In the weeks preceding Valentine’s Day 1964, I taught the girls to crochet heart-shaped doilies that could easily be sewn into table covers or even bedcoverlets, were they to stitch enough of them. As the girls grew more adept at their needlework, it seemed to me that with each meeting, Rowena and I grew closer. She also seemed more than a little curious about the child growing inside me.
“Were you this inquisitive when your mother was expecting?” I asked her.
“I was too young and too busy to notice really,” she answered. “There’s seven years between Sidney and me and nine between Jason and me.”
“Oh, I see,” was all I could think of to say.
I did a lot of sewing in those days. During our holiday time with family, when we’d told my parents about our expecting again, Mama whisked me off to downtown Meadow Grove. “We can shop for clothes or patterns,” she’d said as soon as we got into the car.
“Patterns,” I said. “I like to sew, and to be honest, it’ll give me something to do.”
She patted my hand and said, “Come June you’ll have plenty to do, but I agree with you for now.”
Since then, I’d sewn several adjustable, cut-out pouch-front pencil slim skirts and a variety of scoop-necked over-blouses to match. For relaxing at home, I’d made an oversized but fashionable pants dress that seemed to grow tighter with each wearing. I’d also sewn a pair of Gidget sleepover pajamas, complete with smock top, pants, and matching duster peignoir robe, which Thayne said I looked adorable in.
My new condition had brought changes to the way most of the women (and even some of the men) in Logan’s Creek looked at and treated me. Even Alma had become more tolerable, though Minerva continued to keep her distance. I tried to tell myself I didn’t care—one way or the other—but the truth was, I cared very much. No one likes to feel rejected.
By early March, when I was in my sixth month, my morning-to-all-day sickness was but a vague memory. And, according to Dr. Kathleen Meredith—the less costly of the two doctors in Hudsonville—I was the picture of health. My weight gain was good and my blood pressure was deemed appropriate. Dr. Meredith sent for my records from Dr. Franklin’s office in Meadow Grove, studied them carefully, and then met with Thayne and me, telling us she saw no reason why I would miscarry again.
“But I’m going to say this,” the young doctor said. “I’m not God. He makes these decisions, not me. So while I can tell you I see no reason, it is ultimately up to him.”
Thayne assured her he both understood and agreed.
I said no such thing. I had yet to understand Rachel’s death, nor did I think I ever would. I might not have been the most perfect or influential Christian, but I wasn’t a bad person, and it just made no sense that God would have wanted to punish me so. And, if not me, then surely Rachel had been innocent. Surely she had deserved a chance to live.
But I kept these feelings to myself, speaking to no one about them. Not even to Thayne or to Missy in our once-a-week gab session.
By now, Missy and Ward had three children in addition to Ward’s son by his first marriage. “I told Ward this was it,” Missy said one recent Saturday afternoon. Then she laughed. “But he says ‘Oh, come on, Missy. One more.’”
“What did you say to that?” I asked.
“I told him I was too tired and he was getting too old, though honestly you’d never know it the way that man runs his life.”
I smiled. Missy was happy; this was good.
On the first morning that dawned with an edge of warmth to it, Thayne declared he’d walk to work, something he had not done since just after the first of the year.
“I’ll join you,” I said, pulling my apron strings from the place where my waist had once dipped in so gracefully. “I need to get some things at Stoddard’s.”
Thayne placed his hand against my swollen belly. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”
Adorable, thy name is Thayne, I thought. But I said, “I promise you, I’m fine.”
I wrapped a scarf around my head, tying it under my chin. We both donned light coats and then headed out of the cottage. We passed Alma in her backyard, hanging out her clothes. She called to us, we waved back, then she reminded me to be careful that I didn’t slip and fall if I was walking “all the way up to town and back.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Stoddard,” I returned. “I will.”
“Amazing, isn’t it,” Thayne said from beside me, “what the impending birth of a child will do?”
Again, I said nothing. I was grateful for the change but was still puzzled as to why she’d been so cold initially.
At Main Street we parted with a kiss; Thayne continued on, and I turned to the left. My first stop was the post office to retrieve our mail from the little box with number fifty-nine on it, and to say my customary good morning to Will Willoughby, who’d managed to keep his eyes from roving too far along my body since the announcement of my pregnancy.
“Good morning,” Will said. And then, as always, “How’s the little mother?”
“She’s good,” I said. Our words rarely varied.
I collected our mail—mostly bills, a letter from Missy, and another letter that looked official in a legal-sized envelope with a gold-embossed return address. I studied it for a moment. It was from the church’s head office in Atlanta. My eyes dropped to the addressee. It was to Thayne and addressed to the church’s address rather than our personal one.
“Something wrong over there?” Will asked.
I looked over my shoulder at him. “Not really, no.” I waved the envelope. “This was placed in our box by accident. It goes to Thayne at the church.”
Will came from behind the counter and reached for the outstretched correspondence. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I was probably just looking at the name.”
I shrugged. “No big deal. I’d be happy to take it home.”
Will shook his head. “No, no. I’ll just put it in the right box. The reverend usually comes by on his lunch break. Gives him one more thing to do, I think.”
I nodded an okay, then left the post office and ambled over to the grocery store. I felt a moment of elation when I spotted the new signs in the window announcing that bananas, which I love, were on sale for ten cents a pound, beef chuck roast was forty-nine cents a pound, and—better yet—Banquet frozen dinners were thirty-nine cents each.
So far I’d managed not to make TV dinners more than a couple times, but I figured it never hurt to have them on standby in the freezer. In spite of Thayne’s obvious aversion for them. “Everything tastes like the container,” he said. “And the peas and carrots taste like wax.”
I just rolled my eyes. “Tuna hash tomorrow night then,” I said, to which he rolled his eyes.
Inside the store, Minerva was standing in her usual spot; without a customer to ring up she was grooming her long nails with an emery board.
In spite of her attitude, I said hello. She raised her chin; I grabbed the handle of a shopping cart and then made my way to the back, where the Bishop Sisters—all four of them—were clucking over the price of chicken, which was twenty-nine cents a pound. They stopped their chatter as I approached, all four suddenly beaming toward the pregnant woman as though they were, each of them, the baby’s grandmother.
“Good morning, ladies,” I said. “I suspect your tables will be graced by chicken tonight.” I laughed inwardly at my choice of words and the way I spoke them.
“Mariette,” Carolyn said. “You are just glowing, my dear. Just glowing.” She looked toward her sisters and said, “Isn’t she, sisters?”
Edith Willoughby, who looked as though she’d just stepped from the beautician’s chair, commented, “Oh, how I remember the way it was when I was expecting my Will. I do believe I was healthier than I’ve been at any other time in my life. Not a moment’s trouble, my son. Not then, not now.”
I silently groaned. From what I’d come to learn—mostly from Rowena—Will Willoughby the adult had another well-deserved name, and it was spelled t-r-o-u-b-l-e. He used his Cary Grant good looks on nearly every woman he came into contact with, and it didn’t much matter if they were married or not.
“How is the reverend this morning?” Viola asked. But before I could answer she added, “Oh, I do declare, that was one fine sermon yesterday morning.”
“It surely was,” Leila chimed in. “When Reverend Scott gave me his sermon notes so as I could pick out the music . . . well, I just have to tell you, I got goose bumps.”
I drew my shoulders back with pride. “I’m sure Thayne will be happy to hear this,” I said. To which Mrs. Freeman touched my arm and said, “Oh, honey, you really must remember to refer to him as Reverend Scott when you are speaking to members of his congregation.”
I felt like a scolded child and an angry woman all at the same time, torn as to whether to drop my eyes and say “I’m sorry” or stare the staunch older woman in the eyes and say, “It’s hard for me to refer to a man I’ve seen naked as ‘The Reverend.’” But I simply nodded and said, “I’ll try to remember, Mrs. Freeman. Thank you.”
My good upbringing rose to the occasion, and I thought at least Mama would be proud.
Carolyn, who didn’t seem the least little bit affected by my choice of names for my husband, jumped a little as she said, “Oh, my dear, tell Sisters what you’ve done with the bedroom at Alma’s guesthouse.”
I smiled at her, then at the others, who inched forward as though I were about to tell a ghost story. “Well,” I said. “Obviously, Th—Reverend Scott and I cannot afford to move right now. You know, to get a place big enough for a nursery. So, I have turned part of the master bedroom—well, the only bedroom—into the nursery. It’s no more than a tiny corner in a small bedroom, but . . . well, it will have to do. I decorated with Winnie the Pooh, of course.”
Viola looked at me strangely. “Why, ‘of course’?”
“It’s Pooh’s Corner, Sister,” Carolyn said before I had a chance to clarify.
The ladies all laughed lightly before Viola added, “Well, I for one would love to see it. I declare I would.”
The matriarch of the community had just invited herself to our home, and she didn’t mean later in the day. I tried to remember if I’d washed the breakfast dishes yet or made the bed. No to the first, yes to the second. “Why don’t you finish your shopping,” I said, “and meet me back at the cottage?” I pointed to my shopping cart. “I only have a few items to purchase. I’ll be done here in a jiffy.”
The sisters nodded, agreed to come back to the house with me, and then Carolyn insisted she drive us all in her new dark blue Plymouth Belvedere. We placed our grocery bags in the trunk, everyone found a place to sit (me sitting in the front passenger’s seat), Carolyn turned the key and said, “Road trip, girls! It’s like we’re taking a road trip!”
“Honestly, Carolyn,” Edith said. “What would you know about a road trip?”
“I’d know plenty,” Carolyn said. “Wilbur and I take a vacation every year and you know it.”
“I think I’ll take a vacation,” Leila said. “Osborne left me plenty of money to do with whatever I want to do.”
The car moved smoothly along Main Street toward Railroad Street.
“The good Lord knows Osborne never took you anywhere. Might as well let his money do it now,” Viola said. The way she spoke Mr. Freeman’s name told me in no uncertain terms she’d held him in low regard.
“You can say that again,” Miss Leila said. I turned my head slightly toward her, shocked by her own disdain toward her late husband.
She frowned at me, then said, “I don’t expect you to understand, Mrs. Scott.” At the sound of my name I turned and looked out the windshield. Carolyn turned on Railroad as her sister continued. “I was never loved by my husband the way the reverend loves you.” I took a deep breath, feeling a level of discomfort I wasn’t familiar with. I wasn’t accustomed to older women sharing such intimate details about their marriages. I prayed silently that she’d stop, but she kept going. “Osborne was a mean man,” she continued. “He ran my daughter off in ’53, and I’ve not seen her since.”
I looked over my shoulder again. “Why’d you let him do that?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“Our parents always said, ‘You make your bed and you lie in it.’” She turned to look at Viola and Edith, who sat next to her. “Mama and Papa never liked Osborne, but I wouldn’t listen.”
“No, they did not,” Viola said. “Oh, that was one sad day when you married that scoundrel.”
“But you do have Charles and Treena,” Carolyn said. “Treena may not be living here, but she has called you since Osborne died and she did say she’d think about coming home sometime soon.”
“She didn’t come for Christmas,” Leila said. I heard the deep sadness in her voice, and for the first time, my heart went out to her. I wished there was something I could do to make it better for her, to change the course of her life. But I couldn’t.
“She will for Easter,” Viola said, then reached beside her and patted her sister’s knee. “You just wait and see.”
Carolyn pulled the car into Alma’s driveway, directly behind the De Soto Thayne had washed and hand waxed on Saturday. It gleamed as the mid-morning sunlight reflected on its shiny paint, looking nearly as new as it had the day Daddy and Mama had given me the keys to it. Alma’s car, which was always parked under a little shelter on the side of the house, was missing, for which I was grateful. It was enough that I had these four sisters traipsing into my home with dirty dishes in the sink. I didn’t think I could bear Alma too.
“Come on in,” I said as we all moved toward the door. “I’ll warn you, though; I haven’t had a chance to do the dishes this morning.”
Carolyn said, “Don’t think a thing of it” as Edith said, “I never leave my kitchen dirty.”
I was sure she didn’t.
When we walked into the cottage, I set my single bag of groceries on the table where Thayne and I ate our meals, then pulled the scarf from my head. The sisters pointed to the various changes I’d made to the front room of the cottage and made quiet compliments.
I stepped over to them as they admired the needlework seat cover I’d recently completed for Thayne’s “office” chair. “Such a nice place for the reverend to study,” Viola said, keeping her voice low, as though to be so close to where Thayne studied was tantamount to being in the church.
I looked at them and said, “Let me take you into the bedroom.”
They followed as I led them past the dining table, through the kitchen, and into the bedroom. I’d no sooner started to say, “Here it is,” than I noticed Thayne’s clothes—the ones he’d been wearing earlier—thrown in a heap near the foot of the bed. I said “Oh goodness” just as the bathroom door burst open and Thayne stepped out, wearing nothing more than a towel wrapped around his waist.
I’m not sure who screamed the loudest, Thayne, the Bishop Sisters, or me. There was a flurry of activity as the four older women squealed, turned, and bumped into each other before making it through the door to the kitchen. Thayne doubled over and backed into the bathroom while I threw my hands over my face as if to do so would just make the whole scene go away.
I scurried after the sisters, two of whom were sitting on the sofa laughing while the other two, hands clasped over their mouths, stood at the front door, looking outward. “I am so sorry,” I said, attempting to sound as horrified as I was sure I looked.
Carolyn and Viola—the sitting sisters—spoke simultaneously.
“Well, that was unexpected!”
“It’s a first, that’s for sure.”
The other two stood motionless.
Suddenly, as though taken by some unknown force, I began to laugh. I wrapped my arm around my round belly, then stumbled over to the table and collapsed in a chair. A few minutes later Thayne came out, looking red and sheepish, to explain that he’d spilled coffee all over his clothes at the office and had come home to clean up. Mrs. Freeman and Mrs. Willoughby kept their backs to him, but within a moment or two of hearing his excuse for nearly exposing himself to them, I noticed their shoulders quivering with laughter.
“Oh, come on, sisters,” Carolyn finally said. “We can now say with certainty that this good shepherd has nothing to hide from his flock.”
A line which only left us all laughing until tears fell like rain on parched earth.