Four Times Blessed

  Chapter 14

  “So, how did it go?” My zizi’s voice is tired. She shouldn’t have stayed up to wait for me.

  “Good.”

  “Come in and tell me about it. What was he like? What did you two talk about?” She throws her nightgown over her head and comes to put her arms around me. It’s a gown that’s ragged along the seems, vellum soft everywhere else. It smells more strongly of her than she herself does, I think.

  “He was friendly. I learned a lot about him.”

  “Like what?”

  I drop onto her bed and plop my head into a pillow. Muffled, I answer, “His job and stuff.”

  “Did you two get along?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I have more than one syllable?”

  I groan, “I don’t know. We had dinner. He talked, like, ninety-seven percent of the time.”

  “Well, you can’t blame him for that. He was probably nervous. Weren’t you nervous?”

  “Yes.”

  I roll over and she has perfect composure drawn on her face like newscaster makeup. I wonder if that’s how my mother looked when she was an anchor. My zizi’s said she used to do her own makeup. Anywho, my zizi carries off the look better than anyone else I’ve seen attempting it all evening. I wish mine was that good.

  “Yes, I was nervous,” I try again.

  “So why are you so hard on the poor boy? Maybe he was talking a lot because you weren’t talking enough. You do have that habit, you know. Did you ever think of that?”

  “No.”

  “Well, there you go. Next time, you talk more and see what happens. You have to be actively engaged in a marriage relationship. Make it into what you want it to be. Otherwise it’s just two people living in a house together. Is that what you want?”

  “No. I’ll try talking more next time.”

  “You just have to be more understanding and patient, my Crusa. Do that, and you’ll be happy with this boy. Such a nice boy, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, he’s very nice.”

  “Do you think you like him?”

  “There’s nothing not to like.”

  She’s blessedly quiet for a moment. “It’ll all be fine, dear.”

  “I know.”

  I know because our marriage will make my uncle and my zizi and the rest of my family happy. Already, everyone’s had a test drive on the yacht. It’s how I get to take care of them. How my mother is taking care of all of us, even in her grave. How I can ease all their worrying over me.

  And I know Andrew is marrying me because of his family too, so neither of us loving each other at the moment doesn’t bother me. He loves his family, and I love mine. We both are capable of love, so there’s hope for us two together, I think. It’s a mutual understanding, is what it is.

  I feel much better about it all. I really think it will be ok.

  My zizi asks for a kiss and I oblige. I go to my own room and have the same exact conversation with Cassie, who appears from the crawlspace. On her way to visit Milo, she says, and heaves an overstuffed laundry bag out the little door after her.

  I hate to say it, but I’m jealous. She tells me to come along, but I can’t, I say. I can’t be caught sneaking around in the middle of the night what with the engagement. I watch her slip out the front doors and into the woods.

  I remember summer nights like this one, how Milo and I used to sneak into the kitchen after bedtime. We’d steal handfuls of biscotti that turned into crumbs in our puny, sweaty hands. We’d spend hours hiding out in the old graveyard, have midnight picnics and play pirates, follow imaginary clues through the woods until we came upon an x somewhere, and then we’d dig for treasure.

  Andrew spends all day on Sunday with my uncles, and at first I’m disappointed. However, it turns out Eleni and a few of my aunts come over for lunch and to do some washing, so I camp out in the kitchen with my slate and tons of sheet music and I actually get a bunch of assignments done before they make me stand on a chair and measure me with pieces of string.

  After we serve supper, I find myself by the fire in the cleared out kitchen with a pile of clothes that need to be fixed. It’s just myself, my zizi, and one of my nonis, Noni Laurie, to be exact. It’s exactly what I need to soothe my head after all the work it did today. Because negotiating the style of your own wedding dress is not a restful activity. For anyone involved.

  With the laundry, the first step is figuring out why the person who left it for us thought it needed our attention. Then you have to decide whether they were right or whether they were being overdramatic. Then, if you do see what they were talking about, you go and figure out how to fix it up best. Then you do it.

  I’m stuck in stage one with a pair of trousers that I’ve turned inside out and right side in three times. Now I’m just trying to figure out who’s pants they are so I can hunt them down and ask them what they wanted me to do with a perfectly fine pair of pants.

  “So what do you think? Crusa likes this Andrew boy, and so do I. Gentleman, excuse me. We’re so happy for her,” says my zizi.

  “He was very stylish,” my Noni Laurie, hunched in the best rocker, nods. She has a very sweet, high voice. Family trait. Cute, on an old lady. I can’t wait until I’m old.

  “And he’s handsome. You know, I’m glad to see he takes care of himself. A man with enough sense for that will treat his wife just as well. Do you know that Crusa? He’ll start to think of you his wife as a part of himself, and there you go. I bet he’ll send you to spas. I’ll go with you, if you like,” her eyes crinkle.

  “Sure, we’ll all go to the spas together, zizi. Noni, you can come too, if you like.”

  “No thank you dear, the stairs, they don’t work with my legs.”

  “Of course, I’m sorry. We’ll bring you back a souvenir, then.”

  “No, everything at spas smells so strong, if you brought it for me I could not have it in my house.”

  “Oh. Ok, then, I won’t bring anything back, I promise.”

  “That’s probably best.”

  My zizi nips a bit of extra thread with her teeth, “I was afraid you’d be too pretty for him. If he was horrible, I was going to put my foot down, but I was quite happy with him. And he really likes our Crusa. Oh, dear, I’m so proud of you.”

  I feel a twinge in my stomach and frown at the pants. I don’t like when she says things like that, even though I know she’s just being honestly happy, so I should love it, as her child. Knowing this isn’t what keeps my mouth shut, though. What does is that I’d hate to explain to her how close to falling over the edge into utter disaster so much of the stuff is that I pull off.

  For example, the only reason I could stand being with my betrothed the other night was by distraction. Or last spring when I acquiesced some antibiotics from the base for the kids, and she was so delighted with the selection I brought her, but she didn’t realize my Uncle Groton was the one that told me to do it, or that I’d had to hack the sickbay system and lie about being ill, and unset and reset the date three times, because I thought three bacterial diseases all at once would be suspicious and probably get me flagged as unfit and then they’d do tests on me and try to heal me, to get them all delivered to my lab that afternoon. She doesn’t know, but that’s the real me. A manipulator, a liar, and a stealer. And a horrible dater.

  Honestly, I don’t know why or how I’m successful at any of it. It think it’s the forefathers’ and grandmothers, mostly. Helping me with God’s go ahead, because He’s very busy. Plus I’m lucky.

  I fold the pants and put them aside. My hands are trembling too much to stitch properly.

  “Now, most men, they don’t know what it means to be a husband, so don’t expect him to know much of anything.”

  “You’ll need to be very patient. And be prepared to repeat yourself,” adds my noni, unfolding the pants I’d been puzzling over. She shakes her head and joins in my zizi’s chuckling.

  “That’s right, sweetie. For the good of
your marriage and your little family, you can’t be shy. You have to speak up, you hear me? For the good of your children, too, when you have them. Both the good of your children and your husband will be your responsibility, you know. That’s what it means to be a wife.”

  My noni’s sleepy nod makes the etchings in her neck grab with their hard tensile strength, and the rolls of soft skin between pour forward.

  “Don’t worry, sweetie, you’ll be fine,” says my zizi. “You were so good with your brother. You were like his little second mother, I always said. Took such good care of him, so sweet. You’ll be fine.”

  My neck burns while my Noni Laurie nods in such vigorous agreement that when she pats me on the back I remember the time she whacked Milo when he got a pea stuck in his throat, just one swing and it went flying.

  “Are you going to sleep with him on the first night?” my noni asks me. I’m taken off guard. First, because she asked me. Second, because she’s so calm about it. I wish I could share that attitude. Also third, because I never even considered asking myself this.

  “Uh…” I say brilliantly, but my brain’s kind of whipped up into a blur, thanks to her. “I, thought…” She rocks and sews and waits for me to go on. “That I was…going to?” I assumed that was how it worked. I’ll feel really dumb if it isn’t.

  “Well, good for you,” she says. It’s not enough of an answer, though, because I can’t read her, can’t tell if I was right or not.

  My zizi harrumphs. “There’s no reason for her to do that right away.” She grumbles to herself. Then, like she’s yelling at us, “Plus, with her sort of arrangement, it would be better if she didn’t have sex with him at all, in the beginning. They should get to know each other first. He’s coming from so far away, it’s not like it’s the next island over. Nobody’s even met the family face to face.”

  “Yes, but the marriage needs to be consummated,” my zizi says, “Otherwise, none of the transactions can be sealed. He could just up and take everything and go home, unless she sleeps with him. Children would be even better.”

  I have to dig my fingers into the chair when I figure out that the children in question don’t refer to my own generation, as usual. My eyelids flutter as I regain control. It lets up and blood, so hot, pools under my collar to warm my face.

  I’ve barely even begun to imagine life with Andrew. And she just lurched all the way to children…as in, partially grown and multiple. Sweet Jesus.

  “We can make sure he stays. We’ll just have Groton put a man on him, if it comes to that. It won’t though, dear. He’s very excited to be marry you.”

  I meet her reassuring glance with a wild one of my own.

  “Oh honey, don’t be scared. If you want to marry someone, then you just have to go through this. I promise, though, you’ll be fine.”

  I find my voice, somehow, “I think I will wait to sleep with him. I want to get to know him first.”

  I know my zizi is pleased, by the way her expression does not move an inch. And my noni still wants to convince me otherwise. I’m sure I’ll hear another round from her tomorrow.

  My zizi says graciously, “You have plenty of time. Your mother got pregnant right away with you and your brother, so you’d best be sure. You should remind the boy of that. Then, I can’t really believe it, you will have your own children and you will be so happy, my little girl, with her own little babies, aye Madonna. You will be so happy.”

  My zizi wipes a sparkling tear, “Now, I already told your Andrew all of this, so why are you still so worried?”

  “You did what?!”

  “I told him what I just told you. You’re not married yet. You still need someone to negotiate for you. Why does that upset you? I love you more than anything, sweetheart, I want you to know that, and I have your best interest at heart. Why do you not want me to help you out when this part of it clearly upsets you?”

  I excuse myself, and they start arguing over which of them upset me. Even with the door closed, I can still hear them talking about me and my babies so I put in the earphones I checked out yesterday and do some data analysis. Full symphony. At a very high volume.

  The next morning, it’s time for Andrew to go back to New York State. Simply reversing the processional we put together for his arrival, there’s a large meal with way too much meat for so early in the morning, at least in my opinion, then we all ramble down to the docks to see him off.

  People smile at us and kiss Andrew goodbye, but mostly everyone just uses it as an excuse to enjoy not working in the morning. Eleni comes over and wraps herself around my free arm and groans that she ate too many johnnycakes. I pat her on the head and tell her I’m so sorry.

  “Safe journey, Andrew,” I say, and kiss him on the cheek.

  “Thank you. I look forward to our meeting again for our marriage.”

  “Yes. Me too.”

  “And good luck today at the inspection. You look good. Just tuck your shirt in…” he pushes an extra crease into my waistband. It shouldn’t be there, I know, but I’ve just been so jittery with him coming, and preoccupied with studying for boards, I just haven’t been able to get down as much as I should. Andrew folds the blouse though, so you can’t even tell, his warm hands on my waist.

  “There. All set.”

  “Thank you,” I tell him, and mean it. Getting caught on inspection day…I can’t even consider it. It took me hours last night to convince myself that would never happen. And now it won’t, thank you forefathers.

  As soon as the boat churns itself around, I do the same and march off to the base. I carry my shoes and stockings, trying not to go too fast.

  It’s hard because I keep looking down at my watch. Plus, I don’t want to get sweaty or have the flyaways spurt out around my head. Once those things come out, they’re impossible to squash back down until I wash my hair again.

  At the top of the hill, I clutch a birch and grapple with my tights. They almost take me down, but I manage. Patting my hairline, I feel springy curls and moan. I totter off the path a few meters to dip my fingers in a tiny stream and comb them over my scalp. It seems to help. From the end of a row, it should look perfectly normal.

  There’s a prayer to the grandmothers rolling around and around inside my head, asking them to please not let them choose me for one of the random close inspections. Seriously, I know the grandmothers are loving and great, but why do they feel the need to tease me with crazy hair today?

  I somehow think the picture in my head of all the old ladies sitting around a heavenly fireplace and laughing at my complaining is pretty close to the truth.