The Wedding Tree

by Robin Wells

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I couldn’t, dear; it wasn’t my place. That would have been meddling in your marriage, and folks just didn’t do that. But I knew you two were having problems.” Mother reached into the bag. “Truth is, I was afraid you’d been . . .” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “. . . raped.”

  “Mother!”

  “Well, you’d occasionally go off by yourself to places a woman shouldn’t go without an escort. There were a couple of times you asked me to watch the children, then Mildred Pilcher told me she’d seen you at the lakefront, taking photos of pelicans or geese.” She snapped a bean clean in half. “I was afraid the baby wasn’t Charlie’s.”

  Truth be told, a similar worry had crossed my mind.

  “How do you know the baby is even yours?” I’d asked Charlie when we’d gotten back home from that fateful Easter dinner and the kids were down for a nap.

  “I just do.”

  “But if this woman slept with you, she might be sleeping with fifty other men, as well.”

  “I could say the same thing about you.” Charlie had gone straight for the kitchen cabinet where I’d hidden the scotch, a thundercloud of a scowl darkening his face.

  “You know me, Charlie. How well could you possibly know this woman?”

  “How well did you know Joe? For all you know, he’s actually married.”

  The words had shocked me. I’d stared at him for a moment. He was out of his head. When it came to Joe, he was crazy.

  But in my dream, my mother calmly swung on the porch swing and pulled another bean from the bag. I reached in and took one, helping her. “It would have meant so much, Mother, if I could have talked to you about things.”

  “I know, dear.” She carefully snapped the bean, her face a picture of peace and serenity. “But ladies didn’t talk about those things back then.”

  I woke up covered in sweat. My mother’s beatific expression, her lack of remorse or regret, her apparent complete acceptance of whatever she’d done or not done . . . How could she feel that way about her mistakes, yet be so insistent I fix mine?

  I guess it was because she was on the other side. I still had to struggle to get there.

  I pushed down the covers and rolled over. It wouldn’t be much longer—a couple of months, a year maybe—certainly no more than two or three. Death was growing inside me like a baby waiting to be born. I could feel it, getting stronger. Sometimes the hairpins in my bun vibrated with the knowledge like tuning forks.

  I glanced at the alarm clock glowing on the bedside table. Three thirty. There was still a lot of night left to get through. I closed my eyes and tried to fall back asleep. I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or not, but Mother’s voice seemed to come out of the air-conditioning vent. “You need to clear everything up before you join us, sweetheart. Becky is counting on it.”

  Becky—my beautiful, precious, brilliant Becky, taken from me far too soon. The daughter I’d loved more than life itself, yet never really had understood. I’d always thought that the secret about her real father was the reason there always seemed to be some distance, some friction, between us.

  She and Charlie didn’t have that problem, not until she was older and determined to be a career woman. To Charlie’s credit, he treated her just as well as he treated Eddie when she was little—better, actually. Becky was smart as a whip and serious and hung on Charlie’s every word. Eddie, however, was easily distracted and emotional, and Charlie had been harsher with him, trying to toughen him up.

  I understood Eddie. I could always read him, always empathize with his emotions. Becky and I, though, seemed to be on a different frequency. Communicating with her was like trying to listen to a radio program and getting lots of static interference. Was the secret about her conception somehow blocking us, or were we just ill-fitting personalities who couldn’t really tune in to each other’s hearts and minds? Was it my fault? Or did some mothers and daughters, through no fault of their own, just never seem to be tuned to the same channel?

  34

  matt

  I’d had a hell of a week at work, so I was glad to just chill with the girls on Saturday. Unfortunately, their idea of chilling involved having me braid their hair so they could look like Von Trapp siblings. Apparently they’d watched The Sound of Music with Peggy while I was at the fete.

  “Ow, that hurts!” Zoey said as I finished tightening the elastic band in her hair.

  “Sorry, sweetie.”

  Her eyes filled with dismay as she regarded herself in the hallway mirror. “It’s all crooked and lumpy.”

  Sadly, it was true. One pigtail was lower than the other, and a clump of hair was pouching up above the other one. I took the comb and tried to smooth the lump to no avail. “Maybe we should go across the street and let your grandmother do it.”

  “No. I want Jillian.”

  “She’s not here.”

  “She would be if you’d marry her.”

  I was spared from having to answer by a knock on the kitchen door. Sophie opened it.

  “Snowball!” she exclaimed. “You came!”

  I followed Zoey around the corner and saw Hope holding her grandmother’s little dog. My heart picked up speed. “Hey there.”

  “Hey.”

  “Snowball wanted to come see me,” Sophie said. “She was barkin’ through the fence and Hope was in her backyard, so I asked if she could come over.”

  “Sophie, you shouldn’t be bothering the neighbors.”

  “It’s no bother,” Hope said. “And she’s exactly right. Snowball wanted to pay a visit.” She set the dog on the floor and held out a small ball to Sophie. “I’m sure she’d love to play outside with you.”

  “Me, too!” Zoey said. Both girls ran out the back door, Von Trapps forgotten, the dog following happily behind.

  “They’ve been begging me for a dog of their own,” I said, just to have something to say. Seeing Hope scrambled my thoughts.

  “You should get them one. It’d be good for them to have a pet.”

  I noncommittally lifted my shoulders.

  Hope’s eyebrows rose. “Don’t you like dogs?”

  “I think they’re great. It’s just . . . Christine wasn’t a dog person.”

  To her credit, Hope didn’t say “So?” She didn’t even look at me like I was an idiot. She didn’t need to. I heard how ridiculous my comment sounded as soon as I said it.

  “I guess it would make me feel . . . disloyal or something,” I tried to explain. “As if the girls were being raised contrary to the way she would have done it. I don’t know if Peggy and Griff . . .” I stopped myself. I ran a hand down my face. “I’m realizing how lame my reasoning is as I’m talking. Guess it’s time to move on, huh?”

  Her gaze was like being wrapped in a blanket taken straight out of a warm clothes dryer. “There are no timelines for these things.”

  When was the last time I’d felt okay after sounding like a dunderhead in front of someone? I hated sounding sappy or being wrong, and yet Hope made me feel all right about it. I gave a self-conscious smile. “Yeah, well, I guess old habits die hard. I’ll give it some thought.”

  We stood there, just looking at each other for a moment. “It’s good to see you,” I said.

  “Good to see you, too. I hope I’m not interrupting. Gran’s taking a nap, and I thought I could use the chance to touch up the mural and hang the hardware for the canopies. I’m nearly finished.”

  “The girls will be so thrilled. But I’m going to miss having you over here so much.”

  “Even though you’re hardly ever here when I am?”

  “I like the idea of you being here,” I said. “I think about you a lot.”

  The air around us heated. Her mouth curved in a smile. “What do you think?”

  “About doing this.” And just lik
e that, I bent down and kissed her. It seemed like the most ordinary thing in the world, but the sensations it stirred in me were anything but ordinary. Her mouth was soft and succulent, and when her arms wound around my back, it felt like time and place just melted away.

  The patter of small feet warned of a child’s imminent arrival. We both pulled back as the back door opened.

  Hope’s lips were red, her cheeks rosy. “I, uh, better get to work on the mural.” She turned and fled up the stairs to the girls’ bedroom as Zoey walked in.

  Zoey looked at me accusingly. “Why were you standing so close?”

  I didn’t think she’d seen us, but I didn’t dare deny it. “None of your business,” I said.

  “Well, I don’t think that’s ’propriate.”

  “What?”

  “My teacher taught us about ’propriate and in’propriate behavior. Like how you don’t yell and run around indoors, and how you don’t let strangers get too close and ’vade your personal space. An’ I don’t think that you and Hope were being ’propriate, ’cause you were ’vading personal space.”

  I have to say, I was flustered. “I, um . . .”

  “Besides, I want you to marry Aunt Jillian,” Zoey continued.

  This refrain was getting tiresome. “I’ve told you, sweetheart. I don’t like Jillian like that.”

  “Maybe if you kissed her, you would,” Zoey persisted.

  Damn. Maybe she had seen us. “It just doesn’t work that way.” I rubbed my hand across my face. “Hey—I thought you wanted to play with Snowball. What are you doing in here?”

  “I came in to get her a bowl of water in case she’s thirsty.”

  “That’s very responsible of you.”

  She nodded solemnly. “I’m responsible enough to take care of a dog of my own.”

  Zoey had the makings of an excellent attorney. In the span of less than a minute, she’d thrown me off balance and made her case. I would hate to come up against her in court. I pulled a disposable plastic bowl out of the cabinet and handed it to her.

  She carried it to the sink and stood on tiptoe to fill it. “Come outside and play with us.”

  I thought about Hope upstairs in their bedroom and was tempted to decline—but I couldn’t trust myself not to invade her personal space again. Besides, Zoey was watching me closely.

  “Are you playing Von Trapp family?” I asked. “Because I refuse to wear lederhosen and sing.”

  “What’s lederhosen?”

  “Shorts with suspenders.”

  Her face broke into a sunshine smile. “Well, you don’t have to wear that, but I bet we can make you sing.”

  It was not a bet I was willing to take. Because the truth was, my girls could coerce me into doing just about anything.

  Anything, that is, except get involved with Jillian—or keep my distance from Hope.

  35

  hope

  Kirsten poured foam onto my cappuccino the following Wednesday morning during a lull in her business. “I’m so thrilled you’ve agreed to do the mural here! And so is everyone else on the block. The drugstore, the hardware store, and the insurance agency have agreed to each pay you an extra two thousand dollars to include them in it.”

  “Wow. You might have missed your calling, Kirsten,” I said. “You should be in art sales!”

  “It was easy. I showed them the photo of the mural you did at Matt’s house and told them it would be a permanent billboard.”

  I’d finished the girls’ room on Monday. Matt and I had moved their furniture back that evening, and the girls had been so excited they’d insisted on sleeping in their princess gowns. Life at Matt’s house pretty much had been a nonstop princess-a-thon ever since.

  I’d brought a photo of the room to Kirsten yesterday, and she’d immediately taken it to the neighboring businesses.

  I perched on a barstool at the coffee counter and gave Kirsten a teasing grin. “Maybe you should take my job in Chicago and I should stay here.”

  Kirsten put her hand on her hip. “Maybe you should forget about Chicago and stay here, period. I know a hunky neighbor of yours who would no doubt agree.”

  My heart somersaulted at the thought of Matt. For the last few nights, we’d been meeting in the swing in my grandmother’s backyard after the girls went to bed, talking and, well, making out a little.

  Just a little, though—because Mrs. Ivy could see us from her upstairs window, and we’d caught her watching on more than one occasion. As delicious as Matt’s kisses were, knowing that they’d be reported to the entire neighborhood put a damper on my ardor.

  So did the thought that a once-in-a-lifetime job awaited me and I was just a short-timer in Wedding Tree. “I can’t just forget about Chicago,” I said, taking the cappuccino she handed me.

  “Well, you can at least enjoy Matt while you’re here.”

  “That’s true.” I took a sip. “We’re going out to dinner this Saturday.”

  “Ooh, another date!”

  “It’s not a date-date.”

  “In what way is it not?” Kirsten arched an eyebrow as she picked up a bar rag.

  “Well, it’s not like anything is going to happen.”

  “That’s only because neither of you has a place to get down and dirty.”

  “Wow. I love your romantic phrasing.” But she was right. Matt’s house was off-limits because of his daughters, and Gran’s house was out of the question.

  She smiled as she wiped down the counter. “With a husband who’s been gone for five months, believe me, down and dirty sounds a lot more romantic than wine and roses.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Sam? Oh, he’s wonderful. Totally worth the wait.”

  “How did you two meet?”

  “At college. But we didn’t start really dating until he finished a tour of duty with the marines. He said he didn’t want to be pining for me while he was in Afghanistan.” She put the rag over the sink and smiled. “But he said he pined anyway.”

  “Aw!” I took another sip. “So now the pining’s mutual.”

  Kirsten nodded. “We e-mail all the time and we Skype when he’s in port, but there’s nothing like that physical one-on-one. He keeps promising that each trip is his last, but the money’s really good, and . . .” She sighed. “The truth is, I’m not sure he’d ever really be happy settled down.” I caught a glimpse of intense sadness in her eyes. Before I could think of anything to say, she turned to the sink. “Hey—do you like romance novels?”

  Apparently she didn’t want to talk about Sam anymore. “Yeah, I love them.”

  “Well, I belong to a book club, and we’re reading Kristan Higgins.”

  “Oh, I’m crazy about her stuff!”

  “Want to join us? We’re meeting at my house next Tuesday.”

  “I’d love to. Who comes?”

  “Most of the ladies you met at the tree planting and a few others—including Jillian.”

  “I felt so bad for her at the fete,” I said. “Have you seen her since?”

  “Yeah. And she asked me if something was going on between you and Matt.”

  I kind of held my breath. “What did you tell her?”

  “That you two really liked each other and were hitting it off.” She leaned across the counter and lowered her voice. “She’d heard that Matt kissed you good night.”

  “Oh, good grief.”

  “She tried to act like it didn’t matter, but I could tell it bothered her. She said she’d thought Matt had invited you to the fete just to be neighborly.” Kirsten poured herself glass of water. “It’s kind of sad, how selective a person’s vision can be.”

  “Tell me about it,” I replied ruefully. “My husband and my best friend were having an affair right under my nose, and I was the last to know.”

  “I think ther
e must be some self-protective mechanism that kicks in.”

  “I think you have to have a lot emotionally invested to activate it.”

  “Well, I think Jillian is pretty emotionally invested in Matt. She said that it’s good he’s showing interest in someone new, because it means he’s getting over Christine and is ready to move on.” Kirsten gave a wicked grin. “Then she said it’s too bad that you’re only in a town for a few more weeks, but she didn’t look like she thought it was bad at all.”

  36

  adelaide

  You said you moved to Mississippi a few months before the baby was due,” Hope prompted.

  I opened my eyes. Apparently I’d dozed off, or maybe my thoughts had just meandered. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

  My granddaughter and I were in my bedroom. It was the next day—or maybe the day after, or the day after that. Time had become liquid, moving and spreading all around. I was sitting in my rocker, and Hope was holding three loose housedresses with sunflowers on them.

  No. It was one housedress, the one I’d asked her to pull out of my closet.

  She brought it over and laid it in my lap. The fabric was light, but touching it, I could almost feel the heaviness of the padding I’d worn under it that summer.

  Unbidden thoughts. The phrase floated through my head. Maybe that wasn’t the word, unbidden—but then again, maybe it was. Unbidden, as in unexpected and unwanted and uncalled-for, leaving you all undone. One moment you’re doing something perfectly ordinary, and the next, you’re overrun by memories and feelings that leave you reeling and gasping.

  I had a lot of those in the months that followed that Easter dinner where Charlie announced my so-called pregnancy. I closed my eyes and fell back into my story.

  1948

  We moved to a rental house in Jackson, a squalid little two-bedroom thing. Charlie had deliberately picked a place too small for either of our families to stay overnight.