“But what’s weddings, Mama?”
“Why, I told you, honey, me and Will are gettin’ married.”
“But what’s married?”
“Married is—” She paused thoughtfully, wondering exactly what this marriage would be. “Married is when two people say they want to live with each other for the rest of their lives. That’s what me and Will are gonna do.”
“Oh.”
“That’s all right with you, ain’t it?”
Donald Wade flashed a smile and nodded vigorously. “I like Will.”
“And Will likes you, too. And you too, punkin.” She touched Thomas’s nose. “Nothin’s gonna change after we’re married, ‘cept...” The boys waited with their eyes on their mother. “’Cept y’ know how sometimes I let you come in with me at night—well, from now on there won’t be no room ‘cause Will’s gonna be sleepin’ with me.”
“He is?”
“Aha.”
“Can’t we even come in when it thunders and lightnin’s?”
She pictured them four abreast beneath the quilts and wondered how Will would adjust to the demands of fatherhood. “Well, maybe when it thunders and lightnin’s.” Thunder rumbled at that moment and Eleanor frowned at the window. “Come on. Will should be comin’ any minute.” Distractedly she added, “Lord, I got a feelin’ we’re gonna be soaked before we get to any courthouse.”
She helped the boys into jackets, donned her own coat and had just picked up the red sandwich tin from the kitchen cupboard when the thunder growled again, long and steady. She turned, glanced toward the door and cocked her head. Or was it thunder? Too unbroken, too high-pitched and drawing closer. She moved toward the back door just as Donald Wade opened it and a rusty Model A Ford rolled into the clearing with Will at the wheel.
“Glory be,” Eleanor breathed.
“It’s Will! He gots a car!” Donald Wade tore off at a dead run, slamming the screen, yelling, “Where’d you get it, Will? We gonna ride in it?”
Will pulled up at the foot of the path and stepped out in his coarse wedding attire. Standing with a hand draped over thetop of the car door, he ignored Donald Wade in favor of Eleanor, who came onto the porch in his favorite yellow dress covered by a short brown coat that wouldn’t close over her stomach. Her hair was pulled back in a neat tail and her face glowed with surprise.
“Well, you ain’t got a ring,” he called, “but you got a jitney to ride to your wedding in. Come on.”
With the sandwich tin in one hand and Baby Thomas on her free arm, she left the porch. “Where did you get it?” she asked, moving toward Will like a sleepwalker, picking up speed as she neared.
He let a grin quirk one corner of his mouth. “Out in the field. Been working on it whenever I could sneak in an hour here and there.”
“You mean it’s one of the old junkers?”
“Well... not exactly one.” With a touch at the back of his hat brim he tilted it well forward, his eyes following as she reached the Ford and circled it with a look of admiration on her face. “More like eight or ten of the junkers, a little bit of this one and a little bit of that one, held together with baling twine and Bazooka, but I think it’ll get us there and back all right.”
She came full circle and smiled up into his face. “Will Parker, is there anything you can’t do?”
He relieved her of the red sandwich tin and handed it to Donald Wade, then plucked Thomas from her arms. “I know a little about engines,” he replied modestly, though inside he glowed. With so few words she’d restored his exhilaration. “Get in.”
“It’s actually running!” She laughed and clambered under the wheel to the far side while the idling engine shimmied the car seat.
“Of course it’s running. And we won’t have to worry about any rain. Here, take the young ‘un.” He handed Thomas inside, then swung Donald Wade onto the seat and followed, folding himself behind the wheel. Donald Wade stood on the seat, wedging himself as tightly against Will as possible. He laid a proprietary hand on Will’s wide shoulder. “We ridin’ to town in this!”
“That’s right, kemo sabe.” Will put the car in gear. “Hang on.” As they rolled away, the children giggled and Eleanor clutched the seat. Pleased, Will observed their expressions from the corner of his eye.
“But where did you get gasoline?”
“Only got enough to get us to town. Found it in the tanks out there and strained the rust out of it with a rag.”
“And you fixed this all by yourself?”
“There were plenty of junkers to take parts from.”
“But where’d you learn how?”
“Worked in a filling station in El Paso one time. Fellow there taught me a little about mechanics.”
They turned around in a farmyard which was far neater than it had been two months ago. They motored down a driveway which two months ago had been unusable. They traveled in a car that two weeks ago had been a collection of scrap metal. Will couldn’t help feeling proud. The boys were entranced. Eleanor’s smile was as broad as a melon slice as she steadied Thomas on her knees.
“Like it?”
She turned shining eyes toward Will. “Oh, it’s a grand surprise. And my first time, too.”
“You mean you never rode in a car before?” he asked, disbelievingly.
“Never. Glendon never got around to fixing any of ‘em up. But I rode on his steel mule one time, down the orchard track and back.” She shot him a sportive grin. “The noise like to shake m’ teeth outa my skull, though.”
They laughed and the day lost its bleakness. Their smiles brought a gladness missing till now. While their gazes lingered longer than intended, the fact struck: they were chugging off to the courthouse to get married. Married. Husband and wife forever. Had they been alone, Will might have said something appropriate to the occasion, but Donald Wade moved, cutting off his view of Eleanor.
“We done good on the driveway, huh, Will?” The boy cupped Will’s jaw, forcing his direct attention.
“We sure did, short stuff.” He ruffled Donald Wade’s hair. “But I got to watch the road.”
Yes, they’d done good. Guiding the wheel of the Model A, Will felt as he had the day he’d bought the candy bars and bluebird—heated and good inside, expansive and optimistic. In a few hours they would be his “family.” Putting pleasure on their faces put pleasure on his own. And it suddenly didn’t matter so much that he had no gold ring to offer Eleanor.
Her elation dimmed, however, as they approached Whitney. When they passed the house with the drawn shades she stared straight ahead, refusing to glance at the place. Her lips formed a grim line and her hands tightened on Thomas’s hips.
Will wanted to say, I know about that house, Eleanor. It don’t matter to me. But a glance at her stiff pose made him bite back the words.
“Got to stop at the filling station,” he mentioned, to distract her. “It’ll only take a minute.”
The man at the station cast overt, speculative glances at Eleanor, but she stared straight ahead like one walking through a graveyard at midnight. The attendant gave Will the twice-over, too, and said, “Nasty weather brewin’, looks like.”
Will only glanced at the sky.
“Feller’d be happy to have a car on a day like this,” the attendant tried again while his eyes darted to Eleanor.
“Yup,” Will replied.
“Goin’ far?” the man inquired, obviously less interested in pumping gas than in gawking at Eleanor and trying to puzzle out who Will might be and why they were together.
“Nope,” Will answered.
“Goin’ up Calhoun way?”
Will gave the man a protracted stare, then let his eyes wander to the gas pump. “Five gallons comin’ up.”
“Oh!” The pump clicked off, Will paid 83 cents and returned to the car, leaving the attendant unenlightened.
When they were on their way again and had left Whitney behind, Eleanor relaxed.
“Someone you know?” Will inquire
d.
“I know ‘em all and they all know me. I seen him gawkin’.”
“Prob’ly ‘cause you’re lookin’ right pretty this mornin’.”
His words did the trick. She turned a wide-eyed look his way and her ears turned pink. Cheeks, too, before she transferred her attention to the view ahead.
“You don’t need to make up pretty words just ‘cause it’s my weddin’ day.”
“Wasn’t makin’ ‘em up.”
And somehow he felt better, having spoken his mind and given her a touch of what a bride deserves on her wedding day. Better yet, he’d made her forget the house with the picket fence and the gawking gas station attendant.
The ride took them through some of the prettiest country Will had ever seen—rolling hills and gurgling creeks, thick stands of pine and oaks just beginning to turn a faint yellow. Outside, the mist put a sheen on each leaf and rock and turned the roads a vibrant, glistening orange. Wet tree trunks appeared coal black against the pearl-gray sky. The road curved and looped, the elevation constantly dropping until they rounded a bend and saw Calhoun nestled below.
Situated in a long narrow valley, the lowest spot between Chattanooga and Atlanta, the town stretched out along the tracks of the L & N Railroad, which had spawned its growth. U.S. 41 became Wall Street, the main street of town. It paralleled the tracks and carried travelers into a business section that had taken on the same rangy shape as the steel rails themselves. The streets were old, wide, built in the days when mule and wagon had been the chief mode of transportation. Now there were more Chevrolets than mules, more Fords than wagons, and, as in Whitney, blacksmith shops doubling as filling stations.
“You know Calhoun?” Will inquired as they passed a row of neat brick houses on the outskirts.
“Know where the courthouse is. Straight ahead on Wall Street.”
“Is there a five-and-dime somewhere?”
“A five-and-dime?” Eleanor flashed him a puzzled look but he watched the road beyond the radiator cap. “What do you want with a five-and-dime?”
“I’m gonna buy you a ring.” He’d decided it somewhere between the compliment and Calhoun.
“What’s a five-and-dime, Mommy?” Donald Wade interrupted.
Eleanor ignored him. “Oh, Will, you don’t have—”
“I’m gonna buy you a ring, I said, then you can take his off.”
His insistence sent a flare to her cheeks and she stared at his stubborn jaw until the warmth spread down to her heart. She turned away and said meekly, “I already did.”
Will shot a glance at her left hand, still resting on the baby’s hip. It was true—the ring was gone. On the steering wheel his grip relaxed.
Donald Wade patted his mother’s arm, demanding, “What’s a five-and-dime, Mommy?”
“It’s a store that sells trinkets and things.”
“Trinkets? Can we go there?”
“I reckon that’s where Will’s takin’ us first.” Her eyes wandered to the driver and found him watching her. Their gazes locked, fascinated.
“Oh-boy!” Donald Wade knelt on the seat, balancing himself against the dashboard, staring at the town with unbridled fascination. “What’s that, Mommy?” He pointed. She didn’t hear and he whapped her arm four times. “Mommy, what’s that?”
“Better answer the boy,” Will advised quietly, and turned his attention back to the street, releasing her to do the same.
“A water tower.”
Baby Thomas repeated, “Wa-doo tow-woo.”
“What’s that?” Donald Wade asked.
“A popcorn wagon.”
“Pop-cone,” the baby echoed.
“They sell it?”
“Yes, son.”
“Goll-eee! Can we git some?”
“Not today, dear. We got to hurry.”
He watched the wagon until it disappeared behind them and Will mentally tallied up the remainder of his money. Only seven bucks, seventy-eight cents, and he had to buy a ring and a license yet.
“What’s that?”
“A theater.”
“What’s a theater?”
“A place where they show movies.”
“What’s a movie?”
“Well, it’s sort of a picture story that moves on a big screen.”
“Can we see it?”
“No, honey. It costs money.”
The marquee said Border Vigilantes, and Will noted how both Donald Wade’s and Eleanor’s eyes lingered on it as they passed. Seven measly bucks and seventy-eight measly cents. What he wouldn’t do for full pockets right now.
Just then he spotted what he was looking for, a brick-fronted building with a sign announcing, WISTER’S VARIETY—HOUSEWARES, TOYS & SUNDRIES.
He parked the car and reached for Donald Wade. “Come on, kemo sabe, I’ll show you a five-and-dime.”
Inside, they walked the aisles on creaking wood floors between six rows of pure enchantment. Donald Wade and Thomas pointed at everything and squirmed to get down and touch—toy cars and trucks and tractors made of brightly painted metal; rubber balls of gay reds and yellows; marbles in woven sacks; bubble gum and candy; six-shooters and holsters and cowboy hats like Will’s.
“I want one!” Donald Wade demanded. “I want a hat like Will’s!”
“Hat,” parroted Thomas.
“Maybe next time,” Will replied, his heart breaking. At that moment the only thing he wanted worse than a ring for Eleanor was enough cash to buy two black cardboard cowboy hats.
They came to the costume jewelry and stopped. The display was dusty, spread on rose taffeta between glass dividers. There were identification bracelets; baby necklaces shaped like tiny gold crosses; little girls’ birthday sets—rings, bracelets and necklaces—all dipped in gold paint, set with brightly colored glass gems; women’s earrings of assorted shapes and colors; and beside them, on a blue velvet card, a sign that said, “Friendship Rings—19¢.”
Will studied the cheap things, stung at having to offer his bride a wedding band that would surely turn her finger green before a week was up. But he had little choice. He set Donald Wade down. “You take Thomas’s hand and don’t let him touch anything, all right?”
The boys headed back toward the toys, leaving Will and Eleanor standing self-consciously side by side. He slipped his hands into his hind pockets and stared at the fake-silver rings with their machine-stamped lattice designs covered with crudely formed roses. He reached for one, plucked it from the card and studied it glumly.
“I never cared much before whether I had money or not, but today I wish my name was Rockerfeller.”
“I’m glad it ain’t, ‘cause then I wouldn’t be marrying you.”
He looked down into her eyes—eyes as green as the fake peridots in the August birth rings—and it struck Will that she was one of the kindest persons he’d ever met. How like her to try to make him feel good at a moment like this. “It’ll probably turn your finger green.”
“It don’t matter, Will,” she said softly. “I shouldn’t have offered to use my old one again. It was thoughtless of me.”
“I’d give you gold if I could, Eleanor. I want you to know that.”
“Oh, Will...” She reached out and covered his hand consolingly as he went on.
“And I’d take them two to the movies, and afterwards maybe buy ‘em an ice cream cone at the drugstore, or popcorn at that popcorn wagon like they begged for.”
“I brought the egg and cream money, Will. We could still do that.”
His gaze shifted to the ring. “I’m the one that should be payin’, don’t you see?”
She released his hand and took the ring to try it on. “You got to learn not to be so proud, Will. Let’s see if it fits.” The ring was too big, so she chose another. The second one fit and she spread her fingers in the air before them, as proud as if she wore a glittering diamond.
“Looks fine, doesn’t it?” She wiggled the ring finger. “And I do like roses.”
“It looks
cheap.”
“Don’t you dare say that about my weddin’ ring, Will Parker,” she scolded him with mock haughtiness, slipping it off and depositing it in his palm. “The sooner you pay for it the sooner we can get on down to the courthouse and speak our words.”
She turned away blithely, but he caught her arm and spun her around.
“Eleanor, I...” He looked into her eyes and didn’t know what to say. A lump of appreciation clotted his throat. The value of the ring honestly made no difference to her.
She cocked her head. “What?”
“You never complain about anything, do you?”
It was subtle praise, but no poetry could have pleased her more.
“We got a lot to be thankful for, Will Parker. Come on.” Her smile flashed as she grabbed his hand. “Let’s go get married.”
They found the Gordon County courthouse with no trouble, a red brick Victorian edifice on a crest of land framed by sidewalks, green grass and azalea bushes. Will carried Donald Wade; Eleanor, Thomas, as they ascended a bank of steps and crossed the lawn, gazing up at the rounded turret on the right, and on the left, a square cenotaph to General Charles Haney Nelson. It sat sturdily on thick brick arches culminating in a pointed clock tower that overlooked the chimneyed roof. The mist was cold on their uplifted faces, then disappeared as they mounted the second set of steps beneath the arches and entered a marble-floored hall that smelled of cigar smoke.
“This way.” Eleanor’s voice rang through the empty hall, though she spoke quietly. Turning right, she led Will to the office of the Ordinary of the Court.
Inside, at an oak desk beyond a spindled rail, a thin, middle-aged woman—her nameplate read Reatha Stickner—stopped typing and tipped her head down to peer over rimless octagonal spectacles.
“May I help you?” She had a cheerless, authoritarian voice. It echoed in the barren, curtainless room.
“Yes, ma’am,” Will replied, stopping just inside the door. “We’d like to get a marriage license.”
The woman’s sharp gaze brushed from Donald Wade to Baby Thomas to Eleanor’s stomach, then back to Will. He firmly grasped Eleanor’s elbow and ushered her toward the breast-high counter. The woman pushed away from her desk and shuffled toward them with an extreme limp that dipped one shoulder and left one foot dragging. They met on opposite sides of the barrier and Reatha Stickner fished inside the neck of her dress to pull up an underwear strap that had slipped down while she walked.