"I know all about her. My father talked about it enough."
"And so you know how I toxically lost her. My cousin graciously named her new baby after my lost daughter. Celeste, but we like to make a distinction for now. It's less painful. Memories can be like thorns in your heart," Mama said, moving closer to Betsy. "I'm sure you have painful memories of your brother, after the tragic loss you and your father suffered. It's not something to be ashamed of, but it's something you don't want to experience constantly, now do you?" Mama was inches away from Betsy now, hovering as if she could make that happen. make Betsy suffer constantly.
Betsy's anger and hardness softened under Mama's gaze. For the first time, I saw a glint of fear in her. She retreated a step.
"I'm not that hungry," she declared, seized a piece of bread, and charged out of the room. We heard her go outside soon afterward.
"Old habits die hard," Mama told me, looking in her direction. "She'll come around or be in even more pain than she is now."
I said nothing, afraid that whatever I said. Mama would take it wrong. Instead. I did what I had proposed I would. I went into the woods and began to cut firewood. Betsy watched me from the porch and then went into the house. Soon after she managed to get her new boyfriend to come out and pick her up. She didn't tell Mama he was coming or that she was leaving either. Later, she returned with her father, went directly to her room, and then emerged to go out on another date with her boyfriend. She came home earlier, but made just as much noise. This time, her father ignored it. I imagined Mama told him to do
The following day, because he was not working, Mr. Fletcher took Betsy shopping. He asked me if I wanted to go along. For a moment I was tempted to do so, but I glanced at Mama and then quickly shook my head and thanked him.
"What. Noble leave his precious plants and farm chores?" Betsy taunted. "He wouldn't know what to say to people unless they had leaves for ears and roots for leas."
I didn't defend myself. I wouldn't give her the satisfaction. She smirked and said she wasn't that keen about going shopping either. She didn't really want to buy anything nice to wear to the wedding ceremony and dinner, but Mr. Fletcher bribed her, promising her the use of his car the day after the wedding. Once we had all seen what she bought to wear, we realized he would have been better off if he hadn't.
"Make an effort. Betsy, please, for all our sakes," he cajoled.
I hated to hear a grown man beg his own daughter like that. Maybe if he had been firmer with her, things would have turned out better. Among the antiques in the turret room was a wooden plaque. Mama told me her great-grandfather once had it hanging on the wall in the hallway. It read. Spare the rod and spoil the child. She said her grandfather had bad memories of his father's harsh punishments, and once his father had died, he took the plaque off the wall and dumped it in the turret room. Mama wondered now if she shouldn't have nailed it to one of the walls in Betsy's room.
We didn't find out until the day of the wedding what Betsy had bought to wear. She wouldn't let her father see it either. He just gave her his credit card to use and she had it all in a box when she met him in the mall parking lot. The moment I set eyes on her. I knew she had chosen it for its shock value.
Twenty minutes before the wedding ceremony was to begin, she came downstairs wearing a navelbaring, stretch-jersey black dress with a skirt that was a good two inches above her knees. The material was so tight to her bosom that little was left to the imagination. She might as well have come out barebreasted.
She had her hair pinned up and had enough makeup on her face to supply the entire cast of a Broadway musical, At least, that was what Mr. Fletcher told her. Her eyeliner was too thick, for sure. and with the heavy layers of bright red lipstick on her lips, she looked like a vampire who had just had a feeding.
Mama would not let her get the satisfaction of seeing her outrage. She flashed her a smile, then gave all her attention to our wedding guests, the most important ones for Mama being Mr. Bogart and his wife, as well as our attorney, Mr. Derward Lee Nokleby-Cook, and his wife, who was looking everywhere and at everything with a devouring hunger and interest. She had surely given herself the assignment of bringing back as much detail as possible to her friends about this wedding. Everyone was full of curiosity.
We knew that because Mr. Fletcher had come home with stories he was told in the drugstore. "They think were getting married in some sort of weird ritual. Some people have pretty wild imaginations."
"What sort of things are they saying?" Mama asked.
"Oh, just ignorant, stupid things," he replied, obviously not wanting to describe them.
"Some of the people I met think you're going to sacrifice a goat first and then smear the blood on your facts," Betsy eagerly told Mama.
Her father gave her a chastising look, but Betsy shrugged. "I can't help it if that's what they think," she whined. "Don't blame me."
"I'm amazed they found out," Mama said with a straight face.
"Excuse me?"
"The goat is being delivered in the morning." Then Mama looked at Mr. Fletcher and they both laughed.
"Go on, make fun, if you like," Betsy said angrily. "but that's the sort of thing people out there believe about you. And now they'll believe it about you, too," she told her father before storming out.
"Won't they all be disappointed?" Mama said, shaking her head.
They would have been. Nothing about the marriage ceremony was radical or unusual. No one wore a bizarre costume. The Reverend Mr. Austin came dressed in a dark blue suit, and his wife. Tani, wore a pretty, red, sleeveless dress. Joining them was the accordion player. Bob Longo, a stout, dark-haired man who looked as if had borrowed his sports jacket from someone a good two sizes bigger and had black hair growing wildly down the back of his neck and curling at the ends.
The rest of the wedding party included the two managers from Mr Fletcher's drugstore and their wives: another pharmacist. Larry Schwartz, and his wife. Joan: and the real estate agent who had sold the Fletchers' house. Judith Lilleton, and her husband.
A minute or so before the ceremony was to begin. Betsy's new boyfriend. Dirk Snyder, whipped his car into our driveway, throwing up a cloud of dust. He came barreling to a stop and leaped out as if he thought the car might explode under him. He was dark-haired, slim, with a pair of close-together brown eyes and a thin, crooked mouth that looked sliced across his face with a bent hacksaw. An unlit cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth, and his sports jacket was tossed over his shoulder. He hurriedly put it on as he walked toward us. Betsy went out to greet him and whispered something i
n his ear that made them both roar with laughter. I thought I saw him slip her a pill.
I gazed at Mr. Fletcher. He had his head down, standing by the minister, waiting for Mama to come out of the house. All eyes were on Betsy and her boyfriend as they took their places. Mr. Longo began to play "Here Comes the Bride" and everyone turned to look at the front door of the house. ~where Mama emerged, holding Baby Celeste's hand. I could hear people gasp with delight and amazement.