Three More Words

by Ashley Rhodes-Courter

  “There it is.” I pointed to Uncle Sammie’s driveway.

  Erick sighed audibly when I pointed out the blue house with white trimming, dormer windows, and a wraparound front porch. Uncle Sammie’s machine shop must have been doing well, because there was a new addition on the house. “Oh wow, this place is really nice,” he said.

  The weather was mild for the Veteran’s Day holiday in November, and it was also Erick’s birthday that week. Autumn’s would be the following week and mine the week after that, and so Lorraine and Aunt Courtney had planned a joint celebration along with Uncle Perry’s party.

  “Got big plans for today,” Lorraine said in a giddy voice, when she ran out to the car to greet us. I felt a twinge of memory—a time when she had been sparkling and silly and happily doting on me.

  She drove us to Walmart and insisted on buying us both camouflage boots and four-wheeler gear. When we got home, Aunt Courtney handed us extra-large T-shirts and goggles. Lorraine helped Autumn into her dirt-bike outfit while Aunt Courtney did the same for Travis, the oldest of the three cousins, and Tina, the youngest. Each kid had boots and matching slacks and jackets with racing patterns on them. Travis wore blue and Tina green. The colors set off their coppery hair and brown eyes—exactly the same shades as mine. Tina’s freckles even formed the same pattern over her nose as mine did after too much sun.

  “We’re like sisters!” Tina crowed.

  “She’s my sister,” Autumn said.

  I couldn’t say I felt that same bond for Autumn. Just like with Luke, I would feel a responsibility for her if something were to happen, but I didn’t sense any innate closeness. We had never lived together or shared a familial experience. It didn’t help that I was more than a decade older. If anything, I retained a tinge of resentment toward Autumn that I worried I’d never be able to shake. I knew it wasn’t fair to begrudge a child, but in some dark place it hurt that she was getting what I had been denied.

  “Ever been on a four-wheeler before?” Uncle Sammie asked Erick. He shook his head, so Sammie demonstrated the controls. Then he turned to me. “Hop on back and hold on tight!”

  There was a wild whoop as the little kids took off on their own mini dirt bikes. Travis cut in front of Sammie. I couldn’t believe how fast they were going—even Tina zoomed past at what had to be thirty miles per hour. We bumped through the almost leafless woods and followed their tracks across a sloppy field.

  “Rained on Wednesday,” Sammie yipped. I guessed that was a good thing for muddin’, as I later learned our escapade was called. When we came out into a clearing, the three kids were circling an archipelago of puddles that reflected blustery clouds. Lorraine purposely slammed her front wheels into a manure-colored pit. A curl of mud splashed Erick full in the face. Just as he shook it off, she slid into the mud from another angle and slimed his legs. Uncle Sammie was not going to be out-mudded—or whatever they called it—so he revved the engine and did almost a 360, drenching me in slimy gook. I had been caught so unaware that my mouth had been open. I coughed and spit a mouthful of what tasted like rotten mushroom soup.

  Lorraine zoomed from the side and directed her splatter on us. “Gotcha!” she crowed.

  I reached up and touched my hair, which now was a dripping helmet of sludge. Helmet! I suddenly thought with horror. None of the adults had helmets on. If Gay could see me now, she’d have heart failure. She called guys who ride motorcycles without helmets “organ donors.”

  I heard a sucking sound as Sammie’s wheels spun but we didn’t move. I lifted my goggles enough to see that we were stuck in the deepest part of the mud hole. My uncle stood up and rocked the four-wheeler back and forth violently. Lorraine and Erick laughed raucously. When we were free, we headed to the dry edge. Rex arrived on a dirt bike and offered to trade it with Lorraine. She gunned it deftly, climbed a small mound, and did a trick jump as the bike came off the top. After another turn around the muddy pond, she stopped in front of me.

  “Wanna try?”

  I was aching to wash up. Were mud critters already burrowing into my skin? Could I get ringworm or gastrointestinal disease?

  “Come on!” Erick coaxed.

  “Okay,” I said reluctantly. “Show me how.”

  After a few minutes of basic instruction and a couple of false starts, I took off down the trail far enough that nobody could see me practicing stopping, getting on and off, and riding at various speeds. Strangely, I was most stable at a fast speed, and—holy cow—it was fun! Trees whizzed past, stones flew out from under my wheels. I turned around in a clearing and rushed back to the group full speed ahead. I had seen the spot where Lorraine had entered the mud-hole and plowed straight in—closing my eyes at the last second. There was a sound like a giant belch, and the bike stalled in the muck. I opened my eyes.

  Sammie came over in his four-wheeler and nudged my bike onto the bank. He spit brown slobber into the grass. “Yep, you’re a Rhodes all right.”

  Back at the house, Aunt Courtney and Uncle Perry’s wife, Marlene, were wearing plastic rain ponchos. The kids knew the drill. They stood against the garage wall while the women hosed them down. Then they rushed to the back deck, tossed off their outer layers, and hurried into the house to change. Erick and I shivered while we waited our turn. I shrieked louder than the kids when the cold water pummeled me.

  Erick and I hustled our way to the bathroom, dripping grimy water through the hall and kitchen. Once in the shower, I tilted my head to rinse my ears, then shook my head like a dog to clear them.

  It looked like coffee was running out of Erick’s nose. “That’s so gross!” I said.

  “But it was worth it!”

  “Yeah, that was a blast!”

  As we were toweling off, Erick said, “I like these folks.”

  “Really?”

  “They’re easy. They don’t expect anything from me.”

  I had a list of goals, and I was checking them off one by one. Erick had a comfortable job managing rental properties for a family friend. Although he could make his own hours, it was unfulfilling. He needed much more, but he also needed to want more. His excuse was that nobody in his family had really pushed him in high school or set expectations for him or his siblings. I argued that even before I was adopted, I had plans for myself and knew I wanted to go to college. The Courters had the same values and made certain I was well prepared and kept me on track with my academic objectives. While I didn’t want to be annoying, I hoped I could give Erick the self-confidence he needed to go to college and find a more rewarding career. I wondered if then he’d feel more accepted by my family.

  When we came out dressed in dry jeans and sweaters, the kids were snuggled under crocheted blankets on the sofa, drinking cocoa and watching television. Through the living room window we could see Lorraine and Rex in the hot tub. We joined Uncle Sammie in the kitchen and sat on the bar stools. He handed Erick a beer.

  “Cocoa for me,” I said.

  He poured me a mug and started recounting the muddin’ blow by muddy blow. Soon the rest of the family gathered around us. Aunt Courtney shooed the kids to follow her. “Party time!” Uncle Sammie led us into the old garage, which had been converted into a rec room. Some neighbors and other family members must have arrived and gone directly there, because lots of people we hadn’t yet met were milling about. A party banner read: HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERICK, AUTUMN, AND ASHLEY. Underneath, another read: WELCOME HOME PERRY.

  Uncle Perry carried in aluminum platters filled with take-out Carolina barbecue. There were hot chicken wings, beef and pork ribs, beans, slaw, a few salads, snowflake rolls, and cut-up chickens. A giant cooler was filled with ice, sodas, and beer. Travis put some country music CDs in the player. The kids sat cross-legged on futons, while Erick and I were offered canvas chairs with drink holders.

  To me the scene was as foreign as if it had been in a Parisian café. I tried to fix the tableau in my mind. Here was the only half of my biological family that I knew—including my cousins, half sist
er, birth mother, aunts, and uncles, plus some of the neighbors who had known me at the age of five when I had lived nearby during one placement that had ended abruptly when my grandfather had almost died after a gunfight. If I hadn’t already been in Florida’s foster care system, I might have grown up with these people. Even though I had no sense of belonging, I felt comforted in having some kinship on one side of the family tree.

  “Mommy!” Autumn said. She had her mouth open like a baby bird and was enjoying being hand-fed pieces of chicken. Both of them were giggling. For someone who was turning nine, she was too big for that, but Lorraine seemed to enjoy indulging her. I took a mental pulse of my emotions. Was I envious? No. I leaned into Erick, who hadn’t left my side. My feelings for him were ten times stronger than for anyone else in this room—maternal figure included. Lorraine had paid for our trip, but somehow the whole relationship felt like a transaction. We were all politely playing our parts, yet there had been no moments of shared insight, apologies for past mistakes, or promises of a renewed future connection.

  Whenever I returned home to the Courters, it was like coming out of the cold and sitting beside a comforting fire. I got to thinking: What would I be like if I had never moved away from the Rhodes clan in the first place? I would never have gone to college and would probably have a kid or two of my own by now. Erick mistook the shiver that went through me for a chill and began to rub my back. Once I had yearned for Lorraine’s doting care; now that I was almost twenty-three, my gut rejected it.

  Tina sweetly singing “Happy Birthday” interrupted my reverie. Everyone else had finished eating and joined in raucously. Aunt Courtney carried a cookie sheet filled with cupcakes with lighted candles. She stopped in front of Erick, who tried—but failed—to blow them all out. Autumn—in a maneuver reminiscent of Luke—jumped in and blew spit across the pan. There were pats on the back, jokes about me dating an old man because Erick is four years older than me. Perry and Sammie then crept behind Erick and creamed his face with two cupcakes.

  “Whoa!” cried Travis, and landed one on his sister’s forehead when she ducked.

  Then Sammie handed me one and directed my arm into Erick’s nose. The leftover food went flying: potato salad, carrot sticks, even an empty beer can.

  Tina yelled at Autumn, “Don’t get it on my fleece!”

  Travis banged into the door as he headed outside to avoid a full-on face of icing.

  I was doubled over laughing. “Oh, Erick!” I sputtered. “Can you imagine this happening at the Courters?”

  “No way,” he said.

  6.

  my splashy wedding

  We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.

  —Sam Keen

  For six years Erick had been my touchstone—I tested the worth of other men by comparing them to him. And for six years he had put up with my insistence on dating others, my trips without him, my moods, my insecurities and meltdowns, not to mention letting Luke live with us for those few disastrous weeks. That experience had been a crucial one for me, because it showed he was as willing to commit to helping Luke in any way he could as I was.

  “Luke respected him more than me,” I told Gay during a visit.

  “Erick is a good role model for your brother.”

  “I think those are the first positive words you’ve ever said about Erick,” I said, munching on potato chips. “Does that mean you finally like him?”

  “I’ve never not liked him,” Gay insisted. “We wanted you to have more experiences with different guys, that’s all.”

  “I have, and none of them compare.” I tilted the bag and ate the last chip crumbs. Gay’s disapproving expression made me feel defensive, because after my knee injury, I was no longer as active, and my weight reached the highest it had ever been. “He’s been my rock.”

  “Through thick and thin,” Gay said.

  “That was rude!”

  “Sorry, Freudian slip, hon, but all those carbs and salt don’t help.”

  “At least Erick isn’t critical like you are. He would never call me fat.”

  “We should ask Doc Rollins about it.” Dr. Rollins had taken care of me since I moved to Crystal River. “Maybe there is a metabolic reason for your sudden gain. And Erick does love you, which is why he deserves more than being your fallback position.”

  I had now been out of school for more than a year and was busy on the road with my speaking engagements. Erick was keeping me sane while I traveled alone, and it was nice to have someone to check in with and entertain me from random hotels and airports.

  When I got home from my last trip of the year that December, he asked if we could share Christmas with his family. “I know you like to be with the Courters on Christmas morning, so I was thinking we could stay over Christmas Eve and then come back to St. Pete and have dinner with my parents.”

  I was about to object until I saw a glimmer in his eyes that showed that this was very important to him. “Sure,” I said.

  The Courters were welcoming, and they made sure he had an overstuffed Christmas stocking. It was almost lunchtime by the time Erick handed me the final present of the day—a huge blue box with golden ribbons. It nested six more boxes, each one smaller and smaller. I should have caught on, but I was too busy with the tiny ribbons and distracted by the loud holiday music blaring on the stereo. As I approached the smallest box, Erick dropped to one knee, and the family fell silent. Josh muted the stereo with the remote, causing Erick’s voice to fall to a raspy whisper as he asked me to marry him. After the initial shock, I jokingly said, “I guess so.”

  Everyone laughed knowingly. They were the same three little words I’d used to approve my adoption, and we all knew how that turned out. Finding a husband hadn’t been on my to-do list. I loved Erick’s company and how secure he made me feel, but was this the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with? Just as I had tried to imagine how my adoption might fail, I thought of all the ways a marriage could crumble. Most of all I wondered if I was worth loving forever. I looked around to see my whole family smiling and nodding. My brothers and father each gave Erick a bear hug. I had no way of knowing what my future with Erick might hold, but in that moment I felt loved on every level.

  “When?” asked Gay a few hours later, looking at a calendar on her computer.

  I glanced at Erick. “As soon as possible,” he said giddily.

  “I’m totally booked in April, because it’s National Child Abuse Prevention Month,” I said.

  “Giulia and I are filming in Ethiopia in June and then are spending a month with her family in Rome,” Josh said.

  “We have trips in May and October,” Phil chimed in.

  “September won’t work for me,” Blake said.

  “Anyone have a problem with March?” Gay asked.

  “That’s less than three months!” I exclaimed.

  “We arranged ours in six weeks,” Phil said. “What sort of a wedding do you have in mind?”

  “It would be nice to do something unusual that everyone would enjoy,” I ventured. “I’ve always thought a destination wedding would be a blast.”

  “You want the whole family on your honeymoon?” Blake chortled.

  Gay looked up from her computer. “A cruise would be a very reasonable option. Let’s see if we can find a date that works.”

  “Do you think we should invite any of my birth family?” I asked my parents.

  “Do you want them there?” Gay asked evenly.

  “Wouldn’t Tina be an adorable flower girl?” I said to Erick.

  “And there’s Autumn, of course,” Gay said.

  “She and Lorraine would be a package deal,” Phil said in a tense tone.

  “She’s been stable lately. I think Rex has been good for her.”

  Gay waited a beat. “It’s a very large ship.”

  Lorraine was thrilled to be included and offered to help out with the rehearsal dinner financially. The Courters
were surprised but didn’t object.

  Gay e-mailed Ed for his new address. He wrote back that Luke was going through an angry phase and couldn’t be trusted not to make a scene. With a heavy heart—because once again my dream of including my brother in my life had been dashed—I decided not to take any chances, never expecting that someone else would misbehave onboard.

  Erick and I decided to get married on a cruise ship sailing from Tampa to Cozumel. About a hundred guests would embark for the ceremony and luncheon. Then those who were not sailing with us would leave the ship, but sixty friends and family members were able to stay on for the four-day cruise.

  The night before the wedding we had a rehearsal dinner that included some people who couldn’t attend the actual wedding. Right away I noticed that Lorraine seemed rattled, although I assumed being surrounded by so many Courters and strangers had to be stressful. There were some awkward moments when I introduced her to the other guests as Lorraine, without explaining our relationship. Some already knew, but more remote friends did not need to be clued in.

  The next day our guests arrived at the pier. Everyone was squinting in the bright morning sun. I ducked into the terminal to protect my upswept hairdo from the brisk wind. Lorraine came up to me and opened her coat. “I don’t think I wore the right dress.”

  “You look perfect!” Her long champagne gown was simple and classy.

  “I’m so nervous!”

  “Me too.”

  “I never had a big wedding like this.”

  “Neither have I!” I laughed, but she did not get the joke.

  “My sister gave me a pill to calm me down. I hope I don’t keel over.”

  Uncle Sammie, Aunt Courtney, and their children greeted me. “Thank you so much for having us,” Aunt Courtney said. Lorraine’s sister, Leanne, walked over and introduced me to two people who had been anxious to come, but who I didn’t remember. Clara had been my babysitter when my mother worked when I was a baby; and I had lived with Marcy after Luke was born prematurely.