Milk Glass Moon

  “I know what it is, I can’t believe you asked me about it.”

  “Why? It’s completely natural. And it also makes very sane women lose it over nothing in particular, and you’ve certainly been doing that lately.”

  “For your information, I am going through the Change. Well, really, it’s the Changeover. I’m at the end of the ordeal. And the process made me realize why these mountain girls are brilliant. There’s a reason to have your children at twenty. When you have them in your late thirties, they leave you just as your cycles do. It isn’t pretty, and it sure ain’t easy.”

  “Contrary to your standard self-recrimination, you are doing just fine with everything.”

  “Thank you for the support.”

  “Max and I are planning a trip to Lake Tahoe at the end of the summer. You want to come?”

  “Jack and I always wanted to go there.”

  “You could drop Etta and join us after. I promise I won’t let you ruin my vacation with your pity party. You’ll have to leave your Etta wailing back in Virginia. Think you could do it?”

  “Yes, I do.” And I mean it. I don’t want to spend a moment of sadness around Etta’s great achievement. She’s going to the University of Virginia to be an architect—what mother wouldn’t be thrilled about that?

  Throughout July, we get regular postcards from Etta, detailing her travels up the Mediterranean with Chiara, Giacomina, and Papa. Meanwhile, I’m here making lists for whatever she might need for her freshman year at UVA. Iva Lou and I drive over to Fort Henry Mall and pick up all sorts of dormitory necessities: new towels, bedsheets, and a leather book bag (I hope she likes it). Iva Lou helps me unload the packages when she takes me back to Cracker’s Neck, and Jack meets us on the front steps. His face is ashen. I drop the bags on the porch. “Did something happen to Etta?”

  “No, no. She’s fine.”

  “Why do you look like that?”

  “She called while you were gone and said she’d call us back in fifteen minutes. She wants to tell us something.”

  “But she’s flying home tomorrow. Is something wrong with the ticket?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “Why didn’t you press her?”

  “She wouldn’t be pressed, Ave.”

  “It’s probably nothing. She probably bought y’all matching ID bracelets on the Ponte Vecchio and wants to know how you want ’em engraved. For Godsakes, don’t jump to conclusions.” Iva Lou looks as though she might shake me.

  The longest fifteen minutes of my life commence. Oddly enough, they give me ample time to play out several horrible scenarios in my mind. I don’t have a best guess, but the feeling in the pit of my stomach is one of dread.

  At last the phone rings. Jack motions for me to pick it up in the living room, while he sprints up the stairs to talk on our bedroom phone. Iva Lou pours herself a Coke in the kitchen.

  “What’s wrong?” I say without a hello.

  “Ma.”

  I breathe deeply.

  “I’m getting married.”

  I can’t say anything, I drop the phone. Iva Lou runs into the living room, takes one look at me, and motions for me to sit down. She picks up the phone and hands it to me. Then she sits down next to me, sharing the receiver, and we listen together.

  “Etta, what do you mean you’re getting married?” Jack asks this question like he heard it wrong.

  “I’m getting married.”

  “After college?” I ask weakly.

  “No, next month.”

  “Next month!” In the back of my throat, I feel the cheeseburger that Iva Lou and I had at Pal’s.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me who?”

  “Who?” Jack, Iva Lou, and I say in unison.

  “Aunt Iva Lou?”

  “Sorry. I picked up the phone to see if Lyle wanted me to stop at Stringer’s for a takeout.”

  “Stefano Grassi has asked me to marry him, and I said yes.”

  “What about school?”

  “I’m going to go to the University of Bergamo. They have a great architecture school.”

  Jack raises his voice and sputters into the phone, “What about UVA? Are you abandoning all your plans just like that? Where is this coming from?” Every bit of his protest is lost on Etta, who sighs into the phone.

  I blurt out exactly what I’m thinking. “Have you lost your mind? You’re eighteen years old. Marriage? What in God’s name are you thinking?”

  “Mom. I’m an adult, and I can do what I want.”

  “The fact that you’re eighteen, dumping out of college, and getting married tells me that you are far from an adult!”

  “Please. Talk to Grandpop.” Etta hands the phone to my father.

  “Ciao,” he says quietly.

  “What is going on over there, Papa?”

  “They’re in love,” he says simply.

  “Jesus. Where was Chiara?”

  “She’s not a very good chaperone.”

  “No kidding. Neither are you!”

  “I’m sorry, but you can’t stop this sort of thing. I know she is young, but she knows her own heart. Stefano is a good man. You know him. This is what they want. It’s like a boulder coming off the mountain. You have to let it be and get out of the way.”

  “Papa, I’m going to be sick.”

  “Ave Maria, listen to me. You cannot stand in the way of her happiness. You will lose her.”

  “Too late for that.”

  I hang up the phone. Let Jack deal with them, with her. I can’t. I can’t believe this is happening.

  “What a shocker.” Iva Lou gets up off of the couch. I begin to cry. Iva Lou doesn’t know what to do, so she paces, then says, “Look, it could be worse. She could be miserable or hurt or something horrible. She’s in love, and she sounds happy. Why is this so terrible?”

  “She’s a kid.”

  “Not according to the government.”

  “What do they know?” I wail. Jack joins us in the living room. He comes and puts his arms around me. “That kid is trying to kill me,” I tell him.

  “No, she’s not.”

  “She deliberately pulls this stuff. She’s ruined my life.”

  “Come on, Ave.”

  “We sat up here and did homework with her every night, sent her to Mountain Empire for college prep classes, supported her when she did her internship. . . . For what? It’s all gone.”

  “She says she’s going to go to college over there.”

  “Dream on! When? How? Who’s going to support her? You know what happens to teenage girls who marry? They have babies and they get trapped and it’s over. Over!”

  “That’s a little prejudiced,” Iva Lou says politely.

  “It’s the truth!”

  “This is a shock. And when the shock of it wears off, we will figure out how to proceed.”

  “Jack, wake up. The horse has left the barn. She’s getting married. Did you hear her? She didn’t ask for our blessing. She doesn’t care. She does what she wants when she wants, and doesn’t listen. She’s never listened!”

  “She’s got a mind of her own.”

  “And look where her mind got her!”

  “We know Stefano—”

  “Him? I’d like to kill him.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Yes, I do. With my bare hands, I would like to kill him. How dare he subvert her college plans? What kind of a man discourages a woman from getting an education? I’ll tell you what kind. The kind who wants a slave to cook and clean and wait on him.”

  “You know better than that. He’s an educated man himself.”

  “Oh, please.”

  “He is. He’s a good man. This could be worse. She could have called home saying she was going to marry a stranger.”

  “What am I going to do?” I walk to the window and consider running all the way to Lee County, until my heart gives out and I fall over dead.

  “You’re gonna have a drink.” Iva Lou looks to Jack. “
Where’s the hooch?”

  The problem with drinking when you’re upset is that it doesn’t take quickly. I have several shots before I feel the first one. I’m not proud that I turned to Jack Daniel’s in my crisis, but I realize there is a first time for everything. Iva Lou went home after a couple of hours of hearing me rant. She took all she could and then slipped out. Jack is in the kitchen making us something to eat. I muster all my strength and go into the kitchen. Iva Lou has stacked all of Etta’s college supplies on the bench under the windows. The sight of them makes me cry.

  “Come on, you need to eat.” Jack puts the food out on the table.

  “I’m not going over there.”

  “We have to go.”

  “I’m not going. I am not going to support this.”

  “Ave, it’s too soon to say that.”

  “Plenty of people disown their children and go on to lead happy lives.”

  “Name one.”

  “I don’t actually know anybody personally, but I am sure they’re out there.”

  Jack sits down and takes my hand. “Ave?”

  “Jack, how could she do this to us?”

  “I don’t like this any more than you do. But I don’t think she’s doing this to hurt us. She’s following her feelings. She’s in love.”

  “Ugh.”

  “I want you to remember when we fell in love.”

  “We were thirty-five years old!”

  “Okay. Bad example. How about my mother? She was sixteen when she fell in love, and seventeen when she got married.”

  “That was in colonial times.”

  “Folks have always married young in these mountains. Now, I’m not saying this in defense of what she’s doing, I’m just making the point that this is not a new concept to her.”

  “We didn’t raise her to do something like this.”

  “You have to get past this feeling that she did it to spite you.”

  “Okay, let’s say they are in love. A girl at eighteen can’t know what love is. She’s dated two boys, both of whom she dumped because they were too dull. She’s throwing her life away without exploring any of the possibilities. He’s probably the first man she’s had sex with, and she got hooked.” I can’t believe I said that, but I believe it’s true. She got caught up in the moment, and in that moment, she gave away the rest of her life.

  “I don’t think that’s what’s happening here.”

  I look at Jack and see that he is as wounded as I am; but he’s better than I am, he is giving her the benefit of the doubt, trusting that he did a good job as a parent and that this will all work out. I wish I had his perspective.

  “You’re a cockeyed optimist,” I tell Jack.

  “Aren’t you happy that she’s marrying an Italian?”

  “I don’t want her to marry anybody right now!”

  “Your father is there. Giacomina. Nonna. She has a loving family around her. It’s not like she ran off to Albania with a convict.”

  “Jack, any way you look at this, it’s wrong. She’s out of her mind! She flip-flops! When I took her to Indiana, she went on and on about being a mountain girl, and being a MacChesney, and how she loved these mountains, and now she turns around and decides to live in Italy with her childhood crush. I don’t get it.”

  “If all that is true, it must mean she really loves him. She was excited about UVA, thrilled about it. She wouldn’t throw that away on a whim.”

  “I don’t know her at all, Jack. I can’t figure this out.” I can barely get the words out. I’m drunk. I sound like an old booze hound somebody found on the floor of Ray’s Café on a Sunday morning after an all-night binge.

  “We have to accept this.”

  “Why is it so easy for you?”

  “Because I know it’s her life and she has to live it.”

  I shove all the college supplies off the bench and lie down on it, curling up in a ball so small you could play field hockey with me. I’m so sad and disappointed. It’s like I built a beautiful castle and turned away for a moment, and a fire has broken out and burned it to the ground. Now I understand why people drink: there are days when the news is just too hard to take.

  The flight to Italy is so turbulent that Jack and I have a moment where we truly believe that we won’t make it to Etta’s wedding. Our initial plan, to stop this thing, entirely backfired on us. When we threatened to come over to bring her home, Etta pushed the date up. Jack and I went to Father Rodriguez to talk things through, and he helped me understand that I have to find a way to accept this because my daughter needs me and surely will more in the days to come. I haven’t accepted this marriage yet, but I have decided to act like I do, and then hopefully one day I will have a change of heart and embrace my daughter’s decision. Of course, this is my rational mind talking, not my heart.

  Theodore will be meeting us at Malpensa Airport in Milan. When I called him to tell him about Etta, he quickly dropped the Lake Tahoe trip and rearranged his plans. Jack and I invited Max too, but he felt he’d be in the way, so he’s going to see his family instead. We’ve rented a car and will drive directly to Schilpario, where the wedding is to take place a week after our arrival. Five weeks have passed since the fateful night of Etta’s phone call, and we have spoken since, but the conversations are strained and overly polite. I received a five-page letter from Stefano Grassi, who outlined in nearly mathematical terms why this union would stick. I read it through once and haven’t had the strength to read it again.

  Jack thinks I’m doing better with the whole thing, but I find it hard to talk to him about it, because he is overly optimistic. I can’t find a single soul who understands why I’m devastated. Even Fleeta said, “It’s not like she’s fifteen. She’s eighteen. She’s legal.” The only person who is on my side is Theodore. Thank God he will be there for this wedding. I really need him now.

  Jack falls asleep after the meal, which gives me a chance to think. Once again I feel cheated out of happiness. By getting married so young, Etta has deprived us of that natural order of maturity: graduation from high school, then college, then a life on her own in some new and exciting place, after which she finds a good man to settle down with, and then, at a mature age, children, if she so desires. I had so many plans for Etta’s wedding day. I cut out pictures from magazines of bridal cakes and Italian regali—gifts left on the wedding table for the guests. I thought about what kind of gown and veil she would look good in, deciding that bright white was bad; an eggshell beige would go better with her skin tone. I would make her day a happy one, filled with sweet surprises and beauty. I would welcome her husband’s family with open arms, and be a hostess with largesse and good manners. Instead, I’ve had nothing to do with the planning of my daughter’s wedding. She has not asked for my input, telling us only where and when the service will be, and the address of the reception.

  Malpensa Airport is packed with people. I doubt Theodore will be able to find us, and the way things have been going, I wouldn’t be surprised. Jack corrals the luggage through automatic doors. I hear Theodore calling my name and see him in the crowd.

  “I have the car. Let’s go.” Theodore kisses me, shakes Jack’s hand, and takes a couple of bags. We pack everything into the trunk of the black Volvo and pile in.

  “We’re going to make this a happy trip, aren’t we?” Theodore says, eyeing me in the rearview mirror.

  “I’m doing my best.”

  “She really is,” Jack tells Theodore.

  “This could be worse,” Theodore says.

  “Yeah?”

  “She could be marrying that Boggs boy who broke into the Mutual’s and stole the Valium that time.”

  “True, Theodore,” I say halfheartedly.

  All the magic that makes the Italian Alps my dreamscape is lost on me as we ascend the regal cliffs. I might as well be on my way to the guillotine. I feel as though everything is ending, even though I know that my daughter is at the beginning of a new life. Despite everyone’s protests, I
still have an aching feeling that this marriage is doomed.

  Papa and Giacomina meet us in the driveway. His embrace reassures me, and Giacomina’s warmth makes us feel as welcome as always.

  “Where’s Etta?” I ask.

  “She’s at the church. She’ll be home any minute.”

  “You should be pleased that she’s getting married in church,” Theodore says to me under his breath.

  “Don’t push it,” I whisper back.

  Giacomina shows us to our rooms and, when she gets the chance, pulls me into her and Papa’s bedroom. “How are you?” she asks me tenderly.

  “I’m here.”

  “I know this is hard for you.”

  “I wish I was an actress, so I could invent a character to be throughout all of this. I’m going to try really hard to be nice. To be happy. How’s Etta?”

  “She’s in love,” Giacomina says simply. Papa calls her from downstairs, and she excuses herself and goes.

  Love. What a tiny word that is used to describe everything and can mean nothing. These Italians. They’re all for it. Love is the point of life itself, love is the great healer, love is the energy behind all things that are beautiful, whether it’s a silver cup of berries or lovers on a bicycle built for two. Dreamers. They’re all dreamers.

  “Mom?” Etta stands in the doorway and looks at me.

  “I’m sorry, honey. I’m so angry at you,” I tell her quietly. I look at her and, of course, my heart melts. This is my daughter, and I want her to be happy more than I want it for myself. But I cannot hide my disappointment or my fear.

  “I know.” She sits on a chair and motions for me to join her. “How was your trip?”

  “Not great,” I tell her.

  “You think I’m too young.”

  “Oh, Etta, it’s more than that. You don’t trust my judgment. You don’t listen and benefit from my experience. Yes, you’re young, but you’re also impulsive. If you’re really in love, and it will last, why are you rushing into this? Can’t you come home and get your degree and then marry Stefano? Why are you doing this?” The questions I have longed to ask her come tumbling out, and not eloquently.

  “Because it’s right for me.”

  “How? You were accepted to college and you were excited about going. Aren’t you sad about giving up your future?”