I laughed ironically. “Probably because there isn’t a baby to know about.”
I could feel tears gathering in my eyes, and I was beyond embarrassed. I wanted to stop them, so I looked down in my lap and gulped my water.
“Oh, pumpkin,” Emily said. “We think you are absolutely glorious. You don’t need to have a baby to prove that.”
I nodded and swallowed, hoping the tears standing in my eyes weren’t obvious. “Oh, I know,” I said. “It’s just that Ben is so perfect and has been so incredible that I want to give him something in return, and this is the only thing I can think of that he can’t have on his own.”
Greg looked at his son and said, “Sport, you’re on your own here. I’m going to my study.”
“TL,” Ben said, an amused look on his face. “You are my entire world. The sun rises and sets around your face. All I could ever want from you is you. Nothing in heaven or on earth can change that.”
“See what I mean?” Emily said. “It’s no coincidence that procreation and pressure both start withpr.”
I actually laughed at that in spite of how uncomfortable I thought it was to talk about sex with Emily.
That night, we put the procreation on the back burner. And my husband and I discovered that fighting with your spouse is the best thing you can do—as long as you get to make up.
Lovey
Grounded
You can have a big house and two cars and closets full of clothes, but, if you don’t have Jesus, none of it means a thing. So, from the time I was a little girl, hands down, the most important thing in my life has been my faith. I believe in God like most people believe in gravity. I can’t see Him, but I know He keeps me grounded. When you’re as old as I am, you learn that every day isn’t perfect and that life can be sunshine and roses one minute and gray skies and thorns the next. And you better never leave home without your umbrella because one minute the birds are chirping and the next it’s thunderheads and downpours—or vice versa, thank the Lord.
But you couldn’t have told Annabelle that the day I went to meet her new in-laws any more than you could have told me that one day we’d be talking to people on the telephone in our cars. And if you can’t imagine it, it doesn’t exist.
“Oh, Emily,” I said. “I am so thrilled to hear that y’all are Episcopalian. It just does my heart good.”
Emily turned to Annabelle. “You’ll have to start going to ECW meetings with me, Annie.”
That brunch table certainly proved that religion knows no bounds. That was the thing about Emily. She was so uniquely who she was, and, just when you thought you had her figured out, another surprise was just around the corner. In a flowing maxi dress with a thick, handmade woven leather belt around her waist procured from some obscure village and crafted by a woman who would otherwise have had no income, Emily looked more like one of those nondenominational hippies. I, in a sunny yellow, perfectly tailored suit with a pillbox hat and pumps, looked every bit an Episcopalian. But the eleven a.m. cocktail bound us both as members of a church that knows alcohol’s proper place in Southern society.
“In fact,” Emily said, breaking me out of my thoughts, “let’s all go to church together in the morning!” She turned to me. “You will absolutely adore this church. It is nearly as old as the town itself, built in the late seventeen hundreds. It’s full of amazing architecture and incredible stained-glass windows.”
Jean said, “I have a speaking engagement tomorrow afternoon, so we might not be able to make it.”
“Mom,” Annabelle said, “couldn’t you try to reschedule? This is the first time we’ve ever been together as a family, and I think it would be nice to go to church.” I gave Jean a stern look across the table. Annabelle needed us all to come together as a unit to affirm that what she and Ben had done was acceptable. And we should, even if we didn’t really think it was. Because families have to stick together.
The next morning, I had promised myself that I wouldn’t be oneof those pathetic old women who comes to church and sniffles into her handkerchief the entire time, the kind of woman who makes you wonder whether she’s suffered great loss or is atoning for great sin. But my sniffles into the same linen and lace pocket square that I had carried down the aisle at my wedding were for the former. In all our years of marriage, I had never sat on the pew of a church without my husband.
Even after the stroke, the caregivers had him up, dressed, and in the handicap van at 9:40 sharp so we wouldn’t be late for the start of the ten a.m. service. And now, here I was, spending the night away for the first time in years and going to church without him for the first time in our marriage. I tried to act like the tears were an allergic reaction to the stunning flowers by the altar, but my family, they knew better. Annabelle, with Ben’s arm wrapped around her shoulder, his fingers stroking the bare skin of the top of her arm, took my hand and leaned over to whisper, “He wouldn’t want you to sit at home and rot for the rest of your life, Lovey.”
I knew it was true, but, all the same, it felt wrong. I closed my eyes to take a deep breath, and, in that instant, I was transmitted back to my hometown church, a white clapboard chapel as beautiful in its austerity as this one was in its opulence. And there, in my hat and itchy dress, squeezed in between my parents in a packed pew, I saw fourteen-year-old Dan sneak out the side door right before his daddy took the pulpit for the sermon. I waited a respectable beat before leaning over and whispering to my mother, “I have to use the restroom.”
Before she could object, I was making a beeline for the door. In retrospect, it couldn’t have been a secret, like we thought, that Dan and I skipped out on the sermon to steal a few moments alone. We would walk down the downtown sidewalk, hand in hand, toward the ice cream shop that, on summer days, had a line around thecorner. Haney wasn’t open on Sundays, but he lived above the shop. If you snuck around back, you’d find him, bad leg propped on a milk crate, listening to a preacher on the radio, drinking out of a coffee mug that we didn’t realize until years later was always full of whiskey.
Some of the kids in town were afraid of Haney, his gruff demeanor and slow-to-smile temperament. But those secret Sunday rendezvous created a bond between us. Haney had lost his wife in the car accident that cost him the nerves in the lower part of his left leg. Dan and I always thought he saw a glimpse of his former life in us, sneaking away to hold hands for a few breathless moments in young love.
“Y’all just go on in and help yourself,” he’d say, without even looking at us. “Leave your nickel on the counter.”
He wouldn’t smile or even look our way most days. And it was a relief not to see him dragging that leg behind the counter, leaning on one brace while he scooped the ice cream, the weight on his good leg. But I knew those Sunday mornings meant as much to him as they did to us because, every time I’d go in the shop on other days, Haney would give me the tiniest smile, and, when he did, his eyes twinkled with our secret.
The tiny ice cream parlor had only four red stools, and, most days, getting a seat was out of the question. But on Sundays, Dan and I had them all to ourselves. I would sit down, legs dangling, ankles crossed, and giggle as Dan said, “What will it be for the little lady today?” even though he knew it was always chocolate.
He handed me my cone and sat down on the stool beside me. I could tell he was anxious about something, but I could only assume that it was nerves over the never-ending lectures he got from his momma for missing church. But it was worth it—especially that day.
“I can’t believe school is starting back in a week,” I ventured.
“I know. Last year of junior high for me.”
