The Tie That Binds(51)

And you understand, before this time Edith had never once seen a thing of life beyond the Holt County border? Not a thing, not once. Now the whole of this Rocky Mountain region was hers. She only had to mention an interest, hint that she wanted to see something—”Lyman, how far down do you suppose it is from the Royal Gorge Bridge?”—and they would take off to find out. Lyman himself was ready to go; in the previous twenty years he had grown used to traveling on any impulse. Gasoline was cheap, his Pontiac was new. On an urge, then, usually Edith’s, they would shut the back porch door and leave, see themselves some new sight, and then come back tired but satisfied, and the next day Lyman would hand wax his green car while Edith finished unpacking and fed the chickens and began to listen for the next urge to take her, tell her what it wanted her to see. During that six-year period they must have passed this house at least a thousand times—going places. I’d see them at any time of the day or night, driving, the windows rolled down, the dust rolling up behind them. Lyman would always be at the wheel in his dress shirt and tie, as solemn as if he was going to trial. Beside him would be his sister, Edith Goodnough in a pale lavender or blue dress, waving at me like a girl as she passed my house on the way out.

But I don’t suppose they were off traveling all that time, because they also began to fix up that old frame house, which their father had constructed by himself with wagon-hauled lumber from town before either one of them was born. He had kept the house up all along but had never seen any reason to do much extra; it was tight and kept out the wind, which was what he required. To do more would have been too much. So sometime in there Edith and Lyman painted it a bright canary yellow and had the Wilky brothers from west of town give it a new shingle roof. Inside, they bought some new carpet for the downstairs living-room and parlor floors. They had me over to see the carpet.

I admired it, then Lyman brought me back to the kitchen. “Look there,” he said. “What do you make of that thing?”

“Looks like a Kelvinator dishwasher to me,” I said. “But what do I know? Maybe it’s a new form of TV.”

“Watch this.”

“Oh, now, Lyman,” Edith said. “Sandy doesn’t have time for this too.” She swatted at him.

“Course he does,” Lyman said.

“Course I do,” I said.

And I did. We sat down at the kitchen table and drank soda pop while their new dishwasher worked through the entire soap and rinse cycles.

“There. That click means it’s done,” Lyman said. “Now won’t she get lazy with that thing in the house?”

“Lazy as a hog,” I said.

“Never you mind,” Edith said. “Either one of you. Who knows—I might take a notion to get fat too. Then what will you say?”

“Nothing. Good,” I said.

Together they were having such a hell of a fine time of it. It was fun to watch them.

SO IN THE SUMMER of 1963 I got married. Or, to be more accurate, I should say Mavis Pickett decided she was not going to wait any longer.

“Aren’t we ever going to be married?” she said.

“Sure,” I said. “I was just waiting for you to pop the question.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, it is not.”

It was about two o’clock in the morning and we were driving north out of town towards her folks’ place after the annual Fireman’s Ball at the Holt Legion. I was about half drunk, feeling pretty good, but Mavis Pickett wasn’t either of those things. She was stone-cold serious. We had been going out together for at least two years, off and on, and in her view of things our going out to dances and to movies and local parties had not led us anywhere. She was twenty-nine years old. She wanted to be married.

Which is all right, of course. Only I’m still not sure why it was me she chose to be the beneficiary of that. It’s enough to give me pause even now. I wasn’t what you might call a great catch. I was thirty-five. This gut you see here was already beginning to polish my belt buckle. I had knocked around, drunk too much, worked too little, developed bachelor habits. I was never going to be one of your sandhill millionaire successes: I didn’t have the ambition for it. No, if I was ever going to amount to a decent hill of beans or just a load of dung out of the ordinary, then I should have begun to show some sign of it by then. And I hadn’t. So I don’t know what she saw in me. Maybe it was the challenge. At the time Mavis was working as an L.P.N, at the hospital, and she was used to dealing with cold feet and lost causes. On the other hand, I had good reason to believe she loved me. I’m pretty sure she still does. Probably that clouded her view.

But when a woman like Mavis Pickett loves you, says in so many words that you’re her form of It, who are you to argue? You’re a damn fool if you do. I wasn’t that much of a fool. She was level-headed and good-looking at the same time. That’s an unusual combination. She had thick blond hair and green eyes, and when she was crossed she could run the strong stuff out of your backbone like it was so much water; she didn’t appreciate nonsense. We’ve had plenty of good times in thirteen years together. We’ve managed to survive the bad times. If she wasn’t in town right now waiting for me to come in a couple of hours to pick her up so we can visit the hospital again, she would no doubt tell you that I’m too bullheaded, that sometimes I lock gates that should be left open. I don’t think logically, she would say. On my side, I might wish occasionally that she had a sense of humor—but it’s worked out. For both of us.