An American Marriage(6)

“Keep it,” Celestial said, like she hadn’t been working on this doll for three months. “I can make another one for the mayor.”

Now it was Olive’s turn to stir the ions.

“Oh, the mayor. Well, excuse me!” She handed me the doll. “Put it back in your car before I get it dirty. I don’t want you sending me a bill for ten thousand dollars.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Celestial looked at me in apology.

“Mama,” I said.

“Olive,” Big Roy said.

“Mrs. Hamilton,” Celestial said.

“It’s dinnertime,” my mother said. “I hope y’all still eat candy yams and mustard greens.”

We ate dinner, not in silence, but nobody talked about anything. Olive was so angry that she messed up the iced tea. I took a deep sip, expecting the soft finish of cane sugar, and choked on the hot taste of kosher salt. Shortly after that, my high school diploma fell off the wall, and a crack starred across the glass. Signs? Maybe. But I wasn’t thinking about missives from above. I was too distracted by being accidentally caught between two women I treasured beyond question. It’s not that I don’t know how to handle myself when I’m in a situation. Every man knows what it is to spread himself around. But with my mother and Celestial, I was actually split down the middle. Olive brought me into this world and trained me up to be the man I recognized as myself. But Celestial was the portal to the rest of my life, the shiny door to the next level.

Dessert was sock-it-to-me cake, my favorite, but the tussle with that ten-thousand-dollar doll stole my appetite. Nevertheless, I pushed my way through two cinnamon-swirled helpings because everybody knows the way to make a bad matter worse with a southern woman is to refuse her food. So I ate like a refugee and so did Celestial, even though we both had pledged to stay away from processed sugar.

Once we cleared the table, Big Roy said, “Ready to bring your bags in?”

“No, Big Man,” I said, my voice light. “I got us a room in the Piney Woods.”

“You would rather stay in that dump than your own home?” Olive said.

“I want to take Celestial back to the first beginning.”

“You don’t have to stay there to do that.”

But the truth was that I did. It was a story that needed telling away from my parents’ revisionist tendencies. After a year of marriage, she deserved to know who she was married to.

“Was this your idea?” my mother asked Celestial.

“No, ma’am. I’m happy to stay here.”

“This is all me,” I said, although Celestial was glad we were staying in the hotel. She said she never felt right about us sleeping together under either of our parents’ roofs even though we were lawfully wedded, et cetera. Last time we were here she put on a Little House on the Prairie nightgown, although usually she slept au naturel.

“But I made up the room,” Olive said, reaching suddenly for Celestial. The women looked at each other in a way that a man never looks at another man. For a beat, they were alone together in the house.

“Roy.” Celestial turned to me, strangely frightened. “What do you think?”

“We’ll be back in the morning, Mama,” I said, kissing her. “Biscuits and honey.”

How long did it take for us to leave my mother’s home? Maybe it’s the looking-back talking, but everyone except me seemed to have stones in their pockets. As we made our way through the door at last, my father handed Celestial the shrouded doll. He carried it awkwardly, like he couldn’t decide if it was an object or a living thing.

“Give him some air,” my mother said, pulling back the blanket, and the sinking orange sun lit up the halo.

“You can have it,” Celestial said. “For real.”

“That one is for the mayor,” Olive said. “You can make me another one.”

“Or better yet, the real thing,” Big Roy said, tracing an invisible pregnant belly with his big hands. His laughter broke whatever sticky spell bound us to the house, and we were able to leave.

Celestial thawed as soon as we climbed into the car. Whatever bad mojo or heebie-jeebies were bothering her vanished once we were back on the highway. She undid the French braids over her ears, nesting her head between her knees, busy unraveling and fluffing. When she sat up, she was herself again, riot of hair and wicked smile. “Oh my Lord, that was awkward,” she said.

“Word,” I agreed. “I don’t know what that was all about.”

“Babies,” she said. “I believe that the desire for grandchildren makes even sane parents go left.”

“Not your parents,” I said, thinking of her folks, cool as icebox pie.

“Oh yes, mine, too,” she said. “They keep it in check in front of you. All of them need to go to therapy.”

“But we’re trying for kids,” I said. “What difference does it make if they want kids, too? Isn’t it good to have something in common?”

On our way to the hotel, I pulled over on the side of the road right before we crossed a suspension bridge that was out of scale with what maps called the Aldridge River but was basically a hearty stream.

“What do you have on your feet?”

“Wedges,” she said, frowning.