My new mother-in-law shooed me over in front of the gate and called back to an aging, gray-haired woman with two giant sheepdogs, “Isn’t my new daughter-in-law beautiful?”
“Daughter-in-law?”
It bothered me for about a half second that Ben’s neighbors didn’t even know he was married. And that determination welled up in my chest again, that desire to prove everyone wrong. It may have been fast and it may have seemed unlikely. But Ben and I were madly in love, and that love was strong enough to carry us through the rest of our lives.
I could hear the rumor train flying down the tracks already, this harmless-seeming neighbor at altar guild with eight of her closest, loudest-mouthed friends, waxing poetic about Ben’s new wife.
“I have been dying to tell y’all: Ben Hampton ismarried.”
“Married? Well, I certainly wasn’t invited to the wedding, were you?”
“I most certainly was not.”
“Well, I feel terrible because the Hamptons went in on a party for all three of my children when they got married, and I didn’t even know to ask.”
“I never heard rumors of an engagement.”
“I’ve never known him to go steady with any girl. I was positive he was gay.”
Gasps.
“Well, obviously, she’s some groupie he got pregnant.”
Nods.
“That’s the only explanation.”
“So where’s the baby? They’ve been married a year.”
In unison:“A year?”
Before Emily could even answer her neighbor’s shocked expression, my father-in-law sauntered into the driveway, pipe in mouth, suit and wingtips looking as though they were custom fit that morning. Nowthiswas who should live in that house. “Ben, my boy,” he said, puffing his pipe and slapping his only son on the back. “Congratulations on picking a fine bride for yourself.”
I held out my hand, and he said, “I’m pleased to meet you, Annabelle.”
This was more my kind of man. My parents would feel right at home with him. At least, my mother would. My father probably wouldn’t even bat an eye at Emily’s lip kisses. And it dawned on me that I, like Mom and my father-in-law, was the boring one in the relationship. And I needed someone like Ben in my life to temper me. For every ounce of me that was wound up, uptight, self-conscious and critical, he was laid-back, even keel and free spirited. I smiled, as every single moment like this since our wedding had reassured me of my initial thoughts when I met him: Ben and I were going to be together forever.
“Let’s get you unpacked in the pool house,” Emily said, putting her arm around me. Then she whispered, “Don’t worry, we’ll be on the lookout for a good rental in case your obnoxious mother-in-law starts getting on your nerves.”
“I can’t imagine that that would ever happen,” I said. Sure, I had only known Emily for five minutes, but I could already tell that she was exactly like Ben.
The first thing I showed Emily was my refrigerator/shoe closet. She said, “You find in my line of work that the resourceful women are the ones who go the farthest in life.”
After my yearlong groupie sabbatical, her comment gave me those nervous butterflies, a reminder that it was time to figure out what I was going to do with my future.
But I would worry about that next week. Because, as soon as I unloaded my few worldly possessions, I was heading to chaperone Lovey and D-daddy on their trip to Martha’s Vineyard. Lovey was convinced that being in a place they visited every year, somewhere he loved, would bring D-daddy back, if only for a moment.
I was less sure.
But whether you’ve been married one year and have just moved to your husband’s hometown or you’ve been married well over a half century and think something is going to unlock the vault of your husband’s brain again, it’s really the same thing that keeps you going: hope.
Lovey
Chance
My momma always thought I was part gypsy. I couldn’t read palms or crystal balls, but, from the time I was little, I’d go anywhere and do anything, sacrifice whatever necessary to have a new experience. My momma never left North Carolina once, and she was just fine with that. But me? I wanted to see the world.
With Dan, see the world I did. He would hop on a plane at a moment’s notice to practically anywhere, and I’d scramble to arrange sitters and jump right on board with him.
