Fathers by Steven Henry

Author:Steven Henry
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-943383-82-5
Publisher: Clickworks Press

21

I hadn’t exactly been looking forward to giving Anne Reynolds the big news. The problem I was facing was, when a guy gets engaged to an 18-year-old girl, everyone’s going to assume they know why, and the reason is pregnancy. The thing was, we hadn’t slept together, but we were the only ones who knew that. I didn’t know what Anne would think, but I was nervous about having the conversation.

Beth, as I should have guessed, went home Christmas Day and showed her mom the ring straight away. The next time I went out to see Beth, on the evening of the 28th, Anne asked me in. I sat down in that dim living room with its hideous green shag carpet and medicinal smell, clenching my hands between my knees to keep them from trembling. Beth stood next to my chair and squeezed my shoulder supportively, but didn’t say anything.

“I understand you have proposed to my daughter, Joseph,” she said. It was impossible to read the tone of her voice.

“That’s right, ma’am,” I said.

There was a pause long enough for me to consider possible escape routes.

“I am very glad to hear it,” she said, just as I was beginning to really squirm. “Mary Elizabeth is very fond of you. You strike me as a fine man. And you understand, I hope, that marriage is much more than an act of love.”

“I beg your pardon?” I said.

“Marriage is a discipline, Joseph,” she said severely, her ravaged face lending her words a grimness I found very disconcerting. “Like many of our duties in life, when it is pleasant, it is easy. But there will be times when it is very hard to bear. Mary Elizabeth tells me your father lived in thrall to the bottle.”

“That’s true,” I said. “But I’m not him. I hardly ever touch the stuff.”

“Your mother knew of his condition,” Anne continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “She endured in faithfulness, though it must have pained her greatly.”

I nodded, remembering the lines in Mom’s face, the shadows under her eyes.

“Mary Elizabeth is young, Joseph, and I daresay she is pleasing to your eye. She loves you and marriage must seem a very easy thing to you. Will you have the fortitude to support her in all things? Are you prepared to stand by her through all tribulations?”

“I am,” I said with more firmness than I honestly felt. I was a little irritated by her relentlessness.

Her scarred lips curved into the closest thing she could manage to a smile. “Then I am very happy for you, Joseph, and for Mary Elizabeth as well. I bless your union.”

Beth must have gotten her tendency to constantly test her loved ones handed down straight from her mother. Like Beth, once the test was passed, Anne was pleasant, even affectionate. She went straight into talking about wedding plans.

It wouldn’t be a big, fancy wedding. For one thing, neither family could afford an overblown bash. For another, we didn’t have huge numbers of family and friends to invite.

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