering at the oak, Gerry Fenn finds Sue and Ben on a bench occupied by nuns from the convent. After greeting Ben and drawing Sue close, he tells her, “I want you to leave,” then insists, “Take Ben and get out.” Sue does not immediately accept the request. She challenges his trustworthiness, making the question of whether to follow him inseparable from the history between them.

Gerry answers by appealing directly to their bond: “If you love me, Sue, if you really love me, you’ll do as I ask.” The appeal does not erase Sue’s distrust; she jerks her head away angrily and asks why he has waited so long. She also says she cannot leave. The exchange shows that their love is real enough to carry urgency, but not uncomplicated enough to function as unquestioned obedience. Sue’s hesitation gives the request emotional weight: Gerry is asking for a choice from someone whose faith in him cannot simply be assumed.

A Choice, Not a Resolution

Gerry asks Sue to do this one thing for him. After studying him for several seconds, she takes Ben’s hand and tells him, “Come on, Ben, we’re going home.” Ben looks up in surprise; Gerry’s head slumps with relief. He kisses Sue’s hands, and when he raises his head his eyes are bright with unshed tears. Sue’s decision turns the appeal into action: she leaves with Ben, while Gerry remains behind.

The scene gives their relationship a moment of tenderness without resolving its underlying strains. Sue’s departure is not evidence that all distrust has vanished, nor does the passage establish a settled reconciliation. Instead, the request and her response reveal what remains binding between them: Gerry can still ask for her help through the language of love, and Sue, despite anger and uncertainty, can still choose to act on that connection. Her romantic longing, her spiritual renewal, and her responsibilities to Ben remain distinct parts of her life rather than competing answers that cancel one another.