Things Worth Remembering (3 page)

“I thought we were supposed to have some lazy days before the craziness begins.”

“You’re awake. What’s the problem? Come on. I’ll wait for you on the patio. It’s a perfect day. In fact, we should have gone for a swim this morning before I cleaned up.”

I’m not at all ready for him to go when he
jumps up and takes off with one more “Come on!” I hear him very nearly running down the stairs, and I know I should get going.

If he hadn’t come home with me, I might have slept all morning, but Marcus, like Dad, is a morning person. Actually, he has many of Dad’s traits. I noticed that right away.

We met in a way I’d recommend to anyone who wants to know what someone is really like. Our campus houses joined forces to build a house in Mexico the spring break of my sophomore year, and we ended up riding in the same van, though I sat in the front, and he and his buddies sat in the back. We exchanged smiles and little else on the way down, except for somewhere in west Texas, when he asked me if I wanted a drink of his Dr Pepper. On the way back, it was a different story. We sat side by side in the middle of the van and talked about life as the youngest of five children and as an only child. Most of the time, though, he loaned me his shoulder, and we took long naps resting our heads on either side of a shared pillow.

We were exhausted from mixing concrete, hauling lumber, nailing up chicken wire, troweling on stucco, and doing anything else that putting up a two-room house required. It wasn’t much of a home, we thought, standing back and looking at what we had accomplished when our workweek came to a close. But the family we built it for had been living in a cardboard hovel, and they seemed to think it was a palace. It was during this week that I saw how dependable and hardworking Marcus is. He is also pleasant and kind. Unlike a few on the team, he ate any meal the host family generously and sacrificially prepared for us, and he always cleaned up the work site and then himself, never complaining about the trickle of cold water that passed as a shower or the truly disgusting bathroom conditions. These qualities drew me to him more than his incredibly good looks.

I was so hooked.

He was too, though. He said he began falling for me when he saw me—sweat dripping, hair tied back in a bandanna— patiently showing the ragged children who had congregated around me how to mix concrete. He said he was “irrevocably” in love with me when, after a day of hard work, I brought out the Play-Doh I had packed and let the kids make colorful houses of their own, constructing a whole village before they were done. When they showed us their masterpiece, we clapped as if they had just unveiled Michelangelo’s
David
.

Returning to the university after that exhausting and exhilarating nine days, we unfolded ourselves from our middle seat, limped off the van, and exchanged bandannas and phone numbers.

We were a done deal.

Kendy

“Are you going to sleep all morning?” Luke asks, wearing nothing but his black boxer briefs.

I glance at the clock that now reads 7:46. “That was my fervent prayer.”

He walks to his closet, takes a pair of jeans off a shelf, and pulls them on. “I’ll start breakfast. That boy has an appetite, doesn’t he?”

“He does,” I say, throwing back the covers. I get up and stretch. “Isn’t that nice?”

Luke pulls a black T-shirt over his head. I love him to wear black anything, from T-shirt to tux to boxers.

I head for the bathroom but stop to give him some advice.

“Listen, if the kids aren’t downstairs, slow yourself down and read your paper before you start breakfast. Okay?”

“Okay, but hurry.”

Luke is obviously ecstatic a new day has dawned. He is the ultimate morning person; if there were a club for such people, he would be the logical choice for president.

“Don’t bother with your hair,” he says. “Leave it natural.”

“Oh, Luke.”

“I mean it,” he calls from the living area on his way to the kitchen. “I like it that way.”

Actually, he likes my hair any way I wear it. My hair—“the color of roasted coffee beans,” Luke noted on our first date— is one thing he consistently compliments me on, whether it’s curly, straightened, or pulled up. He also said early on, maybe on that same date, that he hadn’t expected someone with such dark hair to have sky-blue eyes. I told him I hadn’t expected someone with light brown hair, very nearly blond, to have such warm brown eyes. A little flirting going on, for sure—we were both quite pleased with what we saw. Aging, I’m happy to say, has not changed that.

He is back with a glass of orange juice just as I am wrapping myself in a towel and stepping out of the shower, steam hovering. The juice isn’t a bribe; he brings it most mornings, but this consideration puts me in the mood for compromise.

He leaves as quickly as he came, and I sit at my vanity, applying gel to my hair and scrunching it, encouraging curls, even though I’ll be pulling the mess into a loose sort of bun after I put on my makeup and get dressed. Opening the top drawer on my right, I set out the items that will transform my face into all it can be. At forty-nine and forty-seven, Luke and I look pretty good, and we feel even better.

I am blessed.
Extravagantly
blessed.

After the Lord God himself, Luke and Maisey top my list of blessings. Marcus has slipped into the slot for blessing number four. How grateful I am for him! Few things could be more wonderful than a daughter marrying such a good man, though I doubt my mother has ever had the ability to appreciate such a boon. But I was thrilled when Maisey brought Marcus Blair home, relieved she had chosen so well after one Blah and two Disasters. Marcus makes her smile.

Please, God, let her be happy.

She surely seemed happy when she showed us her ring at Christmas. She seemed happy when she called and told us she had found her wedding dress—or more precisely, told her father.

Several things have hurt me in this life; not being with her when she found her dress five hours from home is on the list somewhere. Maisey had asked for a bride doll the Christmas she was five, mesmerized by her aunt’s wedding the fall before. Since then I’ve been dreaming of the day, or days, we would shop for her wedding dress. What can I say? A mother helping her daughter to find just the right creation for that momentous walk down the aisle strikes me as one of life’s happiest endeavors. The night she called to tell us about buying her “dream of a gown,” in part to prepare her father for the credit card bill, I sat beside Luke on the couch, a striking contrast to Maisey’s exuberance.

My dejection seemed a tad inappropriate. “Being hurt because I wasn’t included is silly, isn’t it?” I asked afterward. “Not so silly,” he said.

But she loves the dress; that’s the most important thing.

Mother was with Maisey when she selected the dress. This was difficult to process, since Mother had allowed someone else to help me choose my wedding gown. One Saturday after going with Maisey for one of her fittings, Mother called on the way to her office in downtown St. Louis. “Maize looks like a princess in her dress,” she said. “No, let me amend that. She looks much more sophisticated than a princess. She looks like a queen, confident in her ability to lead and thrilled at the prospect.” Natural image for my CFO mother to conjure, though she actually laughed at her own excess.

I couldn’t bring myself to ask Mother what the dress looked like. I did ask Maisey when she and Marcus came home for a few days at the end of their spring break.

“It’s white,” she said.

I managed to suppress a
No kidding
. (To be fair, I suppose she did have a range of options—there’s ivory, for instance.)

Then Maisey, unable to squelch the excitement welling up from her heart, let details escape: The dress was strapless and straight—fitted but not too tight—the back of it falling into a short oval train. “Elegant,” she said in the end. “You’ll think it’s elegant, Mom.”

I turned so she wouldn’t see the tears spring to my eyes. Not because I was so pleased to finally hear about the dress, but because she had called me Mom.

CHAPTER THREE

Maisey

“Stay awhile, Dad,” I say as he stands up and collects his juice glass and the papers scattered on the patio table.

“I’ve stalled long enough,” he says, tucking his reading glasses into the pocket of his T-shirt. “Time to start breakfast.”

He waves at Marcus, who is making a turn at the shallow end of the pool, ready for another lap. Shower or no shower, Marcus decided this gorgeous morning called for a swim.

“It’s not so hot yet,” Dad says. “I think we’ll have breakfast out here.”

He kisses the top of my head on his way inside. I want to jump up and hug him and say,
Really, Dad, stay with me awhile.

I’ve been missing him. He’s been my go-to guy for almost a decade now.

“Come on in,” Marcus calls, treading water under the diving board.

He makes it look tempting, but my resolve is strong. “No way; I’ve had my shower. You practically insisted, if I recall.”

“I’ve had mine too.”

“But I’ve done my hair. Save your breath. It’s not happenin’.”

“The water’s great. How can you resist?”

I get up, walk to the edge of the pool, and dip my toes into the water, strawberry pink polish glimmering in the morning light. “I’ll sit here, but don’t get my hair wet. I mean it. Remember, the girls are giving me a shower this afternoon. A
personal
shower.”

He swims over and holds on to my feet, pretending he is going to pull me in, but I know he won’t.

“How personal?” he asks.

“That will depend on who’s giving the gift.”

I hear the French door open. Marcus says, “Good morning, Kennedy.”

“Good morning,” Mother says. She walks over to where I’m sitting and combs her fingers through the hair I spent way too long straightening. “Did you rest well, honey?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Your hair looks pretty.”

“Thanks.”

“So, are you two ready to eat?”

“I am,” Marcus says.

“Sure,” I say.

“I’m taking orders. Do you want waffles or pancakes?”

“Pancakes,” Marcus answers.

“Pancakes are fine,” I say.

“Do you like pecans, Marcus?”

“Love ’em!”

“Okay, then. We’ll be out in a few minutes.”

Marcus pulls himself out of the pool and grabs his towel off the lounger. “I’m starving!”

“You’re always starving,” I say and smile, because I like his enthusiasm for good food. His enthusiasm for many good things is another of his excellent qualities.

“Your mom’s very pretty, isn’t she?” Marcus says, his eyes having followed her retreat into the house.

“I guess.”

“The first time I saw her, I knew you’d be gorgeous for a lo-o-o-ong time. My friends and I have been known to check mothers out for that very reason.”

“Oh, you have? Well, Dad made a contribution too, you know.”

“I don’t think of your dad as pretty.”

“Well, he is,” I say. “You two have that in common.” I cup water in my hand and toss it at him before getting up from the warm tiles and pulling a chair out from the table.

Mother returns carrying a large pewter tray with glasses, pitchers of milk and juice, butter, and syrup. “We’re almost ready!”

Marcus jumps up. “That looks heavy,” he says, taking the tray from her and setting it on the cart by the table.

“Thanks. It’s
very
heavy. Apparently I’ll do anything to save an extra trip.”

“Is there anything else I can do to help? Besides swimming laps and relaxing on the lounger, that is.”

“You can help next time. We like company in the kitchen. But this morning, we’ve got it covered,” she says, smiling at him. She has an endless supply of smiles.

Marcus can’t help himself—he has to smile back. He likes her.

Most people do.

All my friends love her, for goodness’ sake. They have since we started kindergarten; Jackie, since preschool. We were six the first time Jackie came to the house, but instead of playing with our baby dolls as we had planned, we spent most of the time in the kitchen with Mom, helping her make peanut butter cookies. I’m sure Jackie had started loving her when she was four years old and Mother volunteered at our preschool, but she fell head over heels that day in the kitchen. Mom told her she had been born during the Kennedy presidency. “If there was ever a man your gram loved, it was President John F. Kennedy,” she said, smiling at me while I pressed the cookies with the tines of the fork like she had shown me.

“Thus,” she said, turning her smile on Jackie, “she named me, her only child, Kennedy.” Then Mom leaned on the counter, face-to-face with Jackie, who sat perched on a stool across the bar from her. “And you, little miss, could be named after his First Lady, Jackie Kennedy. I’ve seen hundreds of pictures of her, and she was very classy.” Jackie looked at me, and I looked at her, like we had just learned the most glorious thing.

Jackie still loves Mom. She’d like to stay over here until the wedding—“all the better,” she said, “to do my maid-of-honor duties.”

“Sorry, girlfriend,” I told her, “we’ve got a full house.” And with Marcus here, it really is.

“What are you thinking about?” Marcus asks.

“About Gram naming Mother after John Kennedy. She loved him, you know. Someone’s probably naming a son or daughter Barack as we speak.”

“Was your mom’s dad a Kennedy fan too?”

“I wouldn’t know. He’s never been in the picture. He’s the great anti-father.”

“When did her parents get divorced?”

Have I not told him this?

“They didn’t,” I say. “They never got married. We don’t discuss him. Really, he’s a nonentity.”

I hope that puts a period on the topic, at least for now, because my parents are coming through the doorway, laughing about something, happy as the daisies upstairs “gracing my windows,” as Mother used to say. Dad’s carrying a platter of bacon and another platter of steaming pancakes. Mother’s carrying a stack of plates with napkins and silverware stacked on top.

The topic of her miserable father seems to be blessedly forgotten when Marcus looks up and sees my parents and the platters of food.