The Man, The Moon And The Marriage Vow

by Christine Rimmer

  A quick glance at Pete’s face showed Evie nothing new. His hazel eyes gave nothing away and he wore no anticipatory smile. Unlike Becca and Jenny, Pete was less than thrilled at the prospect of having Evie as his stepmom. But he was dealing with it well enough. Over time, Evie was certain, she’d win his love as she had his sisters’.

  Reverend Johnson, as always, looked terribly intense and serious. Sometimes Evie wondered if the poor man ever cracked a smile.’

  Evie was careful not to look at Erik yet. As soon as she met his eyes, she knew very well she would see nothing but him—and she wanted to see everything else first, to absorb each smallest detail, in order to save it all in her heart.

  “Evie? Now?” The childish whisper came from a few feet to her right. It was Jenny, holding her own bouquet of pink roses, wearing a creation of ivory satin and English cotton tulle with a wide powder-blue bow at her waist. Becca, standing beside Jenny and dressed identically to her big sister, carried a basket of rose petals.

  “Yes, now,” Evie whispered back, her love for the two of them creating a warm ache in her chest.

  “Give me your arm then, gal.” Uncle Oggie stepped up from behind her, dressed in a suit that smelled faintly of mothballs, leaning lightly on a fine new cane, one with a handle of hammered silver and an ebony staff. Evie took the free arm he offered.

  At the piano, which was against the far wall to Evie’s right, Regina seized the moment and launched into the wedding march. The guests stood and turned as one to better view the small procession.

  At a slight nudge from Jenny, Becca started up the aisle, strewing petals as she went. Jenny soon followed, marching with great dignity, both hands on her bouquet. When they reached the top of the aisle, the two girls moved to the side.

  And then it was Evie and Oggie’s turn. In deference to Oggie’s bad foot, they progressed even more slowly than the girls had done, Oggie’s cane tapping the hardwood floor with each step they took.

  Though it wasn’t really possible, Evie did her very best to make eye contact with every person there. She traded warm looks with her sisters and Amy. And she saved a special smile for Nellie, who stood so stiff and proud near the front, her very presence at this gathering a minor miracle that spoke more clearly of love and forgiveness than words ever could.

  When they reached the top of the short aisle, Reverend Johnson took over. The guests sat once more. Oggie stepped aside and then Erik was there, enfolding her hand in his.

  Evie turned, looked into tender gray eyes and knew that after years of wandering, she had truly found the home she sought.

  Outside, the wind howled and the rain poured down. Evie hardly heard it. Nothing could touch her or harm her now. The long years of guilt and loneliness were behind her at last and the future was a shining thing, as clean and new as the first day of spring.

  Chapter Eleven

  That night, Evie slept with her new husband in his giantsize bed. Since money was tight, they’d decided to forego a honeymoon until some later date when finances allowed. But neither of them really cared about the missed wedding trip. They were newlyweds in the truest sense. Just being together was a fabulous vacation in a beautiful place for each of them.

  The first few days of their married life were heaven. But then, reality did set in to a degree. They discovered a few elements of their lives that could stand improvement.

  For one thing, Pete remained standoffish toward Evie. He rarely looked directly at her, and he always ducked away anytime she tried to show him affection. Erik wanted to confront the boy about his attitude. But Evie held him back. Things had happened so fast, really. Pete deserved a little leeway to deal with it all at his own pace.

  To help him accept her more easily, Evie made it a point to show Pete she was there for him. Pete played soccer; Evie learned the rules and attended every match, hiring Tawny to cover for her part-time at the store.

  And cheering at soccer matches wasn’t all Evie did to try to get closer to Pete. Pete was a good student; she made sure to praise him for the way he always took care of his schoolwork with no need for reminders. She packed his lunch daily and watched for which foods he ate with gusto, so she could make sure they appeared frequently when dinner was served.

  Her efforts garnered no immediate results. But she told herself to be patient. Such things took time.

  Also, Nellie’s relationship with her grandchildren remained touch and go. True, Nellie had taken a big step when she came to the wedding. And she continued to visit the girls at Wishbook.

  But she made no attempt at all to get to know Pete. Evie suspected that was because the boy never came into the shop. To see him, Nellie would have had to seek him out at home. There, she would be too likely to run into Erik.

  Erik said that Nellie was still avoiding any situation where she might actually have to share a few words with him. Evie agreed with her new husband. Even at the wedding, Nellie hadn’t gone so far as to actually speak with her former sonin-law.

  In those first halcyon days after she and Erik were married, when Evie was sure she could resolve anything, she dared to approach Nellie about the problem. Nellie blinked and said she really had to be going. She flew out of the shop and didn’t return for five days, during which time Becca continually asked for her. After that, Evie decided she’d leave it alone for a while.

  And then there was money. Erik was so sensitive about it. And as far as Evie was concerned, his hang-ups on the subject were an obstacle to their future. Evie had some financial plans, sound ones. But she couldn’t carry them out until Erik gave the okay.

  The most important step right now, the way Evie saw it, was for her to cash in a few certificates of deposit that she’d stashed away. Then they could pay off the rest of Erik’s debts and get rid of the whopping interest charges that kept accruing. But Erik flatly refused when she suggested as much. He insisted that the debts must be paid from money he himself had earned.

  The first couple of times he brushed off her suggestions about dealing with the debts, Evie let him do it. But she didn’t give up. She kept coming back about it.

  Finally, exactly two weeks after the day they exchanged wedding vows, they traded their first harsh words as husband and wife.

  It was right before bedtime and they were in the bathroom, standing at the sink together as they brushed their teeth. Erik, dressed as he usually did for bed in a pair of briefs, was already scrubbing away.

  Evie, wearing a pajama top she’d stolen from him and a pair of heavy socks, carefully squeezed a line of toothpaste onto her brush. Then, with the brush poised halfway to her mouth, she met Erik’s eyes in the mirror.

  Though nothing had been said yet, he could read her look as if they’d been married for a century rather than just fourteen days. He knew that she was about to say something that he wasn’t going to like.

  “What?” he muttered around a mouthful of minty foam.

  “I keep thinking about those certificates of deposit I mentioned before,” she told him in a tone so offhand that it sounded suspicious even to her.

  He glared at her in the mirror, his mouth still full of toothpaste. “Don’t start.”

  “Well, now just hear me out.”

  He continued to glare.

  So she went ahead. “Listen, I really do want to cash them in and pay off those two outstanding hospital loans you’ve got left. Then, we’re going to be in a great position to approach Regina about—”

  Erik spat into the sink. “Drop it. I’ve told you. I pay my own bills.”

  Evie stayed reasonable—with just a touch of placation thrown in. “Erik, please. You’ve done a terrific job. Really. You’ve accomplished the impossible, single-handedly. But now you have me. And together, we can—”

  Erik turned on the tap and stuck a glass beneath the faucet. “I mean it, Evie. It’s not open for discussion.” He lifted the glass and took a mouthful of water, then sloshed it around in his mouth.

  Evie’s reasonableness began to fray
at the edges. “This is ridiculous. We’re married now. What’s mine is also yours.”

  Erik spat the rinse water in the sink with more force than was necessary, then he reached for his hand towel and dried his mouth. “Right. We’re married now. And I’m the husband here.” He shoved the towel back on its hook. “We’ll buy this house when I can afford to. Save your money for yourself. Providing for you and the kids is my responsibility.”

  That did it. The delicate approach was getting her nowhere. She demanded, “Where did you live before you came home to North Magdalene—a cave?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that men don’t club women over the head anymore and drag them off to a hole in the side of a mountain when they want to romance them. It means that times change. You, apparently, haven’t noticed that I have been taking care of myself for a lot of years. In fact, I’ve become quite good at taking care of myself, considering I started with nothing and now I run a business of my own. Actually I’d venture to say that I’m ready to go further. I’m ready to extend myself a little and help to take care of us, too. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. But you seem to think a person has to have hair on their chest to be able to help pay the bills.”

  Their eyes were locked on each other in the mirror. Erik muttered, “That was quite a mouthful, sweetheart.” The endearment didn’t sound nearly as tender as usual.

  Evie set her toothbrush, still wearing its neat line of paste, on the edge of the sink. “This money thing is a problem, Erik. And I think it’s your problem. Get over it.”

  His eyes were like twin slabs of slate. “I am over it.”

  “Good, so we can—”

  He didn’t let her finish. “No, not we. You. You can keep your damn money. The subject is closed.”

  Evie wanted to punch him. But she didn’t. She asked, very quietly, “Did you treat Carolyn this way?”

  He blinked. “What way?”

  “Like a second-class citizen. Like someone not quite capable of doing her part?”

  It seemed he couldn’t stand still then. He stepped around her and went out into the bedroom. She followed right behind. “Well, did you?”

  He stalked to his side of the bed, flung the covers back and got in.

  “Erik?”

  He stretched out on his side and pulled the covers up to his chin.

  Evie marched around the end of the bed and stood right in front of him. “I asked you a question, Erik. You haven’t answered it.”

  He stared at her for a moment. Then he seemed to realize she wasn’t going to go away. He rolled to his back and sat up. “What are you getting at? Until she got sick, Carolyn did her part. She took care of the house and the kids and that’s no easy job, in case you don’t know.”

  “I do know.” Her voice was gentle now.

  “I took care of Carolyn.” In his eyes, there was hurt.

  Evie spoke even more gently still. “I know you did. But it’s important, Erik, for a woman to know she’s contributing in every way that she can. To know she’s an equal with the man she loves.”

  He looked away. “Carolyn and I were equals.”

  Evie perched on the edge of the bed and tugged on his arm. “Are you sure?”

  He met her eyes then. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  Evie let her hand stray up, until she was stroking his shoulder. “I don’t know. I started out just to tell you that I’m going to cash those CDs.”

  “Well, now you know what I think about that.”

  “Let’s leave the CDs for now.”

  “Yeah, leave them right where they are. For good. Because I’m not going to change my mind.”

  “You are a stubborn man.” She went on stroking his shoulder.

  “So I’ve been told.” His voice was gruff, but he turned enough that she could rub the back of his neck, which often tightened up with the kind of work he did. He sighed and closed his eyes. She pulled and rubbed, easing the powerful, knotted muscles, ordering warmth into her hands, focusing on drawing all the tightness away.

  After a moment, when she felt him begin to relax, she suggested in a whisper, “I think I hit a nerve about Carolyn.”

  When he said nothing, she scrambled up on her knees right behind him and nipped his ear. “Did I?”

  He let his head drop toward his chest, stretching the neck muscles a little more. “Rub farther down. Maybe.”

  She fisted both hands and pressed the knuckles on either side of his spine, then slowly began working her way down his broad back. He grunted in pleasure.

  She instructed, “So talk. Tell me what I said that got to you. And why.”

  “Hell. It’s just…”

  “Yes?” She’d reached the base of his spine with her massage and she wanted to be closer to him. So she slid her arms around his hard waist and leaned her chin on his shoulder, pressing her body against his back. Since she was wearing only the thin pajama top, she knew he could feel the softness of her breasts. She reveled in the way his breath hitched, before she prodded again, “Come on.”

  He turned his head enough to kiss her cheek, then he confessed, “Yeah, maybe you did hit a nerve.”

  “When?”

  “What you said reminded me of what Carolyn’s doctors told me.”

  “And that was?”

  “Hell. More than one of them said that Carolyn felt as if she’d made no—” he sought the right words and found them “—important contribution to our lives together. That Carolyn’s life had been run by Nellie and then by me. And that she felt a sort of worthlessness, they said. That she never really believed she could take care of herself.”

  “Did they say that was the cause of her illness?”

  “Uh-uh, they didn’t go that far. They only said that Carolyn’s feelings of worthlessness had exacerbated her condition.” He stressed the big words with some irony, then went on, “But unfortunately, they never really could figure out what caused her condition, let alone what the hell her condition actually was. At first, since it was after Becca was born that it really started, they called it postpartum depression. And then, when they couldn’t get rid of it, they said it was Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Later, they started calling it just ‘her’ condition’ and ‘her case,’ as if they’d run out of ways to explain what was wrong with her.”

  “So you feel partly responsible for Carolyn’s illness, is that what you’re getting at?”

  He spoke after a pause. “Well, I guess, now I think about it, that maybe I did keep her from really being self-sufficient. Carolyn was so…fragile. She was like some delicate flower. When I fell in love with her, I wanted to take care of her. And I did. Maybe too well.”

  With a sigh, Evie turned her head, so her cheek rested on his shoulder.

  He had more to say. “There were witnesses, the day that she died. They said she just…wasn’t looking. That she walked into the street and the driver of that truck didn’t see her and she was hit. But I’ll always wonder what was in her mind, what she could have been thinking at that moment. She had come home from the hospital just a few days before she was killed. We all thought she was ready. But I can’t help thinking that maybe she wasn’t ready. Maybe she wanted to die…”

  In her mind’s eye, Evie saw again the vision of the red bird in the blue sky, of Carolyn, watching the bird and stepping in front of the white van. She pressed herself closer to Erik. “No. You mustn’t think that. I don’t believe that she wanted to die.”

  He chuckled then, but it was a sad sound. “Evie. There’s no way to know.”

  “No. No, there isn’t. There’s only…what you choose to believe. And if I were you, I’d believe she saw something beautiful—or at least something that distracted her. And then, just the way the witnesses said, she forgot to pay attention and there was an accident.”

  He shook his head. “I wish I could believe that.”

  Though she never did such things anymore, Evie pressed her hands against his hard belly. Sh
e closed her eyes and sent the belief into him. It was only a small thing, after all, and something he needed so very much.

  She felt the easiness come over him, the way his body went loose and limber under her hands. He sighed. “Yeah. It’s a good way to think of it.”

  She lifted her head enough to place a kiss on the hard, smooth bulge of his shoulder. “I love you.”

  He turned, then, and gathered her into his arms so that she lay across his lap. They shared a kiss, and when they came up for air, his eyes shone with a teasing light. “But come on. Be straight. Admit I’m no caveman.”

  “The heck you’re not.”

  He contrived to look noble. “I let you buy the girls’ dresses and the champagne for the wedding. And throw out half my beat-up furniture to move in all that fancy stuff of yours. And when you drive off to Grass Valley and come back with a van full of groceries that I know I didn’t pay for, I don’t say a word.”

  “But when the rent came due, you wouldn’t let me pay half, which I can certainly afford since I’m going to be subletting the apartment over the store as soon as I can find the right tenant.” Evie didn’t actually own the building that housed her store; she leased it, very cheaply, from a friend of Oggie’s.

  “I pay for the roof over our heads,” Erik said in a dropit tone of voice.

  She just couldn’t let it go yet. “But if you don’t let me help with the rent, I’ll actually be making a profit on moving in with you. How do you think that makes me feel?”

  Erik groaned. “Please. Give it up.”

  “Never.”

  He put on a pitiful expression. “It’s not easy for a macho dude like me. I have to take this liberation stuff in stages.”