Everyone at the table busted out laughing, even Deanna’s husband. Lucy put the pie down on the table and sat down. She’d promised herself she would keep her mouth shut today, but here she was, mouthing off to Deanna, giving her the kind of ammunition she loved.
“So, Lucy, how are you and Jeptha going to pay for this baby?” Deanna said, primly putting the tiniest bite of pecan pie in her mouth before making a face and putting her fork down.
Lucy looked over at Jeptha, whose face was bright red.
“Same way everyone does, I guess. With jobs.”
“Surely, you can’t keep on working two jobs. And who on earth is going to take care of that baby while you’re at work? I’ve seen Jeptha with kids, and I can’t say I’d recommend him as a babysitter.”
“Deanna, stop,” Jeptha said. “We’ll figure it out.”
“How? It’s not like y’all are living together. Or even married. Oh, sorry, that’s a soft spot, isn’t it? I forgot you turned my brother down.”
“I … I …” Lucy stopped. She didn’t know what to say. These were the very same questions she’d been asking herself. She didn’t want to have this conversation with Deanna, though. Lucy looked up at Deanna then and saw that her eyes were narrowed and she had a smug, mean smile on her face. She felt sorry for Jeptha, having such a bitch for a sister.
“I don’t know, Deanna. You offering to watch him?”
“Lord, no,” Deanna said, her face curdled with disgust. “Babies is the worst.”
Everyone was silent for a moment, listening to Deanna’s kids fight over the TV with Marla’s kids.
“I’m just saying, it’s not like Jeptha can support you. He barely makes anything …”
“I make as much as Bobby,” Jeptha protested.
Bobby, who had taken a sip of water, started coughing. Jeptha stared at him.
“Right, Bobby?” he asked.
Bobby kept coughing until finally he was able to take a deep breath. His face was bright red. “Yeah, that’s it.”
“But Bobby don’t got nothing to do with his money. No baby. And Kayla don’t seem to be aiming for marriage, does she, Bobby?”
“Hell if I know. ’Sides, we aren’t talking about me and Kayla,” he said.
“True,” Deanna said. “Well, I’m sure you will figure it out somehow, Lucy.”
“You mean, me and Jeptha will figure it out. It’s not just me,” Lucy said. Jeptha took her hand then, and Lucy had never been gladder for it.
“Sure. You keep telling yourself that,” Deanna said, laughing as she walked her still-full plate into the kitchen.
“I’m sorry,” Jeptha leaned over and whispered to her. “Ignore her.”
“I know. I will,” Lucy said, trying to ignore Deanna and the pit in her stomach.
“Well, now that Deanna’s come at everybody like a hurricane, how about some football?” Cody said, standing up and rubbing his belly. “Lucy, that pecan pie was delicious. I think I’ll take another piece with me for the game.”
He picked up the pie tin and eyed the remaining half. “Aw hell, I think I’ll just take the whole thing actually. Y’all coming? Bring a fork.”
IN THE PAST, Lucy would have spent the next day with LouEllen talking through the whole exchange with Deanna. But not now. There wasn’t an ounce of Christmas spirit in LouEllen after that Thanksgiving. She communicated with Lucy primarily through glares, and the next time Jeptha came to pick Lucy up, LouEllen had ignored him entirely. Lucy told him to stay in his car in the future and she’d come out when she was ready. Lucy knew it was the right call when Jeptha didn’t even try to argue the point.
Lucy didn’t know what to say to LouEllen. It was like they had just moved in together all over again, except instead of nerves, this time it was sheer anger that kept them from speaking. On the few occasions when Lucy had wandered into the living room to watch TV with her, LouEllen had waited until Lucy had gotten all settled in and then pointedly walked out of the room.
“Fine,” Lucy called out each time and changed the channel. They were both behaving like two-year-olds, but Lucy didn’t care. She was never going to change LouEllen’s mind, and LouEllen’s angry silence wasn’t going to change hers.
Two weeks before Christmas, Lucy finally dragged out the Christmas decorations, including the fake pine tree. She’d always hated that tree. It was so mechanical and antiseptic to put a tree together rather than put one up like she had with her mom and dad. But LouEllen was dead set against a real tree, and not even a grieving thirteen-year-old who wanted some piece of her old traditions had swayed her. Lucy had stopped asking.
“What are you doing?” LouEllen asked as she watched Lucy drag out the box.
“Getting out the Christmas stuff.”
“Why? You aren’t ever here to see it.”
“LouEllen,” Lucy said, staring at her. “We do it every year. Don’t you want to put this up with me? I thought we could spend some time together.”
“I’m sure Jeptha will come on over any minute to ruin it.”
“He’s not coming.”
“Well, I don’t care. I don’t want any of it this year.”
Lucy straightened up from where she was sorting through the fake garland and red plastic balls. “Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack. I’m not doing Christmas this year. Not in my house. Not with you.”
Lucy dragged the box back to the closet without a word. Her chest was rigid with fury. Lucy knew it was bad between her and LouEllen, but she hadn’t realized it was this bad. She sat on her bed and stared at her wall in mute anger for five minutes until her hand hurt. Looking down, she realized she was squeezing a snow globe she’d pulled out of the box. She shook it gently and held it up to watch the snow fall softly against the faces of Mary and Joseph staring down at baby Jesus. Lucy was fairly sure there hadn’t been snow at the birth of Jesus, but she had never cared—it was the stocking present LouEllen had given her the first year she moved in. Tears filled Lucy’s eyes as she sat on the bed, like they had seven years ago when LouEllen had given it to her.
“They are a family,” LouEllen had said gently. “Trouble after trouble, but they found a home wherever they could and made a family. I thought it was a good reminder of your mom and dad, but also what we can be, if you’ll let me.”
Lucy gave the snow globe another half-hearted shake. Some family. She’d thought she and LouEllen would be okay, that they could weather any storm, but she wasn’t sure about this one. Some part of her didn’t even want to try.
Her phone pinged in her back pocket. She set the snow globe down on the bedside table and dug it out to see Jeptha’s name.
“Free? Wanna get a tree for the trailer?”
Lucy could see LouEllen sitting stock-still on the couch, her mouth set in a hard line.
“Yes,” she wrote back. “Please yes.”
“THAT ONE,” LUCY said, pointing to the tree, as tall as herself and perfectly shaped. But when they turned it around, there was a ragged lump sticking out from the back like the tree trimmer had walked away from his job and forgotten to come back. Lucy didn’t care. Misshapen or not, this was their tree. Jeptha lugged it to the car and up to the trailer on his back, where it left a sticky trail of resin on his jacket that would likely remain for months afterward. He set it down with a grunt into the stand that Lucy had already filled with water. When she tried to drag her belly onto the ground to put more water in, Jeptha had laughed, taken the pitcher from her, and hauled her back up onto her feet.
“You look like a beached whale,” he said. “A beautiful beached whale, but one that definitely ain’t supposed to be down that far. Why don’t you get the lights out? I’ll finish that.”
She waddled over to the boxes of lights, the baby’s weight swaying her body from side to side. Her feet and hips had naturally turned out in the last month, making room, she guessed, for how much more was to come. She collapsed onto the couch with a sigh of exhaustion.
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�We can finish tomorrow,” he said. “If you’re tired.”
She shook her head. “No. I want to see it with the lights on tonight.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, with a salute that made her laugh. “Hand me that first string and I’ll get going.”
He plugged the string in. Warm, soft light filled the room.
“Do you mind if I turn out the big lights?” she asked.
“Nope. Makes it easier.”
The trailer looked more beautiful than it ever had. Lucy turned on a Dolly Parton Christmas album she’d been listening to nonstop, like every Christmas, and sat back on the couch. She watched Jeptha in the semi-darkness, as he stretched up to the top of the tree. He curled the first end around the top, nestling some pieces deep into the branches and some out closer to the edge. Every few turns, he’d step back from the tree, examine the lights, and fine-tune the arrangement. With each string she handed him, the tree grew brighter and more beautiful. After a bit, she pulled out the boxes of red and gold balls they’d bought earlier that day, five dollars for a dozen, and attached the wire hangers. She hung them on the parts of the tree he’d finished putting lights on, smiling at him as they crossed paths. When every branch held as much as it possibly could, she stood back to admire it all. Jeptha joined her.
“Never had a tree in here before,” he said. “How’s it look?”
“Beautiful,” Lucy said as her eyes filled with tears. “Why’d you do this?”
“Do what? The tree? Just thought it’d be nice. And I remember you saying you don’t never get a real one anymore. Thought we could do that, maybe start a new tradition. For us. For the baby.”
“Like a family,” Lucy said, under her breath.
“Exactly. Like a family.”
Lucy smiled at Jeptha and then went back to staring at the tree. She thought of the Mary and Joseph figures in the snow globe. No matter where they were or how little they had, they were a family, bound together against the world. She wanted that, even if this wasn’t the way she’d imagined she’d get it. She looked over at Jeptha. His eyes were lit up by the lights of the tree, and he had a look on his face she had never seen before, a smile of contentment.
“I will, you know,” she said into the silence.
“Will what?”
“Marry you.”
Jeptha spun around to look at her. “You will?”
She nodded, then broke into a smile. “I will.”
Jeptha pulled her into a hug, a hunk of Christmas lights still in his hand. Her heart beat faster, and her nose twitched with sudden desire as Jeptha hugged her tighter and tighter until, finally, one of the little lights he was holding deep against her back broke with a tiny ping of shattered glass.
“Are you okay?” Jeptha asked, pulling her away from the shards of glass on the floor. “I’m sorry. I got so excited.”
“Me too,” she said, and kissed him. For a minute, she could tell he thought this was their usual kiss, sweet but staid. But staid wasn’t what Lucy wanted in that moment.
“Oh,” he said, stepping back a hair. “You want to …”
“Yes,” she said, glad the lights were low enough to hide her red cheeks.
“It’s okay? For the baby?”
“Yes,” she said, reaching her arms up around his neck. “It’s definitely okay.”
She pushed him gently toward the couch as he pulled her shirt over her head, his roughened hands stroking her breasts, two sizes bigger now than they used to be. Lucy shivered. Jeptha smiled and did it again. Lucy peeled the elastic panel of her maternity jeans down over her belly and slid them down her legs.
“You are beautiful,” Jeptha said, tracing a line with his finger from her collarbone down to her thigh.
“You must be blind,” she whispered in his ear.
“Best view a blind man ever had.”
“Why am I the only naked one here?” she asked. She unbuttoned his pants as he pulled his shirt off. Lucy drew in a sharp breath, enjoying the sight of him. She kissed him again, feeling her naked belly jutting between them but not caring. He sat down on the couch, pulling her down to him, her legs straddling him. Lucy was reminded of the only other time they’d had sex—like this, but in his car, both too drunk to remember what they were doing. This time, sober—and now committed—was another story entirely.
After, as they lay tangled up in each other on the couch, the soft, warm glow of the Christmas lights washed over her belly. They watched as the baby moved from side to side, Jeptha’s hand on her belly feeling the kicks.
“Are you happy?” Jeptha asked her.
“I think so,” Lucy said, not exactly sure what name to give the feeling that was warming her up inside. “I think that’s what this is.”
THE NEXT MORNING, when Lucy came home, still in her clothes from last night, it was to a house as quiet and tense as the valley before a thunderstorm burst through. The air looked almost yellow around LouEllen, who sat staring out the kitchen window, a cup of coffee cooling in front of her, her lips pressed together so tight they almost disappeared.
“You stayed over,” she said.
“I did.”
LouEllen toyed with the handle of her cup. “Y’all talk about getting married again?”
“We did.” Lucy prayed to God quickly that LouEllen would stop right there, not ask the logical next question. When she’d said yes last night, she hadn’t thought about how she’d tell LouEllen this morning.
LouEllen nodded slowly, her face pale. “You said yes this time, didn’t you?”
Before a thunderstorm breaks over the mountains, there is a moment when the world is silent. Birds, insects, people. Every living creature knows what is coming and freezes in anticipation of the violence. LouEllen looked up at Lucy. They stared at each other for a good thirty seconds, neither of them wanting to hear the answer that was going to bring down the heavens.
“I did.”
LouEllen’s face split apart like a ripe peach. But just as quick, or so it seemed to Lucy, her expression was gone, cleared away in favor of hard granite.
“You can leave.”
“What?”
“You can leave now. No, let me rephrase. I want you to leave.”
A hole gaped in Lucy’s stomach, pain she hadn’t felt since her parents died. She’d somehow thought she was special, that LouEllen would never cut her out of her life. But here it was. Lucy had been right. You can’t trust anybody. Nobody has your back, nobody but blood, and probably not even them. LouEllen had been saying for so long that she was family, but as soon as Lucy decided to go another way, to make a decision contrary to LouEllen’s wishes, that family was gone.
Lucy’s throat burned. Some piece of her wanted to argue with LouEllen and beg to stay until she married Jeptha. But the other part of her knew it was pointless. Besides, there was something comforting, after so many months of indecision and not knowing what she was doing with herself and her life, in being committed. If there had been any hesitation in her step this morning after saying yes to Jeptha, it was gone now. She was sewn into her decision. She swallowed down the lump in her throat.
“Now?” Lucy asked. “I don’t have work.”
“Seems as good a time as any,” LouEllen said, without meeting her eye.
Lucy bent down to grab a few trash bags from under the sink. In her room, she tossed all of her clothes into the bags without folding or sorting them, knowing she’d regret it later but too angry to care. Then she grabbed all of the knick-knacks of her life—pictures of her with her parents; a ticket to Dollywood, where she’d ridden her first and only roller coaster ride before throwing up on her dad; a few books she’d saved from high school; her diploma; and the three stuffed animals she’d saved from her childhood. She had a vision of passing them on to the baby, but looking down at the small unicorn, its horn dirty from years of being chewed on, a ragged raccoon puppet, and a used-to-be-pink elephant tossed upon the debris of her life, they seemed like a terribly sad inheritance to pass o
n. And yet, so very appropriate, especially for a girl who could pack her whole life in twenty minutes. She left the snow globe she’d unearthed yesterday on her bedside table.
Lucy paused in the hallway, staring at the baby’s room. There was nothing she wanted to take from there. It was all LouEllen’s—except for the crib, which she’d have to come back for. She took three steps down the hall and stopped. The lion onesie. That was hers. That was something she could pass down to her child, something good.
“Be like this,” she would say. “Be like this fierce little lion. Roar like this at the world.”
Lucy grabbed it from the drawer in the room that would have been her baby’s. It was as beautiful as ever, but even less about Lucy than it had been the day LouEllen revealed it. Lucy took a deep breath and put her hand on her belly.
“We’re gonna be all right,” she said to the baby.
She shut the bedroom door behind her, picked up her trash bags, and walked out of the house.
LUCY AND JEPTHA married on a stark, gray Sunday in January. The trees were stripped bare, the sky was flinty with clouds, and a mean wind cut through the valleys. No bridal magazine would have picked it for a wedding, Lucy thought as she stared at the sky through the window at the back of her church’s sanctuary. She shivered as she watched the branches rub against each other like spindly, decrepit old aunts leaned up against each other for support. She heard a quiet buzz from inside the church and moved to look through the doors into the hall. Lucy counted ten people in the pews: Deanna, Big Jim, Cody, Marla, Bobby and his girlfriend, Kayla, Judy, and, off to the side of Judy, Delnor Gilliam. Lucy couldn’t believe he’d shown up, but then, about everyone he knew in the world was inside the church at the moment. She smiled as she imagined him telling her, in all seriousness, “I didn’t have nowheres else to be.” She saw the minister come out then and take his place up front. Jeptha followed behind. He was twisting the knot on the tie he’d borrowed from Cody like it hurt him and stopped only when he realized that everyone in the pews was staring at him. He smiled weakly at the small crowd there, his eyes wide. Then he looked to the back doors.
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