"Mother," Aura Lee said.
Her brother Ray, Bill's father, touched her shoulder. At the kitchen door, his wife Marty was making "keep the lid on" gestures behind Vera's back. She and Ray did, after all, have to live with Vera on a day-to-day basis. The rest of the family-with the exception of Willie Ray, of course-could pick and choose how often they came out to the farm.
"For that matter, where's Joe?" Vera was momentarily distracted.
"At the fire department, of course. I told you last week that he had pulled volunteer duty shift this afternoon. Most of his VFD shifts fall on holidays now that he holds the exalted title of Secretary of Transportation of the State of Thuringia-Franconia." Aura Lee seemed to find it very interesting that she was wearing gloves, which she would need to pull off one finger at a time. "And that Billy Lee would be going with him. He's a cadet there now that he's sixteen. With Eric in Erfurt, it's just Juliann and Dana of the kids today. Besides Bill, of course."
She didn't add that her thirteen-year-old Juliann hadn't really wanted to come. Or that Ray and Marty's Dana hadn't really wanted to come, either, if Missy wasn't going to be there. Those two cousins were the same age. "Juliann and I need to leave early. We're meeting Joe and Billy Lee at Eden's for supper."
"Making an extra trip for Ray, I suppose." Vera went back to her original grievance. "You should have put your foot down and told Missy to come, Debbie."
Chad Jenkins cleared his throat. "Mom went to Wes and Clara's too. So she's having dinner with one of her grandmothers."
That earned him a withering glare.
Debbie clenched her jaws and with her right thumb and middle finger, twisted her wedding and first anniversary rings back and forth on her ring finger, knowing her mother would notice it.
Chad put his arm around her. She looked perfectly calm, but he could feel the tension in her shoulders. "Vera," he said. "We could go to Wes and Clara's too. It's not too late. They aren't eating until two o'clock. Ray could drive us back into town."
"Vera," said her husband Willie Ray. "Let it be. This time, let it be."
"It's too bad that Bryant had to work today," Eleanor Jenkins said. "It seems that he hardly ever comes to family occasions."
Lenore, Chandra, and Clara all looked at one another.
"Perhaps some other time," Lenore said.
Missy had an uneasy feeling that this was not the best thing to be talking about. She knew that Bryant was under observation in connection with the demonstration at the hospital, but she hadn't learned it from them. Ron had it from Cory Joe, and that was so she would know what to say in case anything about Bryant came up during her and Pam's conversations with Veda Mae and Dumais.
Distraction, distraction, my kingdom for a good distraction.
"Gran," she said. "I was looking at your picture wall the other day. Why isn't Mom and Dad's wedding photo there?"
"Because they didn't have one," Eleanor Jenkins said rather shortly.
Uncle Wes winked from across the table. "Actually," he said, "they did. I'm sure that Debbie still has it somewhere. But it was a polaroid. If it had been up on the wall all these years, exposed to daylight, it would long since have faded away. Maybe you could have her get it out and make a sketch from it, Lenore. That would last a lot longer."
Missy looked at him. "There has to be a story in this somewhere. One that nobody ever bothered to tell Chip and me."
"I was down in Charleston, then," Wes said. "I'd been working there ever since I graduated from WVU. Chad called me and asked whether, if they came, Lena and I would put them up while they waited out getting the license and all. I told him that I could do better than that. I knew people around the courthouse by then. If they gave me a date, I'd have the judge prepped to waive the waiting period for good cause, so they could get it all done in one day. That's what they did. Drove down Friday, starting the first thing in the morning, the day after Christmas. Got the license. Married in the judge's chambers with Lena and me as attendants. The judge's secretary took the polaroid of the five of us. That was always his present to couples he married."
"They didn't even have the courtesy to call and tell us that they had done it," Gran said. Missy thought that her voice was the embodiment of "miffed."
" I called and told you," Wes pointed out.
"That's not quite the same thing."
"I called and told Willie Ray and Vera. I even called and told Bruce and Lily Jefferson. For that, I should have received a decoration for 'heroism above and beyond the call of duty.' "
Missy had a suspicion that there was more to this story than Uncle Wes was sharing with her.
From the expressions on Lenore and Chandra's faces, they had the same thought.
All three of them looked at their grandmother.
"I'm not going to tell you," she said. "If Wes wants to, he can, as far as I'm concerned. Keeping in mind that it will be from his perspective, of course."
Clara nodded, encouraging him to go on.
"Bruce and Lily, Don Jefferson's parents," Wes said. "Ever since he was killed, they had been trying to suck the life out of Debbie. Acting like vampires, trying to turn her into a white marble statue on his tombstone, labeled 'The Tragic Young Widow.' A perpetual monument to a dead boy. Willie Ray fought them; got her back into school. Backed her on going for a teaching certificate. But they weren't giving up." He frowned. "Vera and Lily were best friends. Vera sort of agreed with her. I'm pretty sure that for eight years, Debbie never went out on a date. It wouldn't have been worth the grief they would have given her."
Wes' frown was suddenly replaced by a wicked grin. "I don't know exactly what Chad did to persuade her that he was worth the grief they were undoubtedly going to give her. He wasn't quite that confiding in his big brother. But I beg leave to doubt the official explanation he made at the time, which was that the big bad spider enticed the dainty little fly into his web by offering to let her look at exploded diagrams of the brand new 1981 model year engines in place of the traditional etchings. They did not have the hypnotic effect of the up-to-date WVU Economics Department bibliography of readings on international trade policy I would have used in the same situation. But…"
"Dad!" Lenore said.
Her father wrinkled his nose at her. "Whatever it was, it worked and you now have an Aunt Debbie."
"In any case," Wes went on, "Let me figure. He graduated from WVU in December 1979, a semester early, and came back to Grantville to manage the garage after Dad's stroke. It was just before Labor Day in 1980 that he called to say that Debbie had agreed to marry him. That's the way he put it. Not that they were engaged. You've probably noticed that she doesn't have a traditional engagement ring. Don's parents made it very plain that she would offend them grievously by wearing one and Vera didn't think it would be 'appropriate' when Debbie had removed Don's rings so very recently."
"Look," Missy said. "I've always known that Nani didn't like Dad, but this is simply off the wall. Where did Mom get the ring she wears?"
"Chad got it for their first anniversary," Eleanor said. "Amethyst for her birth stone surrounded with opals for his. A wraparound for the wedding ring. Considering that he was salting away most of his money to be ready to buy the dealership when Lou Prickett got to the point he had to give it up, it was providential that both of them had stones that were reasonably affordable. Chad didn't have a lot of spare cash at the time."
Wes nodded. "The way Bruce and Lily, and Vera for that matter, reacted was more than a little 'off the wall,' to use your phrase. Sure, he was younger than Debbie, but not all that much. Three and a half years. Three years and eight months, to be exact. They went on about it as if it was a lot more. Debbie was a kid the first time she got married.