Rituals of the Season

CHAPTER 27

It requires the exercise of some judgment to decide how far an individual may follow the dictates of fashion, in order to avoid the appearance of eccentricity, and yet wear what is peculiarly becoming to her own face and figure.

Florence Hartley, The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, 1873

Doug’s press conference didn’t take place till the day after Christmas, four days after our wedding. Nevertheless, there was so much fallout from Monday that it made our wedding on Wednesday feel almost anticlimactic.

For a while, that was all anyone could talk about at Daddy’s Monday night, but the novelty of being together soon took over.

Most of our family dinners are big, sprawling, multigenerational affairs and Christmas dinner would certainly be that, but for Monday night, Daddy had asked that it be only his eleven sons and their wives, Dwight, and me. Any grandchild who wanted to come help Maidie would be welcomed, but they were to keep quiet while serving and otherwise stay in the kitchen until supper was over.

All the leaves were added to the big dining room table and the doors to the front parlor were folded back so that a second table could be added, yet even then it was a tight squeeze to get twenty-five of us seated.

It was the first time in years that all of us had sat down together under the same roof at the same time. Adam, Frank, Benjamin, and Jack and their families had flown in yesterday or today and were bedded down in spare rooms all around the farm. The deaths of people they didn’t know could not hold their attention long, and dinner soon turned into a rowdy retelling of old family stories.

“Hey, Frank, remember when you figured out how to coil a piece of copper tubing without crimping it?”

“Y’all remember the licking we got when we parachuted Deborah off the packhouse and tore a big hole in Mother’s brand-new umbrella?”

“What was the name of that sexy little cheerleader you and Haywood got in a fight over in high school?”

“Smokey Johnson’s a granddaddy now? You know not! He’s younger than me.”

“—and believe it or not, I’ve still got them antlers! Where are they, honey? She’s always putting my stuff out in the barn and I keep bringing it back in just like that cat we had, remember? Kept bringing Mama Sue lizards and mice, like we’d bring her birds and rabbits.”

“Hey, Ben? You recall the time you and Andrew and Robert tried to teach that last mule how to jump fences?”

“’Course you don’t remember, Deb’rah, but Mama Sue thought you won’t never gonna learn to walk because one of us was always toting you on our shoulders. For about six months there, every time she turned around, she’d say, ‘Put that child down and let her walk.’ Remember, Dwight?”

And Dwight was right there with us, laughing and remembering and not having to be brought up to speed because he knew the punch lines and the in-jokes and the subtexts.

“What I remember,” I said, “is how y’all used to tease me that Mother and Daddy were going to trade me in when my five-year warranty expired. That was you, Will! You and Adam told me not to say anything to them about it and maybe they’d forget. I couldn’t talk about turning five and going to kindergarten until Seth finally told me the truth because I was afraid they’d trade me in.”

Taking his prerogative as my oldest brother, Robert lifted his glass to propose the first toast. “And now you’re marrying ol’ Dwight. Here’s luck to you both, honey.”

All down the table, glasses were raised to our health and happiness.

“Speech! Speech!” they called.

I shook my head. “Dwight can make a speech if he wants to. All I can say is how much it’s meant to me to be a part of this family, to know that you were always here for me. And not just you brothers, but you sisters-in-law, too.”

“Your turn, Dwight,” they said.

“I’m not going to get sloppy,” he said. “But I do thank you for everything, especially for Deb’rah, and I promise that I’ll do my best to make her happy.”

“I gotta be honest with you, son,” Daddy said as a mischievous smile twitched his lips. “You marry her on Wednesday and it’s a ‘as is’ deal. She don’t come with no warranties this time around.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Dwight said. “I know the manufacturer.”

Tuesday was so busy for all of us that Dwight and I didn’t get to have the quiet time with Cal that we had planned. DNA tests confirmed that Whitley was the father of Tracy’s unborn child and Dwight had to go into work to check up on the details. Minnie called first thing to say that she had phoned a fabric shop in the edge of Cary and they were holding several bolts of white cheesecloth for me to pick up this morning. “And what about rice bags?”

I confessed that I had totally forgotten about them. I hadn’t realized that Nadine was on an extension till I heard her say, “Rice isn’t good for birds. People use birdseeds these days.”

“I thought rice was for fertility,” I said innocently. “What do you get with birdseeds, Nadine? Eggs?”

“You laugh, but Nadine’s right,” said Doris, who had found Minnie’s third extension. “People are going to want to throw something at you and Dwight when y’all leave. It’s traditional. Get some extra-fine netting and a few yards of narrow white ribbon and a five-pound bag of birdseeds. Cal and Mary Pat and Jake can help you tie them up in little pouches. I’ve got a big white wicker basket I’ll send over to put them in. It’ll be real pretty.”

The children thought that making rice bags would be fun so I took them with me to Cary, and after we dropped off the bolts of cheesecloth at April’s house, we went back to mine and started an assembly line. I cut the white netting into five-inch squares, and laid them out on the table. Using a measuring spoon, Jake carefully put a tablespoon of birdseeds in the center of each, Cal gathered up the edges and twisted it to make a little pouch, then Mary Pat tied them shut with a bow.

They told me I didn’t really need to pay them for their help, but I explained that I was an officer of the court and I had to be careful about violating child labor laws. We agreed that ten bucks apiece was a fair price. It took us till lunchtime, but in the end we had over two hundred “rice” bags finished when Haywood and Isabel’s daughter Jane Ann came to collect them with Doris’s white wicker basket.

“Wait till you see what we’ve done with the potato house,” she said happily.

“I can take a break now,” I said, reaching for my car keys.

“No!” she exclaimed. “Aunt Minnie and Aunt April said to tell you to stay away. They want to surprise you.”

“What about us?” asked Mary Pat.

“It’s okay if y’all three come back with me,” she said. “Miss Kate’s gone to get barbecue for our lunch.”

They rushed to put on their jackets and follow her out to the car.

The house seemed so quiet after they left that I put on Christmas carols, then washed and dried Cal’s new sheets and pillowcases and made up his bed. The sheets were white with dark blue and black paw prints. The comforter and pillows were dark blue at the top with a border of white snowbanks and white wolves, which helped lighten the room a little, as did the white shade on his nightstand lamp. I hung crisp white curtains at the windows and white towels in his bath. The books and toys would have to come item by item as needed.

In the late afternoon, I lay down for an hour, then took a long hot shower and got dressed.

The rehearsal went off smoothly that night and the church looked lovely, dressed in its Christmas greens interspersed with masses of bright red poinsettias and tall white candles.

On Wednesday morning I had my hair done in nearby Cotton Grove, then Daddy drove me over to Aunt Zell’s in his battered old red pickup. He had bought a new suit for the occasion and Aunt Zell was right. He still is one fine-looking man.

He was in a reminiscent mood, and as we drove, he kept coming back to various family ceremonies—Andrew’s first shotgun wedding as compared to the one with April, Zach and Barbara’s big outdoor extravaganza at the farm that went on for three days and included a pig-picking and fireworks, Frank’s hasty marriage to Mae a whole continent away.

As we neared Dobbs, I said, “Tell me about yours and Mother’s.”

“Ain’t much to tell,” he said. “Won’t what I was brought up to, that’s for sure. Me and Annie Ruth, we just stood up together in the preacher’s front parlor in our Sunday clothes, sorta like Adam and Karen done. Your mama, though, she had to get married at First Baptist, same church as you and Dwight.”

“Had to?” I asked.

“Had to,” he said with a nod. “First, we was just gonna run off to South Carolina, but it was near ’bout killing her mother that she was gonna marry me, and Sue said the least she could do was let Miz Stephenson give her the fancy wedding she’d always planned on. The church was packed. Half of ’em was there to see what sort of roughneck I was, half of ’em was there ’cause they loved your mama, and the other half was there ’cause they was Knotts.”

I had to laugh. “Half the church will be family today, too.”

“Yeah, well, there was right much talk when Sister come in with all my boys and her gang, too.”

“You didn’t have a honeymoon either, did you?”

“Well, naw. In the first place, I didn’t have no extra money for a wedding trip, and Sue, she wanted to start being a mama to the boys right away. Like you with Cal.”

“Cal has a mother,” I said.

“Yeah, but you’re marrying his daddy.”

“Yes.”

“It’ll be easier on you than it was for your mama. Some of ’em—Andrew and Robert and Frank—they was still sorrowing for Annie Ruth and they sort of blamed Sue for not being her. It took her a while but she gentled them all. Even Andrew. She wouldn’t never give up on him, even after he got the Hatcher girl pregnant.”

“I know,” I said. When Mother was dying, Andrew was one of the most grief-stricken. And the most guilt-ridden for the hostility he’d shown her when she first came to the farm.

“Yeah, I reckon you could say our only honeymoon was our wedding night. Sister kept the boys for me and next day we went and brung ’em home.”

“Well, one night’s enough, I guess, if you’re in love.”

“No it ain’t,” he said brusquely, as we pulled into Aunt Zell’s driveway. “And twenty-six years ain’t enough either. Was all we got, though, and I reckon we made the most of it.”

“You lived in the moment,” I said, squeezing his hand.

“I don’t know about that. I’m just saying we knowed what we had and we was grateful for having it.”

Portland and Aunt Zell were waiting for me on the side porch.

“Happy is the bride the sun shines on,” Uncle Ash said, giving me a kiss. He clasped Daddy’s hand in both of his. “How you holding up, bro?”

Daddy just smiled. “Reckon I’ll be fine once you pour me some of whatever that is you’re having.”

Uncle Ash laughed and took him on out to the sunroom to join Avery, who was tending bar this afternoon.

“Pour one for us, too,” Aunt Zell called after them.

“Not me,” I said. Butterflies were starting a fly-in through my stomach and I felt hollow inside.

“Did you eat anything today?” asked Aunt Zell.

I shook my head. “I couldn’t.”

“Yes you can. You girls get started. I’ll be right back.”

“Let her feed you,” Portland advised. “You really do need something in your stomach besides butterflies, and that drink won’t hurt either.”

We went up to my old bedroom. I helped her on with her red velvet dress first. We had decided against the white fur trim after all. It had a high empire waistline that flattered her fuller breasts and minimized her bulging abdomen. The color was wonderful with her dark hair and eyes and her skin had that creamy glow that only pregnant women seem to get.

Aunt Zell returned with a loaded tray—peanut butter on plain saltines, with a shot of bourbon for us and a glass of diet cola for Portland.

“You look beautiful, honey,” she told Portland. Then, casting a practiced eye at her midsection, she said, “How do you feel?”

“Wonderful! I finished putting everything back in the baby’s room yesterday, then did two loads of laundry, and yet I don’t feel one bit tired today.”

“You’ve lightened,” Aunt Zell said sagely. “Won’t be long now. Today or tomorrow at the latest.”

“Huh?” we said.

“The baby’s dropped. Took some pressure off your lungs. No wonder you feel so good. Well, let’s just hope you don’t drop it the rest of the way when you’re walking up the aisle.”

Then it was time for my dress, a sheath of reembroidered silk brocade the color of pale champagne. The top did offer the option of spaghetti straps, but after trying it both ways we decided to go strapless for the ceremony.

“I’ll help you hook them on when we get to the reception,” said Portland.

A fitted long-sleeved jacket with a cropped waist went with the dress. I had planned to wear my red velvet cloak to the church if the weather had been cold or rainy, but with the sun shining and the air mild, I put on the jacket instead and fastened the two buttons.

Gold drop earrings that had belonged to my mother for the something old, Portland had lent me the small gold sunburst pinned to my jacket collar, and for blue, of course, the bracelet that Mother had sent to me down the years.

“I wrapped the sixpence in a little cotton and stuffed it way in the tip of your shoe,” said Aunt Zell, handing me a satin pump that had been dyed to match my dress. “See how it feels.”

I slipped it on and couldn’t feel a thing.

I had done my makeup before I left home and Portland gave my hair a final spritz of spray.

“Oh, my!” said Aunt Zell, and her eyes were suspiciously bright.

“Hey, no crying till we get to the church,” I told her.

Portland gave an unladylike sniffle and I handed her a tissue, too.

“Y’all about ready?” Uncle Ash called up the stairs.

I took a deep breath and looked at myself in the mirror. I seemed to be moving in a golden haze.

“Ready,” I said.

As the opening notes of the wedding march sounded and Portland took her first step down the aisle, Daddy kissed my cheek. “They always say you take more atter me than your mama, but today, daughter, you look just like her.”

Then we were moving down the aisle ourselves and there was Dwight, looking incredibly handsome in his brown dress uniform. It was only when I got closer that I saw how white he was.

“Dearly beloved,” the Reverend Carlyle Yelvington began solemnly. He paused and smiled broadly at the congregation. “As you know, this ceremony was to have been followed by a reception at the country club. Because of the fire, that has been changed to the Knott family farm. For those of you unfamiliar with the area, there are maps in the vestibule.”

He smiled again, and this time his smile was for Dwight and me as he began to speak those old familiar words. “We are gathered here today to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony . . .”

I handed my bouquet of yellow roses and baby’s breath to Portland, and after that, everything blurred—the vows, the exchange of rings, even our brief kiss to seal the ceremony felt as if it were happening in alternate universes, as if the ceremony itself were in ultra slow motion while the world and all that was in it swirled around us in high speed.

(“I told you you should have eaten something,” Aunt Zell said, when I tried to describe the feeling afterwards.)

Then suddenly we were out of the church and into cars for the drive back to the farm. It was a ragtag caravan: Rob’s luxurious Cadillac followed Seth and Minnie’s Honda through the shortcuts across the farm so we could get there first and set up a receiving line. Behind us came Daddy’s Chevy pickup, Uncle Ash’s Lincoln, and Dr. Yelvington’s Volvo, with Miss Emily and the children bringing up the rear in Portland and Avery’s SUV.

When we walked into the potato house, I was dumbfounded by its transformation.

“Wow!” said Dwight.

The walls were so thickly lined with young pine trees that it was impossible to see the stud framing. Small clear lights twinkled through the branches. Overhead, more strings of the clear lights had been laid across the rafters, then billowy white cheesecloth had been tacked to the underside and looped and draped so lavishly that the effect was like stars shining through soft white clouds.

A dozen or more round tables, covered in white cloths and centered with pots of poinsettias, circled an area for dancing, and guitar and fiddle cases were stacked waiting for their owners at one end. Reese and Stevie were already standing behind a long white table that held trays of stemmed glassware from the country club and tubs of champagne and nonalcoholic sparkling cider. The cake, topped with a perfectly detailed bride and groom in pale gold and formal brown, was presided over by several of my nieces and Dwight’s.

“And look on the tables,” said Jane Ann. “Emma did them for you.”

On the tables, each pot of poinsettias bristled with those plastic card holders that come with florist flowers, and each held a playing-card-sized photograph of various brides and grooms. I looked closely and recognized Seth and Minnie, Frank and Mae, Rob and Kate, Maidie and Cletus, Portland and Avery, Aunt Sister and Uncle Rufus. On the back of each card was the date they had married and some comment from the couple themselves:

“Don’t laugh at my hair. Beehives were stylish then.”

“The first time we met was in kindergarten. He broke my red crayon and I told him I hated him.”

“This was taken ten minutes after we walked out of the wedding chapel down in Dillon. Everybody said it wouldn’t last three months.”

“He’s been gone eight years, but in my heart, he’s still the gawky kid who brought me daisies when we were courting.”

“I wanted to go to Hawaii for our honeymoon. He wanted to take his bluetick to a field trial in Pennsylvania. Marriage is a compromise. We went to the beach with my cocker spaniel.”

I was ready to go around the room and read every one of them, but Minnie pulled us into a reception line at the door as friends and family streamed in with hugs and kisses.

Haywood held up the line to tell Portland, “You just cost me five dollars, missy. I was sure that baby would be here today.”

“Hang on to your money, sweetie,” she said. “The day’s not over yet.” She laughed at my look of concern. “Don’t worry. I’m fine. I just need to sit down a few minutes.”

That was all Avery had to hear. He immediately brought a chair.

We hadn’t bothered with a professional photographer, but Zach and Barbara’s Emma had begun an online album for us with her digital camera, and she snapped several candid shots.

“Come here and let me hug you,” I said. “I love the photo cards you made. Do we get to keep them?”

Dressed in their Sunday best, Cal, Mary Kate, and Jake darted in and out with some of my older brothers’ grandchildren.

Nadine and Doris both told me I looked beautiful and—a slight surprise in their tones here—that my dress was perfect, “even though that side slit does show right much leg, don’t it?”

I hugged them both.

“You’re a brave man, Dwight Bryant,” said Adam when he and Karen came through. “If this family gets to be too much, you can always come join us out in California.”

As the arrivals thinned, Aunt Sister opened her fiddle case, tuned up, and began to play a familiar melody. Haywood and Herman and Will joined her with their instruments, then Annie Sue began to sing in her high sweet voice.

It’s a dumb song. It’s corny. It’s sentimental. It’s the cliché of clichés and I usually roll my eyes and snicker every time it’s played.

Today though, my eyes began to puddle as Daddy took me by the hand and led me to the center of the floor.

I buried my face against his chest as we moved to the music, and he said, “Here, now, it’s gonna be fine.”

“I know,” I said.

“He’s been loving you a long time, shug.”

“Yes.”

“And you been loving him, too. The only difference is that he knowed it and you didn’t.”

I lifted my eyes to his and smiled. “I wish you’d told me sooner.”

He gave a soft snort of laughter. “And since when did you ever listen to me?”

“You’d be surprised,” I said.

Dwight and Miss Emily joined us on the floor, and after one circuit we changed partners and I went into his arms. Other couples followed, the music became more lively, and the party took off.

“Husband and wife,” I said as the floor became crowded with so many of the people we both love.

“For better or worse,” he agreed.

“In sickness and in health.”

“Maybe even in anchovies.” His arms tightened around me.

For one brief instant, I thought of Tracy Johnson. If she hadn’t been too status-conscious to stand before the world with a sheriff’s deputy, would she still be alive?

Then Dwight kissed me and champagne corks began to pop as I entered fully into the moment.

“Thank you,” I said to Whoever might be listening.

“My pleasure,” said Dwight and kissed me again.