One Hundred Years of Marriage

by Louise Farmer Smith

  “My dress,” I whispered. “It’s in a Casa Del Sol shopping bag on my bed.” He nodded and was gone. When I turned around all the women were staring at me.

  “Don’t worry. Josh didn’t see me.” I tried to smile. In October I would be thirty years old, too old to be superstitious, too sophisticated to believe in accidents.

  Mother realized what had happened and turned white. The town would blame her, and The General would blame her, and now she was blaming herself. I rushed to put my arm around her. “Ernest won’t be a minute.”

  A loud knock on the door to the hall drew everyone’s eyes away from me. Olivia opened the door, and the organ music swelled in along with my father in his dress uniform. He had rented a tux like the other men. Why wasn’t he wearing it? How could he do this to me, make a public display of militarism when he knew damn well I spent every day of my life fighting against this stupid, immoral war!

  Sandy stepped to my side. “What is that? He looks like a bellhop at the Ritz.”

  My father looked splendid. Black coat with bronze oak leaves on his shoulders, his ribbons resplendent across his chest, dashes of red, Persian blue trousers with gold stripes down the sides. White kid gloves. I bit my lip and took in a shuddering breath.

  “Where’d Ernest go?” The General demanded of the roomful of women who were fortunately staring at him, so they couldn’t see the bride, red-face with anger. “I saw Ernest run out,” he said.

  “She’s not dressed, Daddy,” Olivia said, pressing him back and closing the door. The room was silent.

  “How can he do this do you?” Sandy whispered.

  “It’s probably not even personal, Sandy. It’s probably good for his morale.”

  She frowned at me. “That’s all you have to say?”

  “So what can I do? Send him home to change?”

  “Oh, he’s not ever going to change, but I thought you had.”

  “You saw him. He hasn’t looked that powerful since we arrived. He’s happy.”

  “Jesus Christ, Pat.” Sandy left me standing at the window. I looked outside so no one could see my face. I struggled to think only of Joshua, the dearest man I knew, standing on the other side of this wall, good-humored, lending poise to any man in need. This day would end and maybe, twenty years from now we’d laugh about our wedding.

  Except for clear-eyed Calinda whom I overheard quietly saying to Deanna—“How many brides have you heard of forgetting their dresses?”—everyone else behaved toward the extremely awkward situation like a proper Oklahoma lady. Part of me wanted to slap each brightly smiling face. At the same time I was enormously grateful to each woman and girl who gallantly pretended nothing was wrong. I sank into a chair.

  My thirteen-year-old cousin Marianne had leaned her little bottom against the high arm of a couch and listened raptly while Sandy, the anthropologist, entertained the Oklahomans with her views of men. “Look at them,” Sandy was saying, “frail creatures, their most vulnerable flesh riding out in front, just asking for it.”

  Marianne’s jaw dropped.

  “Women are the tough ones,” Sandy continued. “Look at us, our privates well-nestled in the pelvic cradle, hip bone bumpers. We’re the tanks!” she said, slapping the hips of her linen sheath. “Men, poor schmucks, they’re the infantry.”

  “So we need to protect them, right?” Marianne asked.

  “You can protect them if you want to,” Sandy said and abandoned her metaphor.

  Thank heaven, Grandma Vic wasn’t in the room. Though she didn’t approve of the dress, she wouldn’t have understood my leaving it behind. She, who had spent her life having her clothes ready—whatever re-styled, recut, borrowed or rummage sale-retrieved goods they may have been. Out in the sanctuary where one and all could see and appreciate her queen-like appearance, she didn’t have to know that her most promising little student was not prepared.

  The wreath quivering atop her springy hair, Sandy made her way back to me. She stood close beside the chair where I sat upright in my petticoat. “How’s it going, kid?” She was struggling to be kind after I’d pissed her off.

  “It’s going okay.”

  “Do you want to marry this guy?”

  “I love him with all my heart.”

  “Well, sure. Who wouldn’t love him—the nicest guy I ever met, a musician, perfect for you. But shit, Patricia. You left your God-damned dress behind.”

  “So?”

  “Just checking. One last time.”

  We both glanced about the tense room then fell silent. No one had made eye contact with me. They couldn’t believe what they were witnessing. What I needed was a drive-by rescue. A best old friend? A former lover? Tom? Tom, who would keep the motor running until I got up my courage to walk out of here, hike up this petticoat, and sling my leg over the back of his motorcycle. The thought of the raucous tumbling of his idling motor drew me back to the window. Tom, teller of barnyard jokes. Deanna had found out he was now a negotiator of land rights for Indians in Alaska. Tom, married to a beauty queen, a woman who deserved him. The street was empty except for parked cars.

  Another loud knock from the hall door preceded the upper half of my father, bending at the waist as though keeping his feet in the hall meant he wasn’t intruding. The organ music poured in, roaring. His face was red and his anger flooded the room like diesel exhaust. “We’re thirteen minutes behind! I’ve sent the groom and his men to the altar!” The room gasped in unison.

  “She isn’t dressed, Daddy!” Olivia insisted and closed the door in his face. Mother rushed toward Olivia. “Please, Olivia, he’s just anxious.” My mother’s nose was shiny, her face tense with worry. This was the biggest operation for which The General had had responsibility since Korea. Here in the church were bridesmaids and groomsmen, all in uniform. But the operation was behind schedule. I realized I’d been gritting my teeth for some time.

  A soft knock came from the adjoining door to the minister’s study, and white-haired Rev. Hough walked in, smiling and calm, not a bit deterred by a bride in her slip. “How’re y’all doing?” he asked, nodding around the room to each individual. “I guess Mr. Brady told you he sent the boys on down.”

  Mother rushed to him. “Reverend Hough, we do apologize for this awful delay. I left something at home Patricia needs. Ernest has gone for it. We should be ready to go in less than ten minutes, maybe five.”

  “Oh don’t worry, Mrs. Brady. There’s a wonderful breeze blowing across the sanctuary today, and those folks out there are gossiping, having a high old time. A little suspense will only make the wedding more satisfying. Don’t mind the time.”

  “But there’s another wedding at 3:30,” said Mrs. Pryor’s voice from the study behind him.

  “Oh,” Rev. Hough countered sweetly, “weddings don’t take long.” He pulled the door closed on himself and Mrs. Pryor. Thank heavens I’d chosen Hough— clearly a failed career, an assistant minister in his sixties—and not Rev. Mapple whose ambition to be a bishop made him impatient with any hitch in the smooth running of his church.

  Sandy joined me at the window, leaned one strong arm on the sill, and spoke slowly as though to a stubborn child. “Patty? Weddings are like locomotives—once they’ve gotten up speed, there’s no stopping them, and there’s no jumping off. So maybe you want to take advantage here—Remember, you can always shack up with Josh the rest of your life.”

  I stared out the window and focused my mind on my groom. I loved Joshua’s back—the rack of his shoulders, muscled by life at the keyboard, his spine and ribs. On his right scapula were seven small moles in the pattern of the little dipper, one of the few constellations I recognized as a child.

  “It’s like some sort of marital DNA your kind passes down the generations,” Sandy was saying.

  “My kind?” I scowled at her.

  “You think marriage is about women being kind to men.”

  “You think that’s why I’m marrying Josh?”

  Aware that we had everyone’s a
ttention, Sandy tried to whisper. “You can’t beat this game. It’s what you’re trained for. Look at your mother.”

  “And your mother is beating the game?”

  “My mother’s a total loss, and you know it. But you’re the genius who left her wedding dress at her parents’ house. You tell me.” She glanced at the carpet. Bold and brassy as she was, this was hard for her, standing here in the first long dress she’d had on since her high school prom, bucking the agenda of everyone in the room. “Look,” she said, “I’ll cover your back if you want to make a run for it, but if you’re just toying with these nice people, to Hell with you.”

  I looked away from her. Josh offered everything—the little dipper, an impressive big dipper, the music.

  Ignoring the prohibition against wrinkled laps, Sandy walked across the room, plopped into a deep easy chair, and fished a cigarette and matchbook out of her bosom. I watched my friends watch her. They may have counted on her to talk sense into me. They liked her. I was the one they were fed up with.

  Olivia came to my side probably so the room wouldn’t have to look at a bride alone in her underwear. It was 2:21. My sister stood between me and the window, her long blonde hair furled outward from her wreath, merging with the sunlight, a halo about her cheeks and shoulders. Yet within this was the annoying mask of her made-up face. I stood and took hold of her slim shoulders and turned her to the light. Under her right eye was a faint greenish half circle.

  No! My stomach swerved. Heat shot up my face. Melvin! That God-damned thug had hit my sister, my beautiful, pregnant sister! And she’d been protecting him, staying away from us, ashamed.

  I spoke quietly. “You’d rather people think you’re a bimbo than have them know your husband is a—?”

  “I’m sorry, Patty. I’m really sorry. I tried everything, cucumber, steak. Prayer.” She made a sad smile. “I borrowed ice from the neighbors. I’m so sorry.” She gasped.

  “How’d it happen?”

  Sensing an outbreak of emotion, Mother rushed over to usher us toward the door into the minister’s study, gently pushed us through, and closed the door. Seeing us, Rev. Hough, departed into the hallway, dragging a reluctant Mrs. Pryor behind him.

  The room was large and empty after the crowded quarters next door, and the sunlight streamed in making a glare off the glass top on the desk. Olivia’s ravaged face was lit as though she stood by a pond. Alone and free to speak, my sister and I were suddenly shy. I wanted to turn my back, so I wouldn’t have to look at her, but I didn’t. “Oh, sweetie,” I said. “What happened?”

  “He didn’t want me to go to the wedding. He felt he’d rescued me from Daddy, and now I was running back into the family.”

  “What? Melvin rescued you? Our golden girl, our beautiful tennis player?”

  She looked down at her hands and spoke softly. “After you left, I had to get out of there. Melvin was the next guy who asked me out. He hated Daddy. He sided with me. The others had been afraid of him.” Then she looked me in the eye. “And for your information,” she said, tense, “I was never the golden girl! I tried to make you and Mom think I was. Somebody needed to be having fun. I lived that life for you, so you wouldn’t think I was strange.”

  “Olivia. What are you talking about?”

  She pushed her full lips forward, a pout that spread into a sobbing mouth. “You don’t really care, Patty. You never cared one whit about what was happening to me

  “When?”

  “When we were little girls.”

  “Whatever was happening to you was undoubtedly happening to me.”

  Olivia sniffed. “We shouldn’t get into all this on your wedding day, but the answer is, no, what was happening to me was not happening to you. The General never treated you the same way.”

  “Right. He rarely looked at me, never complained when I changed my hair. He never stopped looking at you.”

  “He never laid down with you.”

  I paused and swallowed. Livvie had imagined this, and she was right; we shouldn’t get into this on my wedding day. I took a deep breath. “Go on.”

  She looked down. “He never forced himself into me, Patty, or anything like that. Right after he came back from Japan— I was so afraid of him, really terrified. This huge man who’d left when I was a few days old. He’d just lie beside me looking at the ceiling. Later he started lying on his side, pulling me against him to warm me up.”

  “God, Livvie. Could you feel—“

  “It wasn’t incest. Really. He said he’d stay until I went to sleep. It was a long time until I figured out I could just fake sleep.”

  “Where the hell was I?”

  “Right there in the next bed.”

  “That’s impossible, Olivia. Those beds weren’t more than four feet apart. How could this happen and I not remember it?”

  Olivia shrank under my glare. “I don’t know,” she said. “You must have heard him. He always had excuses for coming in, raising the window, putting it down, checking to see if I’d kicked off my cover. He was always gentle, not like he was in the daylight, and maybe at first, after a bad dream or something I wanted him there. You and I weren’t sleeping in the big bed anymore, and I missed that terribly. Remember playing kitty cuddle?” She glanced up at me. Kitty Kuddle had been the brand name of a soft toy cat she’d had, and that’s what she and I called our snuggling down under the covers together, getting as wrapped up in each other’s limbs as possible—the softness of flannel nighties, her silky hair—the best remedy for cold sheets or a spanking.

  Olivia looked down again. “I probably made him feel I wanted it.”

  “No! Livvie, don’t ever think that way.” I took hold of her shoulders. “I don’t know what to say. How can I remember? I was only five-years-old when this started!”

  She gasped and I watched her face twist, the thick make-up melting. “And I was only three.”

  ”I’m so sorry, Livvie.” I did remember now a recurring dream I had after the war. I dreamed Olivia was flying, very fast, her pale curls mashed back by the wind. She held out her little arms like airplane wings, and they had fluttering feathers on them. Sometimes she was sitting in the bicycle basket and Daddy was pumping. And it wasn’t feathers on her arms. She had on a little white kimono with the long sleeves flying out on either side, flapping as he rode away with her.

  I covered my mouth. This was horrible. I had known something. Trained as I was in ignoring conflict and denying anger and turning a blind eye on whatever wasn’t what Mother would call appropriate, I had suppressed what I knew about my father and my little sister.

  I reached for her hands, thick cuticles and snaggled nails from the laundry and gardening on the commune. My little sister. She’d been out on that God forsaken farm, holding borrowed ice on her face trying to heal up so she could go to the wedding of a sister who’d abandoned her years ago to a man who used her, her, Olivia, the perfect little girl. We held each other close for the first time in so long.

  “We’re going to have to stop,” she whispered. “ Ernest will be here any second.”

  “And you never told Mother?”

  “I assumed she knew, of course, the way a little kid does. I could never figure out why she didn’t come to me herself in the night.”

  “Livvie, Livvie,” I crooned and rocked us.

  She sobbed. “You left me, Patty, ran off and had a big Washington career.”

  I pulled back and looked. Tears had completely uncovered the green bruise under her eye, and the streaming mascara made her look permanently damaged.

  “Oh, Livvie, I’m so sorry.” We buried our faces in each other’s necks. I should have rescued her when I was five, stabbed him with his Samurai sword, then grabbed my little sister and run. “I should have killed him,” I whispered.

  The door to the parlor swung open. “It’s here,” Mother breathed. She held up the white, tiered wedding dress.

  “I’m coming,” I said, but she continued to stand there. “Just give us ano
ther minute.”

  Mother’s eyes were wild with disbelief. “Patricia, please. Everyone is waiting.”

  “Mother. Close the door.”

  She didn’t close the door. Instead she turned to the parlor and said, “She’s still stalling.”

  I whispered to Olivia. “We’ve got to get you out of that damned commune.”

  “Not now, with the baby coming.”

  “All the more reason to run. Mother will help you.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve always had to pretend for her.”

  “It would kill her to know that because she always pretended for us. Come to Washington. I’ll take care of you.”

  The minister’s study was filling up with smiling bridesmaids. “Come on, Patty,” Deanna said. “Time for the Wedding March.”

  I let go of Livvie and put up my hands. “ Stop! Just give us a minute more here.” Mother had unzipped the dress, and she tossed it over my head. I had to catch it before it slid right down the slick petticoat and onto the floor. I pressed my palm to my chest to hold it.

  “Oh, Patty,” Olivia cried, “just tell me you’ve got a good man.”

  “He is a good man.” Perfect. Sweetest man in the world. And at this moment it became clear that Josh wasn’t the problem that had me delaying this wedding. Where was Sandy? She hadn’t come into the study with this bunch who were wielding powder puffs and lipstick trying to mend the wrecked faces of the bride and her Matron of Honor.

  “I’ll be okay.” Olivia kept nodding reassurance to me as Calinda attempted to dab cover-up under her bruised eye. “Just you get married and be happy. People can be happy,” my sister’s voice shuddered.

  “I’ll zip her up,” someone said. “No, I’ll get it.” “Let Alice have the honor.” I looked through the doorway into the parlor where Sandy stood, smoking, looking back at me. Mother put my hands in the sleeves of the dress. I felt the room slide around and wasn’t sure where the door had been.

  But before Mother could zip me up, the door to the hall opened, and there, the organ music swirling behind her, stood Grandma Vic leaning on her cane, the veiling on her hat trembling. “Patricia!” Her frail voice strained. I dashed to my grandmother. She would guide me out of here. To the rhythm of her gracious, swaying gait, we would leave this church. I looked into her worried eyes.