Child Bride

by Jennifer Smith Turner

  “Nothing so far. I’m still thinking on it.”

  “I see. Will you be coming to church every Sunday?”

  “I hope to. This is my first time, but you know that. Henry wanted me to be safe, to wait for him at home.”

  “I see.”

  “I take care of the family, everything in the house. Henry takes care of all the outside things that need taking care of. He enjoys coming to church.”

  “I see. And what do you enjoy doing?”

  “I cook real good, clean, keep the babies happy.”

  “What stores do you like to shop at?”

  “Henry does all the shopping.”

  “I see. Nell—may I call you Nell? And please, call me Phyllis.”

  “Yes.”

  “Nell, why don’t you join our women’s group at church? We meet once a week to plan activities each month, but mostly we’re close friends who look out for one another. We have lunches, go shopping together, visit one another in our homes. It would be good to have someone new, and so young, become part of our group.”

  “I don’t know. I have to take care of my babies. And I’m not sure how Henry would feel about me going out.”

  “Hmm … maybe in time, then. A mother, yes, and so young! Little Mother Nell, that’s who you are. Tell me, what do you think of your hairstyle?”

  Phyllis turned me around to face the mirror. My raggedy braids were gone. Since visiting Momma I had reverted back to the basic braid hairstyle that was easiest for me to manage. Phyllis had made a French twist with my hair, using lots of bobby-pins and hairspray to hold it in place. All the hair was pulled off my face, so my high forehead was emphasized. I looked older, sophisticated, like someone who belonged in the fine dress I was wearing.

  “Phyllis, thank you. I look like someone else.”

  “You’re quite attractive; you just need to let your features shine through.”

  “My school-teacher back home looked pretty. I always admired her, how she dressed and carried herself. I saw her recently when I went back home to visit after my daddy passed away.”

  “My condolences on losing your father.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Did you finish school?”

  “My family married me off to Henry. We left the South and came up here.”

  “Are you attending school now?”

  “No, I don’t have time, and I don’t need schooling.”

  “Henry told you this?”

  “Yes. But I like to read.”

  “Is that so? What kind of books do you read?”

  “All kinds. Love stories, mysteries—anything I can find. I read those stories to the babies all the time. They know the characters as well as I do.”

  “We have a room full of books right here in the church. You can look through those and read whatever you like. There’s also a library nearby.”

  “Henry took me to the library when we first moved here. I got my very own library card. It was such a beautiful place, full of so many books. I even spent time reading to a group of children once a week. I enjoyed that; it reminded me of how I felt in the classroom back home. But I haven’t been back there since …”

  “I take it Henry doesn’t want you to go there alone?’

  “That’s right. He worries about the babies and me, but he brings books home for me when I want new ones. Do you and Reverend Leonard have children?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. By the time we married it was too late for babies. All the children of our church-members are our children. Now Junior and April will become a part of the family too.”

  She picked up April, and Junior and I headed upstairs to greet the congregation—and to find Henry.

  When we approached the pew where Henry was seated, he casually looked up from the prayer book. Then he dropped his program, turned sideways in the pew, and rose to greet Mrs. Leonard and us, his family. She waved her hand for him to stay seated, then said to me, “Take your place with your husband, dear.”

  I slid into the pew to sit beside Henry with April and Junior next to me. Henry stared at me, taking into account the fine dress I was wearing, my new hairdo, the good clothes his children had on.

  Mrs. Leonard sauntered to the very first pew and took her place directly in front of her husband. As soon as she was settled, Reverend Leonard stood to begin the church service.

  I was transported to the last Sunday service I had attended with Momma and the family in our small, hot church in the center of town. I remembered then how as children we would get to Sunday School early in the morning, have our bible studies, then join the adults as the main service began, several hours later. My momma and all the women of the church wore their Sunday best and always carried fans provided by the local funeral parlor, to move the humid air away from their cheeks as the minister preached. The choir sang gospels, and we clapped and sang along. Sweat poured from everyone’s brow. We prayed aloud with the minister, shouted hallelujah as the sermon delivered important messages, acknowledged those church-members who were ill or in hard times, broke bread and drank wine to honor the life of Christ, stood up in praise, kneeled in prayer, cried for forgiveness, hugged one another in greeting—and we did this each and every Sunday.

  When I had joined Momma and the family at church just a week ago, I’d realized how much I was missing. Now I was in our church in the North with my family, the first important step in a new approach to my life. I wiped tears from my eyes and blew my nose. Henry’s back stiffened. It was then that I heard Reverend Leonard formally welcome us. He said, “I’m so pleased to greet Mrs. Bight and the lovely Bight children in our church. We all know Mr. Bight is a long-standing member of this congregation, giving his time and love to all. I expect, as we come to know Mrs. Bight and their children, they too will be treasured family members. Let us pray.” The Reverend’s prayer of welcome filled the room and he finished with, “Let the church say amen.”

  When the choir finished the final song, everyone turned in their pews to say hello to those sitting beside, in front, and behind them, saying, “God be with you.” Henry turned to greet the family sitting behind us, but he didn’t introduce me or the children, so I introduced myself. I did the same with the people sitting in front of us. I started to look to Henry for an indication that it was time to leave, but he was looking away from me, so I guided the children to the center aisle and followed people to the front door, where the Reverend and Mrs. Leonard were chatting with parishioners as they said their good-byes. Henry was behind us.

  When we reached the door, Mrs. Leonard gave me a gentle hug and asked, “Did you enjoy the service?”

  “Oh, yes, it was wonderful. It made me think about my family and our church in Louisiana.”

  “We’ll see you next Sunday, of course?” As she spoke these words, Henry approached her side. “Mr. Bight,” she added, “I’ve enjoyed meeting your wife. She’s lovely. And your children are the cutest ever. We look forward to seeing them every Sunday. I plan on stopping by this week. In fact, I’ll bring some of the members from our ladies’ group. We can welcome Mrs. Bight to the congregation and see if there is any way we can assist her with connecting to others in the neighborhood. Will that be all right with you, dear?” She never took her eyes off Henry as she posed this question to me.

  “Of course—thank you,” I said.

  “And we can take you to all the shops we frequent for clothes and things for the home. Would you like to go shopping with us?” Her eyes were fixed on Henry as she asked this.

  “Yes, I’d like that.” I turned to Henry and said, “Henry?”

  “I guess that’s a good idea,” he said, looking at Mrs. Leonard.

  “Well, it’s settled. Mrs. Bight, the ladies and I will see you on Thursday.” With that she placed my arm through Henry’s and shooed us out the door and down the steps.

  Reverend Leonard shook Henry’s hand and said, “So glad to meet your family, Mr. Bight. You must be proud of your wife and children. We’ll see all
of you next Sunday.”

  We walked down the steps arm in arm. Henry was carrying April. Junior was holding my hand. It was a perfect picture of a perfect young family walking home from a perfect Sunday service on a perfect sunny day.

  Suddenly Henry shifted April from his right arm to his left, letting my arm drop to my side. In a low voice, muffled because he was talking to me through April’s body, he said, “Where’d you get those clothes?”

  “From Mrs. Leonard, the closet downstairs in the church. There were many nice things there. The church members look out for one another by bringing clothes, shoes, and hats for those who may need them.”

  “My family doesn’t wear other people’s clothes. We don’t wear hand-me-downs. It’s shameful.”

  “But I don’t have good clothes. I—we need good clothes for church.”

  “Who says you’re going to church again?”

  “I do. Mrs. Leonard and Reverend Leonard expect to see us again. I will be coming to church, Henry.”

  We walked in silence for the next block. Henry was bouncing April in his arms as if he were giving her a ride on a merry-go-ground. He said, “I’ll buy some clothes this week, your own dresses and things.”

  I took a deep breath, knowing what I needed to say and unsure if I could force the words out of my mouth. “I want to buy my own clothes.”

  Henry stopped, turned to face me. “What?” he said.

  “I want to buy my own clothes.”

  “With what? You don’t have any money of your own. You don’t know anything about clothing stores. What’re you talking about, woman?”

  I looked up the street to my right and then to my left, thinking that a solution might be out there and that I could just pluck it like a spring blossom, lose myself in the bouquet of its scent, show it to Henry. But the sidewalks were barren of flowers. Looking down at my feet, I said, “I could get a job, earn my own money. I know how to do things. Then I can buy my own clothes and things for the children too. Ginny would take me back, working for her.”

  “No wife of mine is working.”

  I couldn’t find a response in the tips of my shoes, or the cracks in the sidewalk, or the weeds peeking out from small lines of dirt. No answer lived in the palms of my hands or the tears dripping down my cheeks, making small marks on my new dress as they fell from my face. Yet suddenly, with a heavy tug in my stomach, I discovered the words from thinking about the characters in my books, and from reflecting on Mrs. Leonard and her charms and grace. I found the words in the encouragement that both Momma and Miss Parker had given me about finding myself.

  “Henry, if you don’t want me to wear other people’s clothes, then you have to give me money of my own, because I’m going to church every Sunday.”

  Henry looked up and down the street, searching for solutions the way I’d done a moment ago. The sidewalk was barren for him as well. Days seemed to pass in the heavy silence hanging between us as we stood facing one another. Junior and April were tired and hungry, but they kept still, waiting for some motion from their parents.

  “You sassing me?” Henry said.

  “No such thing as a grown woman, wife, and mother sassing her husband,” I replied.

  Henry grunted. We walked home in silence.

  Once the children were asleep that night, Henry and I lay down together. He started to pull at me as was his way, not saying a word, not kissing, just wanting to force me on my back, spread my legs, and shove himself inside.

  I stopped him and said, “I’d like us to make love.”

  He rolled onto his back, his arm across his face, and said, “What’d you think we’ve been doing all this time?” His lips didn’t move; he spoke through his teeth.

  “Having sex, that’s all. I want loving, Henry.”

  “Jesus, woman!”

  “Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain! You know we don’t make love—you just take me, you don’t give anything tender in return. I want that.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since I decided it’s time for me to be a grown woman.”

  “How am I supposed to know these things? One day everything is fine, the next day I can’t do anything right.”

  “From now on, I’ll let you know what I need.”

  “Great.” He turned his back to me.

  We didn’t have sex or make love that night. I had the most peaceful sleep I’d had since marrying Henry. Our marriage license, filed in a city-hall office in Louisiana, was dated two and a half years earlier. It stated that two consenting adults had entered into the legal marriage union. But in actuality only one adult had been present that day. Rightfully, this day’s date should have been the one recorded.

  Chapter Sixteen

  IT WAS WRONG. I KNEW IT THEN. I KNOW IT NOW. It was wrong. Criminal as swarming locusts ravaging crop fields in the height of growing season. That happened one summer in Louisiana. We’d heard stories about how they came from nowhere, cast a thick humming cloud around the sun, spread a mammoth shadow over entire fields and towns, swooped down on crops, ate and ate until they tired of the fruits nurtured by the back-breaking work of farm owners and field hands, then disappeared mysteriously, leaving farmers with poverty the coming winter.

  When they arrived that summer, we were sitting on the porch, the men talking and joking, my momma and sisters resting after preparing and cleaning up after dinner, me on the steps with a book to read. At first it sounded like a harmonica, played by someone with an inexhaustible amount of air in his lungs. The same monstrous note grew louder, danced through the air, piercing our eardrums. When we stepped off the porch and looked in the sky in the direction of the noise, we gasped at the fast-moving dark mass of thousands of insects headed our way. “Locusts! Locusts! Get into the house!” Daddy hollered. “Close up the doors and windows. Put cloth in all the cracks!” We scattered, obeying his orders without a second thought.

  We stood in a tight circle in the middle of the kitchen, holding onto one another as though the house were about to be yanked from its foundation and hurtled into the air, leaving us exposed. Suddenly the locusts hit. It sounded like bullets from machine guns pelting the walls and roof. The insects forced their way into the house. My daddy and brothers swatted and crushed them with their work shoes, and I screamed in terror. My momma held me tight and said, “Hush up. It’ll be over soon. They can’t hurt us.”

  And it was over rapidly, almost as soon as it had begun. We peeked outside and watched the tail end of the swarm make its way further north, away from our farm. My daddy stood with his back to the us, surveyed the damage to his crops, wiped his brow, and said, “It’s criminal, all of our work eaten by these insects. We’re gonna have a hard winter.” There was nothing left for us to eat or store for the winter months, nothing for us to sell at market. My momma was mistaken. The bugs did harm us. Every time we opened a cabinet and a stray bug fell down, every time the wind blew a few dead insects from the gutter to the porch steps, every time we heard the crunch of a decaying carcass under our feet as we walked in the fields, we knew it was wrong, we didn’t deserve this.

  I SHOULD HAVE pulled away from him the first time he rubbed up against me. We were in the church kitchen, preparing food for the communion dinner to take place after church services. The church ladies were comfortable letting me become the “lady of the kitchen.” It was such a joy for me to be part of the church in this way, one of the favored ladies with many friends. I was happy to have friends. Mother Nell—that was what everyone affectionately called me. Phyllis’s nickname had stuck, partly because of who she was and the influence she had with everyone, but also because I kept getting pregnant.

  I lost one baby in the first trimester. My body didn’t want to keep that little one; the tiny motionless mass flushed out of me one night. The doctor assured us there was nothing wrong with me, I would be able to carry a baby to term again. With only one son and a daughter, Henry needed assurances that I could deliver him more sons. “Maybe your body needs a rest
,” he said after our visit to the doctor. “We’ll take some time before having another baby.”

  “Time” turned out to be twelve months. It was the first year during our marriage that I didn’t carry another person in my belly. It was the year of my twentieth birthday. Then Teddy arrived.

  Henry wanted more sons, as though he were running a large farm and needed a house full of strong field hands. Nature had a different idea. I had three miscarriages after Teddy was born. The doctor told us my body was too exhausted and worn out to carry any more babies to full term. He said it was dangerous for me to get pregnant again. Once Henry heard this, he stopped touching me, looking at me, having sex with me. Our bed became dry and parched, but my thirst continued.

  I should have pulled away from him, but instead I leaned into him as his arm brushed against the soft tender flesh of my arm, a tender spot just above my freshly shaved armpit, skin that didn’t often get exposed to outside elements, skin sensitive to the delicate brush of fabric, with tingling nerve endings. I was reaching for a box on the top shelf of a cabinet. He was standing beside me, watching. Watching me was how he spent his time Sunday afternoons, as I worked in the kitchen.

  Charles was the oldest son of one of the congregation’s families. When he graduated from high school, he went to college—the first young person from the neighborhood to do so. He earned a degree in psychology and had hopes of staying on to obtain a master’s degree, but when his daddy took ill, he returned home. He’d grown up in the church, so when he came back to the neighborhood, he immediately took his place there.

  Phyllis introduced us. “Charles, this is Mrs. Bight, a new member since you were here. She and her husband moved into the neighborhood last year.”

  He took my hand in his, tipped his hat, and said, “Hello, Mrs. Bight. I’m pleased to meet you.”

  We stared at each other for too long. “Mrs. Bight has several children,” Phyllis said, interrupting our electric pause, “all growing up as part of our church family. Her husband, Mr. Bight, has been a well-respected member of the congregation for some time. I’ll take you to meet him.” And with that she whisked Charles away.