Chin Up, Honey Read online

  Gracie’s mother might want to hold the ceremony in Baltimore, although the kids seemed to favor a wedding right there in Valentine, which would be the most practical thing. Johnny’s friends and family were all within driving distance, and most of Gracie’s friends were in Dallas. There wasn’t but Gracie’s mother up in Baltimore. Apparently Gracie’s mother had been divorced since Gracie was a baby, and her father was not in the picture. From what Emma had gathered, the only other family was Gracie’s mother’s parents, who spent a lot of time in Paris.

  “I can understand if her mother would want to have her only daughter’s wedding up there where she is, but it will sure be a mess tryin’ to haul everyone up there. Your daddy won’t go, because he is never gonna step on a plane.” John Cole’s daddy said that if a plane broke a fan belt, there was no place up there for it to pull over.

  “We could all drive up,” said John Cole.

  The image popped into her mind, all of them in a long caravan, like a bunch of gypsies. She thought of the luggage her mother would require. Her mother practically took her entire home when traveling.

  “Mama said somethin’ about a writers’ conference in September. I hope it won’t be on the wedding day…or if it is, that she hasn’t already paid for it.”

  “We’ve got the big Convenience Store Expo up at Oklahoma City in September,” said John Cole. “The second week in September.”

  To which Emma instantly replied, “I don’t think that is near as important as John Ray’s wedding. You can miss it one year.”

  “I was just mentionin’ it, Emma Lou.”

  She bit her bottom lip.

  Then she said, “We’ll know more about everything on Sunday. The kids are comin’ for dinner—we’re gonna have a little family engagement celebration and talk over the wedding plans. I think it would be good for you to be here on Sunday, if you can.”

  “I’ll be there,” he said instantly.

  “Well, good.” Then, “John?” When heart-stopping serious, she used his first name.

  “Yeah?”

  “I think it would be a good idea for you to come on home. We just can’t do the divorce now. It would tear Johnny’s world apart at a time that is supposed to be filled with joy—his and Gracie’s special time. We need to just drop the idea and make everything seem normal, at least until after the wedding. Don’t you think so?”

  She squeezed her eyes closed.

  “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

  Everything just melted inside of her. She had always been able to count on John Cole’s excellence as a father.

  It was a lot to take in. First she was getting divorced from her husband of thirty-two years, then her son was getting married, now her husband was coming home.

  What about sleeping arrangements?

  She entered their bedroom and gazed at the bed—king-size, solid cherrywood. She had bought it back when they got their first home. John Cole never had paid much attention to the interior of the house. Every time she bought something, he would grouch about her spending money on it, but then, when the piece was in the house, he always really liked it.

  There was no way John Cole could manage sleeping in the guest room. He would end up making the family room his bedroom and his recliner his bed.

  She entered the walk-in closet, where one side still contained most of his clothes, with a line of boots and shoes below. She gathered up her nightgown and robe and slippers, carried them down to the guest room, then threw them over the end of the bed. She wasn’t going to move her clothes, because she could not have anyone know she wasn’t still in her own room. Then she returned with two large wicker baskets to the bathroom, where she swept her things off the counter and out of the drawers, carrying them down to the guest bath and tucking them in the cabinet.

  Subterfuge was going to be a lot of work.

  3

  Emma and John Cole

  She kept watch and saw his truck coming up the drive. She hurried to the back door to meet him, but stopped in the kitchen doorway.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.” He carried his duffel bag and shirts in a bag from the cleaners. “I’ll put these away—I’ll be right back,” he added, as if she might think he was never returning.

  Emma watched him go off down the hall, then turned and flew around the kitchen, pulling the bowls of chicken salad she had already prepared from the refrigerator, closing it with her foot as she ripped the plastic wrap from the dishes. She arranged the salad—made John Cole’s favorite way—with sunflower seeds and halved grapes on a bed of lettuce, with celery sticks and cherry tomatoes on the side. The effect was something as pretty as a magazine cover.

  Maybe John Cole would see what he had been missing.

  Realizing her train of thought, she yanked out the celery sticks, as if to tone down the inviting food. He likely wouldn’t eat them, or even notice, anyway.

  Studying the prepared plate of food, she thought that she was in a most frazzled state. But then again, what other state was natural for a woman in her situation?

  Hearing the sound of the television, she went to the entry of the family room. John Cole was standing there in the middle of the room, remote control in hand, staring at the television. Headline News was on—a report on a disaster somewhere.

  Emma was not certain what she expected of him, but she did think he could have thought of something better than to turn on the television at that particularly significant moment.

  She said, “I have your supper ready. Do you want to eat in here?”

  “Yes…that’d be nice.”

  She didn’t know why she had bothered to ask.

  They sat in their respective chairs, a large table in between them, facing the big-screen television, where NASCAR highlights flickered on the screen.

  Emma had for so long wanted to buy a regular couch, so that they could sit side by side. She thought if they could have sat close together, held hands and touched more intimately, they might have revived their passion for each other. But John Cole had refused to give up his chair.

  She wondered what he might have done if one day, when he arrived home, she was burning his chair out in the yard. She imagined the scene. The hardest part would be getting the chair outside. John Cole had a heavy-duty dolly in his garage, though. She probably could use that. Or else smash the chair apart with a hammer and take it out piece by piece, about like one did a cooked chicken.

  Then she began to imagine shooting out the television with a shotgun. They did not have a shotgun. She would have to borrow one. Vella Blaine had a shotgun; that woman’s prowess with a gun had been written up in the newspaper. Perhaps Vella would lend Emma the shotgun—or maybe Vella hired out as a crack shot. The television would be an easy target.

  Just then, she realized that John Cole had begun talking, telling her how good the chicken salad was.

  “Thanks for makin’ it,” he said. “I was more hungry than I imagined.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Their eyes met and skittered away from each other.

  Emma tried to think of something else to make conversation. Her conscience pricked, and she said, “I told Johnny that we would give him and Gracie money toward a nice honeymoon—I didn’t say how much, just that we would.”

  John Cole nodded. “Okay.”

  More NASCAR watching.

  “Do you want to call your daddy and ever’ body tonight and tell them about Johnny and Gracie?”

  He raised an eyebrow at her. “I guess…if you want to.”

  “It’s up to you. He’s your daddy. I thought of callin’ Mama, but she’s up in Oklahoma City at one of her writer things, and I imagine she’s really busy up there and won’t hardly hear a word I say. You know how she is. Unless she calls here, I’ll just wait until she gets home on Saturday.”

  John Cole, looking really tired all of a sudden, said he didn’t feel like calling. “We might as well wait until we have a date and details to tell ’em, anyway.”

&
nbsp; She said okay. They finished their meal without further conversation, while NASCAR continued on the television.

  Later, Emma sat at the kitchen table with a yellow legal pad, and a wedding etiquette book and wedding planning magazines that she had bought over the past few years, knowing that this day was bound to come. Dreaming about it. Actually trying to prepare herself for the change to being the mother of a man married to a woman.

  John Cole came in and said what he so often did, “Oh, there you are. I wondered where you’d gone.”

  “I’m right here. I’m workin’ on a preliminary list of people on our side for the invitation list. There’s more than I had imagined. If the wedding is here in Valentine, I imagine that most all of your side will come over. Well, maybe not Violet—I think she’s still got the agoraphobia. But I know Charlie J. and Joella will come and bring your daddy, and most everyone else will come, too.

  “Then there’s quite a few Berry employees and some other business people it would be nice to invite. With just my first thoughts, I’ve come up with over seventy people, and that is not including the church congregation. It’s customary to invite the entire church where the ceremony is held, and I think we would do best to prepare for about a third of them to actually show up, especially the ones that have known Johnny from childhood.”

  “It might be enough to cause them to decide to have the weddin’ up north,” John Cole commented, bending into the refrigerator.

  Emma gazed at the list. “Well, we can easily keep it to just family. That isn’t so many…and I think Johnny will want his family there.”

  The idea of having the wedding far away from home about made her sick. But then she reminded herself to be glad that Johnny had not run off and eloped, as he had often said he would do.

  She looked up and saw John Cole, a Coke in hand, leaning against the kitchen counter, gazing at the floor.

  He was here—home—she thought, running her eyes from his head to his boots.

  His eyes met her own. She felt a little silly, getting caught looking at him, but she couldn’t just look away now that he had seen her.

  He said, “You know, I just keep thinkin’ about how small he was when he was born and yet he had those really big feet.”

  “Oh, my gosh…” She remembered, too, and smiled. “…They didn’t fit any of the booties that came in the newborn sets.”

  John Cole gave a small grin, then tipped up his Coke and drank deeply.

  Emma looked back at the list of names in front of her. She could not believe that John Cole remembered any of that, much less spoke of it. Tears welled in her eyes. And for some odd reason she was afraid for him to see.

  “I guess I’m goin’ on to bed,” he said.

  “Good night.” She saw him pause uncertainly. “I’ll come later,” she said. “I’m sleepin’ in the guest room. I…thought it might be best.”

  There, it was said. She checked his face for his reaction. There was nothing.

  He nodded and said, “Good night.”

  Her chest felt crushed. But then, “John Cole?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for comin’ home.”

  “He’s my son, too, Emma.”

  His words struck hard. She opened her mouth to reply, to say that she well knew that. But he was already out of the room, and for some reason, she couldn’t figure out exactly what to say to stop him.

  Lying against the pillows in the darkened guest room, Emma gazed out into the hallway and saw the dim silvery light shining from the television down in the master bedroom. She could faintly hear voices. It was funny how so small a light and soft a sound could go such a distance in a silent and dark house.

  She fluffed her pillows, lay back again and breathed deeply. Over the past few days, she had often felt that she just could not get enough air. She felt that way now, tried inhaling deeply again, then repositioned the pillows and herself. Accepting that she was as comfortable as she was going to get, she lay staring up at the ceiling and recalled the conversation in the kitchen.

  It was rare for John Cole to reveal any deep emotional thoughts as he had in speaking about Johnny as a baby. Sometimes she didn’t think John Cole even had any deep emotional thoughts, nothing beyond a fondness for television, car racing, making money and Coca-Cola.

  He’s my son, too. As if she did not know that, as if to say that she tended to act like Johnny was all hers.

  She supposed she did, a little. After all, she had so desperately wanted a child.

  And John Cole had done his very best to give her one, too.

  4

  1968—1971

  It’s a Boy!

  After two years of marriage, they decided to have a baby.

  Actually, Emma decided. John Cole did not seem to care one way or the other, although he did get a little anxious to accomplish having any children they wanted while he was in the Navy so they could let Uncle Sam pay the medical expenses.

  So Emma went off the birth-control pills, which so many women of her generation had believed to be the way of life, totally disregarding the popular margarine commercial of the time: It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.

  Things did not quite go as planned.

  When she did not get pregnant that very first month, she was quite surprised. A few more months, and she still did not get pregnant. It seemed like more women than she had ever seen were pregnant all around her, but she was not.

  She began to read books about getting pregnant, started to take her temperature and try various sexual positions conducive to conception. Once, she threw her back out and therefore missed two perfectly ripe chances to conceive.

  Finally, after a year, she sought medical help. Time was wasting, and she needed to take advantage of what the Navy medical services could do for her, free of charge. After checking her over, putting her through all manner of tests and having her try a number of the things she had already tried, to no avail, the doctor said that John Cole needed to be examined.

  John Cole, who rarely said no straight out, looked at her like he would rather eat live frogs.

  Emma was ready for her persuasion, which was that she didn’t think an examination or any test was too much to ask. After all, she got a Pap smear every year. That wasn’t any fun. And she herself was willing to go to great lengths to cure their childless state, so she expected John Cole to do his part.

  This reasoning, along with Emma crying a lot about wanting a baby, compelled John Cole along.

  The day of John Cole’s appointment, Emma waited outside the clinic in the car with all the windows down. It was summer at the naval station in Florida and hot as blue blazes. After a little while, John Cole came out, but he didn’t get in the car. He stood by her open window and told her that he had to undergo a sperm-count test. He looked disgusted and as if he might refuse to do the test, or as if he might ask Emma to go in with him to help. She hoped he didn’t do either and just sat there, not saying anything.

  Finally, he went back inside for what seemed a long time, while she waited, sweating in the car and feeling guilty about making him do something he didn’t want to do. She promised herself to make it up to him, and that night and in the following weeks, she cooked his favorite foods, waited on him hand and foot, even left the air conditioner on high all night and never complained.

  The test results arrived. John Cole’s count of live and volatile sperm was in the extremely low category. It said right on the results that his ability to impregnate her was in the bottom percentile.

  It was hard news. John Cole got more quiet than usual, and Emma went in search of finding out what could help a man’s sperm count. She ran up a bill of twenty-five dollars just on long-distance phone calls to her mother, who excelled in research and who could also ask the other women in the family. She scoured the library and read long into the night, then started feeding John Cole protein drinks, vitamins E and C, and putting wheat germ in every recipe that she cooked—hamburgers, meat loaves, oatmeal, even sal
ads.

  When it came to chocolate cake, John Cole balked. “Good God, Emma. You’re gonna wheat me to death.”

  She begged him to go without underwear, so that his little sperm wouldn’t be overheated and would be able to swim correctly. She followed her ovulation carefully and figured out how to prop her legs up on the headboard for ten minutes after sex, although John Cole really got afraid she might have a stroke from such antics. His fear over this, coupled with Emma’s demands on him, caused him to lose a lot of sleep and risk getting into great trouble during the day at his duty post, because he tended to nod off if he sat anywhere too long.

  A little over three years later, after she had finally given up trying and reluctantly decided to seek an education for some sort of career, she turned up pregnant. By then, John Cole was out of the Navy and they had returned to his hometown in Eastern Oklahoma, where he worked at the Berry Hardware Store and Emma spent her days keeping their tiny apartment over the elder Berrys’ garage spotless and making cute crafts. John Cole had set his sights on buying one of the big fancy vans so popular at the time. He had to change that idea and accept a baby instead, along with paying a lot of the medical bills out of his own pocket, as their medical insurance was poor.

  The evening Emma went into labor, John Cole had fallen asleep in front of the television. She had been engrossed in reading a magazine article about tie-dyeing when she began to feel odd. Her back hurt, and she thought she felt contractions. She checked the instructions from the doctor and wondered if she was truly in labor.

  She woke John Cole and told him what was happening, then asked, “What do you think?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” he replied to her question, gazing helplessly at her. He lay back again in the recliner and dozed off, until fifteen minutes later, when Emma shook him again and said that she was fairly certain she needed to get to the hospital—and quick.