the wedding announcement.”
“You must mean the engagement announcement,” I corrected.
“No, honey. We didn’t even know she was dating someonetill we got the wedding announcement with her note. And then I’m afraid we thought—well, never mind what we thought—but later on, Daddy figured that Lisbeth hadn’t asked us because we wouldn’t have done credit to her. Lisbeth was very proud—well, she had every right to be, she was so superior.”
Thanks to my efforts Flora had regained charge of herself. Now I was the one floundering among misgivings. I couldn’t have said exactly what in her version of things unsettled me. I knew my parents had been married quietly in our church because, as Nonie said, Lisbeth didn’t want to put her uncles to the expense of an Alabama wedding. There was an elegant reception afterward at our house, after which my father and mother took a short wedding trip to Blowing Rock in Nonie’s car, which was brand-new then, and returned to their school jobs the following week.
I also knew what Flora had stopped herself from saying, having been apprised by Nonie of the facts of life through her resourceful use of the “Social Hygiene for Girls” pamphlet that had brought my father and mother together. She doled out supplements to this story as I grew into an age to handle them: what exactly the pamphlet had said, which parts had struck Nonie and my father as amusing or outdated when they read it aloud to each other over cocktails. (“It was a sad little production, full of unintended slipups. One I particularly remember was the misprint impotent when important was meant. And parts of it were insulting. It claimed that though a few well-brought-up young women were trained to safeguard their morals by the age of sixteen, most were not. I bristled at that. What was ‘well-brought-up’ but a code for privileged? I don’t claim to be more than a farmer’s daughter, but I was perfectly capable of safeguarding my morals at age sixteen.”)
The uncles in Alabama had thought Lisbeth and Harry had started a baby and had to get married fast. But when I didn’t come along until a full year and a month later they had to find another reason they hadn’t been invited to the wedding.
It was a short courtship for my parents because from the very first evening, when they were playing cards, Lisbeth had felt she was part of our family. It was understandable, Nonie said. Lisbeth had lost her mother when she was eight, and the nearest thing she’d had to a female to care for her after that was the Negro woman who lived with the uncles.
“Well, I lost my mother when I was three ,” I would remind Nonie.
“Yes, darling, but after that you had me .”
“I think Lisbeth returned my love first,” Nonie would muse. “You know how your father often strikes new acquaintances as somewhat acerbic. I was the one who brought her out, made her feel at home. She liked me, she liked my style, and she liked the way we lived. Why, that first evening, she said she’d bring her poker chips next time she came—and then blushed to high heaven because she had invited herself back—it just showed how comfortable she already felt with us. We settled into our weekly threesome—I want you to know I became an excellent blackjack player—and it wasn’t long before Harry looked across the card table and realized this was the woman he’d been waiting for all along.”
I had been considering telling Flora how my father had caught polio when he ran away with Willow Fanning, but she had preempted my story with this information about my parents’ marriage, which I now had to find a place for.
That night I went to bed in my old room. The garage voice had said I should move on Tuesday, when Mrs. Jones came toclean. I was to tell her what “the dream” had said and that she should make up Nonie’s room because I would be moving into it permanently. She was a great respecter of the supernatural, Mrs. Jones was.
“You must mean the engagement announcement,” I corrected.
“No, honey. We didn’t even know she was dating someonetill we got the wedding announcement with her note. And then I’m afraid we thought—well, never mind what we thought—but later on, Daddy figured that Lisbeth hadn’t asked us because we wouldn’t have done credit to her. Lisbeth was very proud—well, she had every right to be, she was so superior.”
Thanks to my efforts Flora had regained charge of herself. Now I was the one floundering among misgivings. I couldn’t have said exactly what in her version of things unsettled me. I knew my parents had been married quietly in our church because, as Nonie said, Lisbeth didn’t want to put her uncles to the expense of an Alabama wedding. There was an elegant reception afterward at our house, after which my father and mother took a short wedding trip to Blowing Rock in Nonie’s car, which was brand-new then, and returned to their school jobs the following week.
I also knew what Flora had stopped herself from saying, having been apprised by Nonie of the facts of life through her resourceful use of the “Social Hygiene for Girls” pamphlet that had brought my father and mother together. She doled out supplements to this story as I grew into an age to handle them: what exactly the pamphlet had said, which parts had struck Nonie and my father as amusing or outdated when they read it aloud to each other over cocktails. (“It was a sad little production, full of unintended slipups. One I particularly remember was the misprint impotent when important was meant. And parts of it were insulting. It claimed that though a few well-brought-up young women were trained to safeguard their morals by the age of sixteen, most were not. I bristled at that. What was ‘well-brought-up’ but a code for privileged? I don’t claim to be more than a farmer’s daughter, but I was perfectly capable of safeguarding my morals at age sixteen.”)
The uncles in Alabama had thought Lisbeth and Harry had started a baby and had to get married fast. But when I didn’t come along until a full year and a month later they had to find another reason they hadn’t been invited to the wedding.
It was a short courtship for my parents because from the very first evening, when they were playing cards, Lisbeth had felt she was part of our family. It was understandable, Nonie said. Lisbeth had lost her mother when she was eight, and the nearest thing she’d had to a female to care for her after that was the Negro woman who lived with the uncles.
“Well, I lost my mother when I was three ,” I would remind Nonie.
“Yes, darling, but after that you had me .”
“I think Lisbeth returned my love first,” Nonie would muse. “You know how your father often strikes new acquaintances as somewhat acerbic. I was the one who brought her out, made her feel at home. She liked me, she liked my style, and she liked the way we lived. Why, that first evening, she said she’d bring her poker chips next time she came—and then blushed to high heaven because she had invited herself back—it just showed how comfortable she already felt with us. We settled into our weekly threesome—I want you to know I became an excellent blackjack player—and it wasn’t long before Harry looked across the card table and realized this was the woman he’d been waiting for all along.”
I had been considering telling Flora how my father had caught polio when he ran away with Willow Fanning, but she had preempted my story with this information about my parents’ marriage, which I now had to find a place for.
That night I went to bed in my old room. The garage voice had said I should move on Tuesday, when Mrs. Jones came toclean. I was to tell her what “the dream” had said and that she should make up Nonie’s room because I would be moving into it permanently. She was a great respecter of the supernatural, Mrs. Jones was.
Similar Books
