The Tie That Binds(52)

At any rate, Mavis got us married toward the end of July 1963. I didn’t put up much opposition. I didn’t even argue a lot when she insisted that I had to do the proper thing, that I come to Sunday dinner and ask her father, old Raymond Pickett, whether he had objections. All I said was: “How about if I wrote him a postcard?”

“You’re coming to dinner,” she said.

“What if I called him on the phone?”

“No. You will be there at one o’clock. After we get home from church.”

“I’m not going to church. I don’t believe in it.”

“All right. But you will be there for dinner. And you will ask him face-to-face like you’re supposed to.”

“What if he wants to know what my intentions are?”

“Make something up. You’re good at that.”

“Well, Jesus,” I said. “You’re a hard woman.”

“Yes, and you can stop cussing. It’ll be all right. It’ll be just fine.”

“Like hell,” I said.

“You’ll see,” she said.

Mavis was a little old-fashioned that way. She still is. She has a firm idea of how things are meant to be and she usually sees to it that they turn out the way they’re meant to. They certainly did that Sunday afternoon, cooked chicken and all. I put on a white shirt at twelve o’clock and knotted a tie under my chin, then I drove north through Holt’s church traffic and on another eight miles to the Pickett place, where at a heavy oak table supported by a massive pedestal I ate fried chicken and refrained from sucking the grease off my fingers. It was one of those long quiet awkward dinners. Mavis and her mother talked above the platters of food and fine china while her father and I allowed that it was about normal weather for the time of year. Afterwards, according to plan, the womenfolks cleared the table and Raymond Pickett and I removed ourselves to the parlor. We sat down opposite one another.

After a time I said to him, “I suppose you know what I’m doing here.”

“I see you got your tie on,” he said. “I figured there was some reason for it.”

“There is.”

“More than just to eat Mavis’s chicken dinner, you mean.”

You understand the old son of a gun, that old wheat farmer, wasn’t going to help me any. He was enjoying himself; it was better than a Sunday afternoon nap. Usually he was the sober type, steady and humorless as a corner fence post, but now with a straight face he was playing me like a calf.

“That,” I said. “And also to see what you thought of Mavis and me getting married.”

“Tell the truth,” he said, “I haven’t given it much thought.”

“Mavis has,” I said.

“Has she now?”

“Yes. Considerable.”

“And what does she think about it?”

“She’s in favor of it.”

“But you ain’t said nothing about yourself yet. Most times I believe it takes two to get married.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” I said.

“Well, now,” he said, looking at me. “Well, now. She’s in favor and you say you don’t mind. I guess that’ll have to do, won’t it?”

He kept looking at me. He had the usual white forehead and burnt cheeks and neck that all farmers have, but I could see where Mavis got her eyes. Finally he bent down over his knees and began to untie the laces in his town shoes.

“I don’t like these tie-up shoes,” he said. “Always make my feet hurt. The missus says that’s so I’ll keep awake in church. Most times she’s right too.”

He didn’t take his shoes off—I was still company as yet—but merely loosened the laces good, then he sat up straight again and in his own time blew his nose thoroughly, one nostril then the other, loud, and put the handkerchief back in his hip pocket.

“I don’t know whether you know it, Sanders,” he said, “but I was well acquainted with your father. I used to see him at farm sales. He was a good man, your father was. I don’t know your mother.”

“No,” I said. “She doesn’t go to farm sales.”

“I suppose not,” he said. “Well, now. About this marriage business—it sounds like Mavis has her mind all made up.”

I nodded.

“She’s like that. So I don’t see where it would do me much good to object even if I wanted to. Can you?”

“No.”

“I thought as much. Well, it’s nice having girls in the house. I believe I’ll miss that.”

That was all he said. We talked about wheat prices and farm futures afterwards. Then the women came into the parlor with us, and after a while Mavis and I excused ourselves and went outside to walk along the windbreak planted westerly towards a slight hill.

“Well?” she said.

“Well what?” I said.

“What’d he say?”

“Weren’t you listening from the kitchen?”

“Yes, but I want you to tell me.”

“Well. He said I was a damn fool to want to marry any daughter of his. You’re too hardhearted, he said. Then he asked me if I had any intentions to speak of.”

“He did not.”

“Sure he did. ‘What are your intentions?’ he said. Go and ask him.”