Authors: LaVyrle Spencer
“Oh,” he said, disappointed at the thought of such an
important event happening anywhere else but here.
“Father Donnelly would have to marry you there.”
“Oh,” Eddie said again.
The room grew quiet. Father’s thumbs kept circling. Finally Eddie asked, “Do you think people would accept her here if she was my wife?”
Father’s regard held steady on the younger man as he said quietly, “You really don’t know how much you and Jean are respected around here, do you? And Krystyna, too. What she meant to you, and to the nuns, and to a lot of people around this town has a great bearing on how your marriage to Jean will be accepted. And to top it off, there are your children who already know and love Jean. I think it’s a match made in heaven.”
“You do?” Eddie couldn’t contain his surprise.
Father only nodded. But his thumbs quit circling.
________
The next Saturday was only the fourth day Eddie and Jean had spent together. They stayed away from the drive-in theater and remained at her folks’ farm instead. He said, when he got there, “Could we just sit in the yard and talk?”
She squelched her disappointment and replied, “Sure, if that’s what you want.”
“ ’Cause I hope that before I leave we might need to have your parents come out here so we can talk to them, too.”
They sat on a pair of weathered Adirondack chairs out near the apple trees, where Bertha could watch them to her heart’s content from the windows. Eddie related to Jean the conversations he’d had with Romaine and Father Kuzdek during the past week, and he asked her again, “Will you marry me, Jean?”
She got tears in her eyes, pressed eight fingertips to her lips and nodded repeatedly, until she could get control.
“You will?” he said, amazed that no further wheedling was needed.
She nodded again, for she still couldn’t speak.
Eddie let his eyes sink shut and whispered, “Thank you, God.”
Their chair arms were angled close together. He bent forward and took both of her hands. She tried to say, “Oh, Eddie, I’m so happy,” but little came out, so he leaned forward and kissed her softly.
When their lips parted she said, smiling through her sniffles, “Just think, I get to be Anne and Lucy’s mom.”
That old dogfight started up in his belly again.
“You mean I can tell them at last?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And maybe we’ll have a couple more someday. What would you think of that?”
“Just thinking of it makes me happy. Imagine... having your babies.”
“What about going to college?” he asked. “Will you be disappointed you can’t do that?”
“I never did find the money for it.”
“Well, then...” He fished in his pocket. “I have something for you.” He came up with a modest diamond ring and put it on the finger that had once held a plain gold band.
“Oh, Eddie...” she said, admiring her extended hand. “Oh, Eddie...” She leaned forward and hugged him the best she could, considering the awkward juxtaposition of their lawn chairs. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too, Jean.”
They sat like that awhile, as evening cooled the yard and the frogs started a pulsating serenade down in the ponds. Their temples touched, but beyond that their embrace remained meager, mainly a hand of each rubbing the other between the shoulder blades while they rocked a little.
In time he asked, “Should we go get your parents now?” She nodded against his shoulder.
“All right. How soon should we tell them we want to get married?”
“Soon. Please.” Her voice was muffled as she continued rocking with him.
He smiled, and rubbed a hand down her hair, caught the back of her neck in an affectionate squeeze, and whispered, “Let’s go, then.”
________
Jean told Eddie later, “My dad must’ve given my mother a good talking-to,” for their announcement had brought a stolid acceptance from Bertha, and a statement from Frank: “You can have the wedding reception here. No daughter of mine is going to get married without a proper send-off. Mother will butcher the chickens and your sisters can come over and help with all the cooking. It’s no less than we did for every one of them.”
So the law was laid down.
When Eddie kissed Jean goodbye beside his truck, she said, “Drop me a postcard and tell me what Anne and Lucy said. And tell them I can’t wait to be their mom. Or should we say stepmother?”
“Mom will be fine. It doesn’t take anything away from Krystyna.”
They kissed again, starting out pretty politely, but in the middle of it he cast an eye at the house, then swung Jean around so her spine curved against the truck door, and pressed her against it with his body. “I have to admit, I liked going to the drive-in movie better,” he whispered. “More privacy.”
His hands slid from her waist up her ribs.
She stopped them just shy of her breasts and said, “Goodnight, Eddie.”
“Wait till our wedding night,” he warned. “Just you wait, lady.”
“That’s exactly what I intend to do,” she murmured in
her soft Sister Regina voice, then slipped from beneath him and opened the truck door for him.
________
When he told the girls he was going to marry their exteacher, Lucy’s face scrunched up in delighted surprise.
“You are? Then can I wear my white dress and be your flower girl?”
“Well,” he chuckled, “I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe.”
“Annie could be one, too, couldn’t she?”
“Maybe. If she wants to.”
“Is Sister Regina gonna live with us, then?”
“Her name is Jean now, and yes, she’s going to live with us.”
“And take care of us like Mommy did?”
“And take care of you like Mommy did.”
Lucy clapped her hands and said, “Goody.” Then she whispered in his ear, “Will she bring her old nun clothes along so we can play school in them?”
He tried very hard not to laugh.
“I don’t know if she’s got them.”
“Well, ask her,” Lucy whispered. “Pleeeease, Daddy?”
Anne told him, matter-of-factly, “I knew you were going to marry Sister Regina.”
“How did you know?”
“ ’Cause you were flirting with her at her picnic.”
“I was not. I was being a perfect gentleman.”
“I saw you.”
“Doing what?”
“Just sort of... I don’t know... Looking at her. Kind of like you used to look at Mommy sometimes.”
“Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe I was flirting with her.” He rested a gentle hand on Anne’s back. “So is it okay with you if I marry her and she comes to live with us?”
Anne moved closer and nestled against him. “If I can’t have my real mommy, she’s the next best thing.”
With a lump in his throat, he kissed Anne’s forehead. Then Lucy’s. And they both stood beside his kitchen chair, folded close to him while they all thought about Krystyna.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The banns were announced for three weeks, and they were married in St. Peter and Paul’s on a sparkling Saturday in late August, one week shy of the anniversary of Krystyna’s death. Half the town of Browerville was there, including Father Kuzdek, and so many Olczak relatives it looked like a family reunion. All of Jean’s family attended, too, including Grandma Rosella, who still wasn’t convinced her granddaughter was doing the right thing but brought a clean hanky along anyway, because she always cried at weddings. Richard and Mary Pribil came, too, but not Irene. Irene, they said, wasn’t feeling well that day and had decided at the last minute to stay home.
Anne and Lucy did, indeed, act as flower girls. They were outfitted in their first long dresses ever, petal-pink and pouffed over crinolines, lovingly stitched by their aunt Irene who sent a little note via her parents telling the girls how sorry she was not to see them march down the aisle, but that she’d be thinking of them all day long.
The bride wore a white dress... for the second time. And a white veil... for the second time. But today her betrothed waited at the front of the church, a real, flesh-and-blood, beloved man, withheld, at her insistence, from viewing her until the moment she appeared at the foot of the aisle and moved toward him.
She did so while the pipe organ shook the floor with Mendelssohn, and his children strew flower petals grown in their grandparents’ gardens. Ahead of Jean, Liz moved—step-point, step-point—gowned in homemade pink a shade deeper than the children’s. Beside Eddie, Romaine waited with two rings in his pocket.
Eddie, in a new blue worsted suit, waited with his hands joined, his feet spraddled, stiffly motionless but for one knee that kept locking and unlocking nervously. His face bore a telltale flush beneath its summer tan as he watched his bride approach, her face screened by a shorter veil while an immense one trailed behind, rolling rose petals into cylinders.
As she neared, he made out her eyes—seeking his, eager and happy and nervous all at once. A shot of adrenaline jolted him and prickled his scalp. How can this be? How can I be so lucky twice in my life? he thought. Philosophers said love comes only once in a lifetime, but to him it had come twice.
Jean’s father squeezed her hand and passed her to Eddie. When she touched his sleeve, he covered her hand, felt it trembling, looked down at her and smiled. He did not remove his hand from hers until the ceremony forced him to.
“
In nomine Patris...
” Father Donnelly began, and Eddie had to make the sign of the cross. But the minute it was made, he covered Jean’s hand again.
He wanted to look at her some more, but stood as he must, facing the priest.
She wanted to look at him, too, but had to content herself with the constancy of his hand over hers. It seemed the entire nuptial ceremony was masterminded to keep them from gazing at each other. They stood, they knelt, they bowed their heads, they were prayed over, and all the while they stared at the priest’s white vestments.
Finally, he murmured instructions for Liz to help Jean turn back her veil, then to the bride and groom, “Would you join right hands, please?”
And the two in love at last cast unfettered gazes upon each other.
She was radiant beneath a halo of white tulle, lifting eyes filled with certainty.
He was splendid in a fresh haircut and white, white collar that made his skin appear copper.
With hearts in one accord, they heard the words, “Repeat after me...”
“I, Edward Olczak, take thee, Jean Potlocki, to be my lawful wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”
By the time he finished, Eddie’s heart was clubbing so fiercely his collar felt tighter than it had been.
Then she spoke in the sweet, calming voice he had sought so many times when he was troubled: “I, Jean Potlocki, take thee, Edward Olczak...” Her grip on his fingers tightened in earnestness and in her eyes a hint of tears reflected the surrounding candlelight. She felt the tears form while she repeated the phrases that tied her to Eddie for life. “... until death do us part.”
Father made a cross in the air and sanctified their union. “I join you in holy matrimony in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, amen.” He raised his silver aspergillum and holy water rained blessings on them. He asked for the rings, blessed them as well, and Eddie repeated: “With this ring, I thee wed.” Holding his wife’s thin hand, he slipped the band where another had been only four months ago.
She, too, whispered, “With this ring, I thee wed,” and slid his new ring over the place where Krystyna’s used to be.
The others to whom they’d been wed were with them in that moment as surely as the guests filling the pews behind them, blessing this union and granting it peace.
The church allowed no kisses in the midst of this holy sacrament. Instead, they knelt side by side through the lengthy High Mass, trying to pay attention to the prayers, but distracted time and again by more mortal concerns—the touch of an elbow, thoughts of tonight, the realization they were actually married, the wedding reception that waited, the children fidgeting in their pink dresses, Krystyna, Grandma Rosella. They were married! Married! Tonight they’d be alone, and tomorrow morning they’d attend Mass together in Browerville.
It finished at last.
The organ boomed.
They strode from St. Peter and Paul’s and burst into the sunlight where, at last, on the high church steps, he kissed her, politely, reserving his ardor for later, but smiling in jubilation as their mouths parted and their smiling eyes met.
“Mrs. Olczak,” he said.
“Oh, the sound of it!” she replied.
Then they turned and submitted themselves to six hours of social obligation.
________
They tried to find private moments to duck out of sight and kiss, but there were just plain too many people and too few places to hide. Obligations never quit: receiving line, dinner in the farmyard, hugs from well-wishers, perusing the gifts, thanking the gift-openers, spending time with Anne and Lucy and giving special attention to Grandma Rosella, making sure to thank all the relatives who did the cooking, and hauled tables and chairs, and picked their flower gardens bare, and brought the ice blocks and chilled the beer and cleaned the farmyard and set the tables and served the food and cleaned up afterward.
Perhaps the most touching moment of all came when Richard and Mary Pribil congratulated them as they were preparing to leave. Mary captured Eddie and, with an arm around his neck, began to cry. He shut his eyes and held her fast, warding off many emotions of his own, while Richard stood with an arm around Jean.
Lucy, who was departing with her grandparents, pulled on Jean’s hand and said, “Why is Grandma crying, Jean?” Jean bent near the child and answered, “Because she’s both happy and sad.”
“But why is she sad?”
Jean cupped Lucy’s sunburned cheek and said, “Because she missed your mother, and so do I.” Anne, too, stood close by. Jean beckoned her over and took a hand of each child in her own. “I was very proud of you today, and I want you to know that I love you both and I will be the best mother I know how. I don’t have much experience, so sometimes you might have to help me and tell me what I’m doing wrong, but you had the best teacher of all in your own mother, so I’m quite sure we’ll muddle through. Now you be good at Grandpa and Grandma Pribil’s house and say your prayers at night, okay?”