The Wedding Tree

by Robin Wells

  1947–1948

  Life went on for us after Joe’s last visit, but I started avoiding marital relations with Charlie. Something about seeing Joe again had stirred up a streak of bitterness. Maybe it had always been hiding inside me, but I didn’t fully realize it until after Joe’s second visit.

  The magnitude of all I was losing out on—travel, adventure, earth-stopping sex—hit me anew. I was angry. Angry at God, angry at fate, angry at Charlie—even, God help me, angry at my children and my parents and grandparents. I was angry at everyone who put daily demands on me, who kept me trapped in what felt like a life of drudgery.

  Mostly, I think, I was angry at myself—and anger turned inward festers.

  I couldn’t stand for Charlie to touch me. I’d feign a headache, or fatigue, or pretend to already be asleep. “It’s your wifely duty,” Charlie finally told me.

  Well, he was right—but having him tell me I had to make love with him just made me all the more reluctant. I gave in, but I acted like a rag doll instead of an active participant. I resented him, and my resentment—my passive aggression, I guess you’d call it—well, it tore Charlie up on the inside. He wanted something from me that I wouldn’t give, and the more he wanted it, the more stubborn I grew.

  “Tell me you love me, Addie,” he’d beg.

  “I love you,” I’d say, my voice flat as a pancake.

  “Say it like you mean it.”

  “I am!”

  But I wasn’t. And God help me, but there was something about his begging, something about the naked neediness of him that made it hard as the dickens for me to give him what he wanted.

  “Kiss me back when I kiss you,” he’d tell me.

  I’d pucker up like a fish, but keep my lips immobile.

  “Open your eyes,” he’d say as he made love to me. I’d gaze at the ceiling like a store mannequin.

  He’d pepper me with questions. “It’s Joe, isn’t it? It’s Joe again.”

  “How could it be? You made me send that letter.”

  “Did he come here? Did he come when I was gone?”

  “Yes!” I finally told him. I was at the end of my rope, and I wanted to wound him, to make him realize all his efforts couldn’t stop Joe from loving me. “Yes, he came here. He didn’t believe I wrote that letter. He wanted me to go away with him. I refused and he left. End of story.”

  But as far as Charlie was concerned, it was just the beginning. It ate at him. He questioned me more and more. Did I sleep with Joe? Did I kiss him? How long did he stay? Did he see Becky? How many times had he visited? The more he questioned, the more perverse and angry I grew. He started drinking again. The more I withheld affection, the more he drank. And the more he drank, the more I withheld.

  After a month or so, he begged my forgiveness and tried wooing me. He brought me flowers. He did the dishes. He had his parents watch the children so he could take me on a romantic weekend to a cabin by a lake near Jackson. Bless his heart, he couldn’t have known that it would remind me of that blissful time with Joe. He only knew that I sobbed all weekend. Charlie cried, too. “How can I make you love me?” he asked, making me feel like a monster, but not making it any easier to show him affection.

  My saving grace was that Charlie started traveling. His early efforts to convince his father to branch out and expand the hardware side of the lumber business started paying off. Instead of just running a retail store in Wedding Tree, they’d become a supplier to out-of-town five-and-tens and general stores, providing them with nails and screws and other items. There were plans to open another full lumber store in another small town. Charlie was usually gone two nights a week, and on those nights, I would breathe easier. The children and I would usually have dinner with my parents or his parents. None of our surviving grandparents were doing too well at that point, and my maternal grandmother lived with my parents.

  One morning after Charlie had been on a trip—it was the Saturday before Easter, I distinctly remember that—he came home at ten in the morning. That was unusual, both because he’d been gone on a Friday night—and Good Friday at that!—and because when he traveled overnight, he was usually far enough away or had enough business to keep him busy all day, so he never returned before evening. The other thing that was unusual—for the hour, anyway—was that he reeked of alcohol. I don’t know how he’d driven home in that state; perhaps he finished off a pint in the driveway. All I know is he was slurring his words when he stumbled in. He seated himself at the kitchen table, sent Rebecca outside to play, told me to put on a fresh pot of coffee, and ordered me to sit down.

  “There’re going to be some changes around here,” he declared. “I’ve decided that what’s good for the gander is good for the goose.”

  I eased myself into the chair across from him, thinking he’d drunkenly mixed up the metaphor. I was about to say something, but his eyes held a diamond-like glint that made my blood run cold. “What kind of changes?”

  “It’s high time you ’preciate all that I’ve done for you. Not every man would marry a woman pregnant with another man’s child, then put up with her treating him like dirt.”

  “I—I do appreciate all you’ve done, Charlie.”

  “No.” He thumped his hand on the table so hard the saltshaker slid off the cherry-printed tablecloth, onto the linoleum floor. “In order to ’preciate it, you need to fully ’xperience it for yourself.”

  By then, I felt like I had ice in my veins. “What are you talking about?”

  He glared at me, all cold-eyed. His nose was red and I saw a glimpse of evil in him that I’d never seen before. It struck me as the underbelly of love; if you flipped the emotion over on its back like a turtle, the opposite side would be black and sin-soaked and gin-fumed. Anyway. He sat there, his eyes red and shining, scary as any Halloween mask. He leaned forward, his forearms on the table. “You’re gonna raise my illegitimate child, and you’re gonna love it as your own.”

  I must have half laughed, because he pounded the table again and stood up. He loomed over me, and for the first time in a long, long time, I was scared—physically afraid—of Charlie. This was a man I didn’t know.

  “I got a girl pregnant.” He hitched up his pants, as if he was proud of this. “She’s gonna have a baby, and she’s gonna give it to us to raise.”

  I stared at him, uncomprehending. “We’re . . . going to adopt?”

  “No, damn it. Aren’t you listening? No adoption’s needed. It’s mine.” He thumped his chest with his right hand.

  I sat there, trying to take this in. Charlie had been unfaithful? The thought sent my mind reeling, but the matter of adultery didn’t hurt at first. Oh, it did later—but I knew I was largely at fault for that. At that moment, I simply couldn’t process what he was saying. “You want everyone to know you’re having an illegitimate baby?” I asked.

  “No. And no one ever will, because they’ll think the baby’s yours. You’re going to start wearing padding.” He leaned back against the kitchen counter, a pleased smirk on his face. “People will think you’re pregnant, and when it gets close to time, we’ll go to Mississippi. Dad’s planning on opening a store up there anyway; I’ll stall it until the timing’s right. Folks’ll think you had the baby there.”

  I felt as if I were in a nonsensical dream. “That’s crazy. It’ll never work.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for starters, no one will believe I’m pregnant.”

  “They will if you look like you are.”

  “But it’s ludicrous, Charlie. Women touch other women’s pregnant bellies. Especially family. Your mother. My mother. My grandmother. Your grandmother. It will never, ever work.”

  “It Goddamned better work!” His fist thundered on the kitchen counter so hard the toaster keeled over. I don’t know what was more surprising, the toaster falling or Charlie taking the Lord’s name in vain. In all the
years I’d known him, I’d never heard him do that.

  “You’ll make it work. You’ll keep them from touching you.”

  “How?”

  “That’s your problem.” He staggered back to the table. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. You do a damn fine job of keeping me at a distance.”

  “I’d—I’d have to see Dr. Henry.” He was the town doctor who’d attended me during both pregnancies.

  “Nah. We’ll say you’re seeing someone in Mississippi since that’s where the baby’s going to be delivered.”

  My thoughts were like a goldfish in a bowl, circling round and round, making no progress. “Charlie, this is insane. I won’t do it, and you can’t make me.”

  He leaned toward me. “Can’t I?”

  “No.”

  “You want to lose your children?” His mouth curled into something that sent a shiver up my spine. It was evil, pure evil. He pulled a flask out of his pocket, unscrewed it, and took a long swig. “I’ve kept some of your letters from Loverboy. You think any judge in this parish would think you were a fit mother if I were to pull those out?”

  Eddie woke up in his crib and started to cry. I left the room to see to him. When I came back to the kitchen, Charlie was gone, and so was his car.

  • • •

  Charlie came back before midnight and passed out in bed beside me. The next day was Easter, so I got up, pulled my church clothes out of the closet, then slept the rest of the night on the sofa. I wasn’t going to awaken him. Let him miss Easter service. Let him miss the family luncheon. I’d say he wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t get out of bed; everyone could draw their own conclusions. Let the whole town talk about him, for all I cared.

  But he woke up and got dressed and acted just as nice and pretty as you please, playing with the children and making them both laugh. He even helped hide the eggs for Becky’s Easter egg hunt and changed Eddie’s wet diaper. I thought he might have been in a blackout the day before, because he didn’t mention a thing about a baby or another woman. I figured he probably just made the whole thing up to terrify me.

  After church, we all gathered at his mama’s house for Easter dinner. My mother and father were there, along with my grandmother, and, of course, Charlie’s parents and grandmother. I took both a peach pie and a butterscotch pie. We all sat and ate ham and green bean casserole and carrot and raisin salad. Right before we served the desserts, Charlie stood up.

  “I have an announcement to make.”

  My heart thudded hard in my chest. Oh, no. Please, God, no. Maybe it was something to do with his father’s business. I looked at my father-in-law, but his face looked just as puzzled as I felt.

  “Adelaide and I are havin’ another baby.”

  Everyone broke into excited chatter. “When?” Mama asked.

  “In September,” Charlie said.

  “Why, Adelaide. You’re not showin’ at all!”

  “We wanted to keep it a secret because she’s been having a bit of a hard time,” Charlie said.

  “Oh, my dear!” my mother exclaimed, turning toward me. “What’s the problem?”

  “I—uh . . .” I was literally speechless. I couldn’t believe that he’d just announced such a falsehood like that, so publicly, with no warning.

  “Woman troubles,” Charlie said. That was code for bleeding. And no one—not even mothers and daughters—talked about that back then. Why, when I’d started my period at age thirteen, I’d thought I was dying. My grandmother on my father’s side had died of colon cancer, and I thought that’s what I had. My mother noticed blood on my underwear the next day when she did the laundry. She handed me a sanitary napkin, told me women had this happen every month, that it was a woman’s curse, and I’d just have to wear a pad and bear it.

  “What does Dr. Henry say?” Charlie’s mother’s face was scrunched with worry. I suddenly recalled Charlie telling me she’d miscarried several times after his birth. My own mother had had a difficult labor with me and was unable to have any more children.

  “She’s not seeing Dr. Henry. She saw a specialist in Mississippi when we went to the lake a few weeks ago.” Charlie turned to his father. “We’ll be opening the branch store in Jackson in September and I’ll want to be there, so I figured we’d rent a place for a few months. I wouldn’t dream of being away from her at a time like this.”

  My mother cocked her head and looked at me oddly. “You went to a doctor on a Saturday?”

  “Yes. This doctor sees patients six days a week,” Charlie said smoothly.

  “You don’t have to go to Mississippi, son,” Charlie’s dad said. “I can handle that store opening.”

  “No, this expansion is my responsibility. I’ll go get it started, hire a manager to run it, and then after the baby is born and things are running smoothly, we’ll come back here.”

  Charlie’s father pushed back his chair. “Well, I think this calls for a toast!”

  He went to the cupboard in his study, and returned with a bottle of sparkling wine. And everyone toasted and drank to my health, and I sat there, miserable, the lie lying like a boulder on my heart.

  “Do you want me to come and stay with you in Mississippi?” my mother asked.

  “Thank you, but no,” Charlie said before I could even open my mouth. “We’ve talked about it, and we don’t want to take you away from Grammie. What would be most helpful would be if you and Mom could take turns keeping Becky and Eddie for us once we get close to the due date.”

  “Of course. We’d be thrilled to do that.”

  Oh, he was smooth. I never knew how smooth he could be. This wasn’t the same Charlie I knew, the insecure, bumbling Charlie. Evil had made him a silver-tongued devil.

  I wondered if the other woman had taught him how to lie so adroitly. How many times had he lied to me when he was seeing her? I’d always thought I could see right through him. Somewhere along the line, he’d turned into a world-class deceiver. If I hadn’t known he was lying now, I would have been as sucked in as my family; he was just that smooth.

  “Mommy—you’re havin’ a baby?” Becky asked me.

  I swallowed. This was the point of no return. It was one thing to lie to my parents, quite another to lie to my child.

  Charlie did it for me. “Yes, honey. You’re going to have another baby brother or a baby sister.”

  “A sister! I want a sister.”

  Later, as we were cleaning up, my mother looked me up and down. “My word, child—you’re not showing at all. And you must be four months, give or take.”

  “You know, Beula was like that,” said my grandmother. “She carried her second baby toward her back. The doctor said he was sitting near her spine. Guess that’s what’s going on with Adelaide here.”

  She reached out her hand to touch my stomach.

  Charlie grabbed her arm, stopping her. “The doctor said people should keep their distance from Adelaide’s stomach, that she and the baby might be vulnerable to, um, electrical impulses from other people. He said just patting her belly can cause a transfer of electricity that can be harmful.”

  “Why, I never heard of such a thing!” my mother exclaimed.

  My grandmother and Charlie’s mother murmured in agreement.

  “Me, neither,” said Charlie, “but this doctor says it’s a brand-new medical theory, and since Adelaide’s had problems, we want to follow his advice to the letter, no matter how odd it sounds. Can’t be too careful.”

  “Well, I guess that’s right,” my mother said. “But what about the children? She’s going to be holding them and picking them up.”

  “The doctor said that children don’t have near as much of an electrical current as the hands of adults, so that should be all right.”

  33

  adelaide

  And they believed that?”

  I opened my
eyes to find myself in the rocker in my bedroom. I’d forgotten Hope was there. I’d forgotten I was talking aloud. It seemed so real, like was I back in the past, just living it all over again.

  I nodded. “Antibiotics and X-rays and all the things you take for granted now were brand-new back then, so discoveries about electrical impulses didn’t sound like too much of a stretch. But then, no one expected Charlie to lie about a thing like that.” I know I sure hadn’t. I hadn’t known Charlie was that imaginative.

  “What did you use for padding?” Hope asked.

  “An old quilt. I cut it up and made a small lump, and sewed tie strings to it. I added little pieces to it as the months went by, making it bigger. Lordy, but it was hot that summer! I was careful, but Becky walked in on me one morning as I was getting dressed. I turned away, flustered, but she’d already seen.

  “‘What’s that?’ she’d asked, pointing.

  “I tried to stay calm. ‘It’s a bumper for the baby. To keep it from getting hurt. Because the doctor said it’s sickly.’

  “Becky ran to greet Charlie with the news when he got home. ‘Guess what, Daddy! Mama’s wearin’ a pad over the baby to keep him safe.’

  “Charlie grabbed her. ‘Who else have you told this to?’

  “‘No one,’ Becky had said.

  “‘Well, be sure you don’t.’

  “‘Why not, Daddy?’

  “‘Because we don’t talk about undergarments.’

  “But I reckon he felt that it was unlikely she’d keep quiet, because he made me go over to my mama’s house that night and casually mention I was wearing a pad to protect the baby from electrical impulses. The next day, he went to Jackson to find a rental house. He moved us there at the end of the week, and there we stayed for the next three months.”

  • • •

  That night, I dreamed of my mother. I’d been worrying about facing her in the afterlife. I didn’t know what she knew about the non-pregnancy.

  “Oh, I knew something was wrong,” she said. In my dream, she was sitting on the back porch swing, pulling beans from a paper bag and snapping them into a red ceramic bowl. “You didn’t look a bit happy.”