“What are the little sheds for?” I asked, my curiosity peaking. As we drove along the washboard dirt road leading to Stewartville, I had been studying the infrequent ill-kept houses dotting the roadside. Invariably, there was a miniature, weathered, gray shed somewhere located between the houses, barns and wood sheds on most properties.
“You really don’t know, Sonya?” my husband asked me. His blue eyes sparkled with enjoyment like sunlight on Caribbean waters.
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking,” I stated flatly.
Wavell chuckled as he glanced from his driving to observe my reaction.
“Oh, my poor little rich city girl,” he said gently. “Those are outhouses.”
“You’re joking!” I gasped in horror.
“I’m afraid not, dear.” The familiar laugh lines etching the corners of his eyes deepened. He was relishing my shock a little too much. “Indoor facilities aren’t exactly abundant in these parts. Most people can’t afford them.”
“You mean you actually grew up using one of those?” I sputtered in disbelief.
My husband nodded his blonde head.
“Nasty affairs, those things— malodorous in the summer and desperately frigid in the winter. I told you, though it’s 1965 it might as well be decades earlier in the time-warped little village I grew up in.”
As our black Chrysler New Yorker had traversed each province eastward from Alberta, my loving husband had forewarned me that I was in for the cultural shock of my sweet, sheltered life. My father was a lawyer who owned his own firm. As a child, I had wanted for nothing. I knew Wavell had grown up in vastly different economic circumstances than I, and he had worked very diligently to get where he was today. My husband had shared little with me about his childhood other than that he had argued with his parents when his father insisted he quit school at fifteen to go to work with him in the lumber mill in Boiestown. Feeling he had no option, Wavell had “escaped”—his words, not mine—by sticking out his thumb and heading west; not stopping until he viewed the grandeur of the foothills of the Rockies. In the west, he had worked during the day and gone to school at night, distracted from his goals by nothing, until he obtained his Grade 12 diploma; then he reversed the pattern, going to university in the day and working at night to pay tuition and living expenses. We met when Wavell joined the faculty of the college where I taught. We married a year later. That was ten years ago and since that time, Wavell had only made one pilgrimage back east, without me, when his brother, Hartley, had been accidentally killed in the woods at the age of eighteen last year, leaving behind a wife and a one-year-old daughter.
I sat in austere silence contemplating the prospect of being enthroned in some spider infested outhouse to do my constitutionals. I wonder if I can hold until we leave this place and reach civilization once again, I ruminated as the car began the precipitous assent up a series of graduated hills into the village. A few moments later our vehicle halted along the roadside in front of yet another weathered, grey shingled two-story house with a tar papered porch on the front.
“Any more surprises in store?” I asked, wrinkling my powdered nose at my husband.
“Oh, I’m sure there will be many, dear,” Wavell smirked. “Just keep telling yourself it’s only for a few days.”
A black and tan, long-haired mongrel lumbered from beneath an oak tree to woof gutturally and lazily circle our New Yorker.
“It’s OK,” Wavell assured me. “He’s too old to have any teeth left.”
As we dragged out knotted bodies out of the car, the mangy animal padded over to my husband, wagging its tail more enthusiastically and barking gleefully.
“Perk! You old son of a gun! You still alive?” Wavell said as he crouched down to embrace the dog, which greeted him with an equal amount of passion.
“Wavell, you’re getting dog hair all over your suit!” I cried in dismay.
“This is my dog, Perk, Sonya. He was only two when I left. Broke my heart to have to leave him behind. He’d be…nineteen now.”
The porch door burst open and a tall stick of a man dashed out waving his hand frenetically, followed closely by a girl, a plump little woman and a young mother carrying a toddler, each voicing various greetings to Wavell. As he stood up to meet them, the ancient dog cavorted around him like an exuberant puppy. The woman pushed past the man, her opulent arms out-stretched,
“Son, son!” she exclaimed, as she rushed at my husband and enfolded him in her doughy limbs. He disappeared beneath the mounds of flesh.
The stickman stepped awkwardly toward me, his scrawny hand extended. I noted my husband’s handsome features in this old leathery face.
“And you must be Sonya!” he drawled.
He pumped my outstretched hand gently, shyly.
“I’m Truman, Wavell’s dad and that’s what you’re to call me too—Dad. This here’s our youngest, Mary Gail.” He indicated the youngest girl—a blonde wisp of thing who I estimated would be about eleven or twelve. “And this here’s Hartley’s widow, Rhoda, and their daughter, Niesha.”
Mary Gail smiled bashfully from a distance while Rhoda came to embrace me, sandwiching the squirming toddler between us. I watched over her shoulder as Wavell’s mother continued to clutch my husband to her enormous bosom, eventually releasing him to give her attention to me.
“Mum, this is my wife, Sonya,” Wavell said, presenting me to his mother.
“Well, well, our son’s wife, the college professor!” she exclaimed, measuring me with a concise, penetrating gaze.
Even in my favourite tailored outfit, I felt inadequate before this round little woman wearing a fade print shift accessorized with a ragged cotton apron. Ignoring my out-stretched hand she squeezed me to herself in a clench so hearty and prolonged, I felt certain my ribs were cracking.
“It’s so good to finally meet you, dear! Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?” she demanded, swiveling back to Wavell.
“I didn’t want you going to all the fuss I knew you’d make if I did,” Wavell replied winking at his mother. “And I, we, wanted to surprise you.”
“Well, the surprise is on you!” Her sun-browned face fractured into a delighted smile. “Mary Gail is getting married tomorrow and you’ll be here for the wedding!”
I looked about in confusion.
“But isn’t that little girl Mary Gail?” I asked, my mouth agog in astonishment. As the words left my lips, I saw my husband giving me the aborted side to side spasm of his head that cautioned, “No! Don’t go there! Leave it alone!”
“Oh, she’s not a little girl. She’s just turned thirteen last week! And one of them Calhoun boys from up river has been sniffing around here for awhile—Cleve Calhoun. Finally, he popped the question and she said “yes” so Pup and me said we’d sign the papers if she was sure that was what she wanted. Mary Gail and Cleve go over to the minister tomorrow and then we will have a reception back here at the house. Rhoda and me’ve been cooking all week. I even made your favorite, Wavell—peanut butter balls—must of known you was coming, son! Now, that’s enough yakking out here in the dooryard. Let’s go in the house and get acquainted. Never mind the mess. Like I said, I’ve been cooking all week. I’ll get it all cleaned up before the do tomorrow.” With that, she turned with a flounce and headed for the house. We all followed in her wake like a bunch of rowboats behind the Queen Mary.
Wavell was right about the cultural shock of my life. I felt as disoriented and off balance as Dorothy waking up in Oz! As if the outhouse wasn’t sufficient, I provided the pre-dinner entertainment for the entire household when I tried to operate the antiquated crank phone to call home to inform my parents we had arrived safely. Besides that, I had to summon the courage to try the supper of moose meat, potatoes and something called “fiddleheads”. It was palatable, even appetizing, until, Mary Gail, who was seated at my left elbow, oozed molasses all over everything on her plate!
“Don’t mind her,” Wavell’s mother advised to me. “She put molasses on everything she eats, from eggs to oatmeal!”
“Don’t put it on ice cream!” Mary Gail protested. “It gets too thick and gummy!” She shivered in revulsion as my gastrointestinal track did a half-gainer.
“And how often do we get ice cream in this house?” her mother asked her.
That evening we spent sitting in wooden kitchen chairs crowded around a black and white floor model TV in the corner of the sitting room where all the females were press-ganged into making “carnations” out of white and pink Kleenex. A TV in a house where they have to traipse out to the porch to pump drinking water and to an outhouse to relieve themselves, I scoffed inwardly as I fan-folded what seemed like my hundredth Kleenex and tied off the centre with a piece of string before separating the layers of tissue as Wavell’s mother had demonstrated.
“No, dear. Part them gently like this,” she had instructed patiently after I shredded my second carnation.
I watched blearily as her stubby fingers separated the layers of tissue, exhibiting a level of dexterity my own digits did not possess. Finally, thankfully, Wavell and I retired to his parent’s cramped bedroom on the main floor and the other five occupants of the house trudged up the steps to the two beds in a common room upstairs. When I protested about taking their bed, Wavell’s mother stymied me with, “Nonsense! Pup and I will take one bed. Mary Gail, Niesha and Rhoda will share the other. We won’t even have to do all girls in one and all boys in the other, the way we did when the kids was all home!”
After the last footsteps sounded on the stairs and the sliver of light disappeared from beneath the bedroom door, I rolled over on the lumpy mattress toward Wavell. Somewhere outside, not far from the open bedroom window, a cricket emitted rusty chirps.
“Surely, you don’t intend to let your thirteen-year-old sister get married tomorrow?” I whispered toward the silhouette of my husband’s face outlined by moonlight.
“Well, if that’s what she wants and if that’s what Mum and Pup believe is best…”
“You’re joking!” I rasped in surprise. “She’d be a child bride!”
“No, Sonya, I’m not joking. You don’t understand the way things are here. Mum was fourteen when she married Pup. They’ve been happy together for years. My sister, Flora, married at fourteen too. My other sister, Liddy, was thirteen.” My husband’s voice held the steely edge it got on rare occasions when his opinion deviated from mine and when he intended to stand his ground.
“But she’s just a child, for Pete’s sake, Wavell,” I persisted. “You need to have a conversation with your father and have him call a cease to this!”
“Having a conversation with Dad wouldn’t alter a thing,” he insisted.
“Then talk to your mother!”
“Mum’s not going to change her mind either. Their permission has already been given. They won’t go back on their word now.”
“You can’t let that little girl get married as a point of pride. You’ve got to talk to her!” I persisted.
“It won’t change a thing. It will only generate hard feelings. Heaven only knows when or if I will see my folks again after this trip, I’m not going to spend it quarreling with them. It’s been a long journey and I’m exhausted. Let’s get some sleep.”
The bed creaked loudly as Wavell turned his back to me. He was soon snoring softly. I lay awake watching the boney shadows of tree branches sway to and fro on the wall, pondering the mistake that would be made if Mary Gail’s future was curtailed by such an early marriage. Eventually I, too, slipped into the irresistible abyss of sleep.
I didn’t hear a thing the next morning until Wavell poked his head inside the bedroom door and called, “Sonya, Sonya.”
“What time is it?” I enquired, stretching, looking around and coming to the disconcerting realization I wasn’t in my own bedroom when I saw the battered painted dresser cluttered with framed photographs and the picture of Jesus with a far away look in his eyes on the wall.
“It’s nearly nine. The pigs and chickens have been fed and the coop and sty cleaned. Everyone is waiting on you for breakfast.”
“Oh!” I jumped out of bed and slipped into my robe; half annoyed at myself for sleeping so late. “I guess the country air really knocked me out! I’ll just go to the bathroom then I’ll be right with you,” I said, wrinkling my nose as I remembered the “bathroom” was out behind the house, beside the equally odoriferous chicken coop and pig sty.
At breakfast, as promised, Mary Gail slathered her sunny-side-up eggs with molasses. My stomach churned and I tried not to look at the thick brown syrup conjoining with the sappy egg yolk, but it was akin to attempting to turn your gaze away from an accident. I picked disinterestedly at the bacon, eggs and toast on the plate in front of me, praying that no one would be offended because I had lost my appetite.
Over the meal, Mum, as she insisted I call her, meted out the orders for the rest of the morning and afternoon. Everyone was to pitch in to clear away the breakfast dishes and quickly tidy the house in “what was left of the morning.” After lunch, it being Saturday and Pup not having to go to the mill, Wavell, Rhoda and Niesha were to go with him to weed and haul water to water the garden which was in a field across the road. Mary Gail, since it was her wedding day and she would be moving up river, was given the afternoon off to visit her friend, Belinda, down the road.
“Sonya, you’ll spend the afternoon with me helping decorate for the reception. It will give me a chance to get to know my new daughter-in-law,” Mum said beaming broadly.
I’ve been you daughter-in-law for ten years. I’m hardly new, I mused to myself, as I looked to Wavell for a reprieve, but he offered none.
“Mary Gail, be back here no later than three o’clock to get cleaned up, get your wedding ganzy on and to go over to the church. The rest of you have until four to get back here and get cleaned up,” Mum said sternly.
After lunch, when everyone else had been dispatched to their various duties, Mum tossed a paper bag containing rolls of pink and white crepe paper ribbons and Scotch tape onto the kitchen table. She waddled off, returning with the box of pink and white carnations we had made the evening before.
“We’ll decorate the kitchen table as the bride and groom’s table,” she instructed, as she pulled a huge pair of scissors from a kitchen drawer and handed them to me.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Gracious, girl! Don’t ever thank anyone for handing you something sharp! It means you will quarrel,” she said in alarm.
“Sorry,” I apologized, somewhat taken aback.
“The other table in the sitting room should be decorated too. The food will be laid out on it. I’ll leave the decorating to you and I’ll finish up the cake.”
I stood and watched as she produced three layers of white frosted cake, each smaller than the last, from the fridge. In a flurry, she extracted icing sugar, shortening, vanilla, bowls, food coloring and a cake decorator from the cupboards and began conjuring up frosting without a recipe and without measuring.
I dumped the bag of crepe paper ribbons on the table, not quite sure what she expected me to do with them. This was the sort of thing my family had done for them, not actually did themselves. Noting my hesitation, Mum put down her spoon and ambled over to the table.
“Here,” she said softly. “Let me give you some ideas.”
“There are several things you can do with the streamers. You can put the two colours together back-to-back and twist them like this. Or you can take two colours and fold them one over the other like this to make an accordion pleat, almost like braiding but with only two strands.” Her hands worked deftly. “Or,” she continued, “You can crimp the edges like this to make it kind of lacey.” She held the edge of the ribbon under the spread fore and middle fingers of her left hand, while she pulled back the edge of the paper with the index finger of her other hand and repeated, producing a scalloped edge.
“Clever,” I smiled at her, meeting her rheumy blue eyes.
“Oh, we people out here in the sticks know how to make due,” Mum chuckled. “You can run loops of them around the table and from each corner to a point above the table.”
She returned to her cake decorating and I sat down to braid reams of garlands.
“You find our ways a bit different, don’t you, dear?” Mum alleged. It was a statement, not a question.
I felt myself blush profusely. I wrestled with the concept of the little girl who had just gone to visit her friend as my husband’s voice played in the recesses of my mind, “It won’t change a thing.”
“Yes, I do,” I said, an insipid hint if irritation creeping into my voice. I regretted the tone as soon as the words were uttered.
Mum swung to look at me, arching an eyebrow identical to the one my husband arched at me.
“Well, have out with it. Get it off your chest,” she urged.
I shook my head in the negative.
“Wavell doesn’t want me to say anything.”
“Do you always do exactly as your husband asks?” she asked, staring at me intently.
“Not always,” I confessed.
She smiled knowingly. “Well?”
“I think Mary Gail is too young to get married. I don’t think you should have given your permission.” I looked down at the ribbon I had been braiding. You stand in front of classrooms full of college students as confident as anything. Why are you allowing this woman to disarm you like this? I asked myself. But I couldn’t deny Mom was a definite presence.
“I see,” she uttered.
I noticed while we had been talking that spectacular cascades of pink roses had been appearing on the now stacked tiers of the cake. I gazed back down at my own work.
“You’re cutting off possibilities for her later in life. She’s too young to know what she wants,” I ventured.
“The women in this family have always married young,” she countered, an edge haunting her voice.
“I know. Wavell told me, but that doesn’t make it right.” Oh, that had the ring of judgment to it, I chided myself.
She laid down her cake decorator, crossed to the table where I was, jerked out a chair that had seen several coats of paint over the years and sat down. I braced myself for the expected onslaught.
“Let me tell you a story,” she said softly, looking at me intently.
With an effort, I glanced at her worn, tired features, old beyond their years.
“I’ve had eight children,” she continued. “Three died as babies. Wavell is my oldest. Unlike my other children, Wavell has a real mind, a head on his shoulders. I could see that. When Pup said Wavell should quit school and go with him to the mill ‘cause he had a job for him, I didn’t argue, even though I knew Wavell wasn’t made for no mill. He had more than that in him, but what else was there for him here. Around here men are lucky if they can get on at the mill. It’s either the mill, the woods or the river.” She looked down at her rough, reddened hands. “I saw the spark in Wavell’s eyes about to die when he argued about his future with his father. I was late making the beds that day for some reason I can’t remember, but I went upstairs after supper while the girls were doing the dishes to get them done before it was time to crawl into them. When I went to make Wavell’s bed, my foot kicked something under the edge of it. I pulled out a brown paper bag and looked inside. In it was a couple of pairs of underwear and socks, his best pants and shirt and a few books. He always loved his books!
“The next morning, I watched from behind my bedroom door when I heard him sneak down stairs at about four o’clock. I saw him go to the kitchen and I watched him leave eating a piece of bread. I watched my oldest son leave and I knew he was going and I might never see him again. I didn’t go out to say good-bye. I knew if I did, I might not have the strength to let him go. My heart was breaking, but I knew he had more than the mill in him.”
There were tears running down Mum’s plump face. I reached into the box of carnations and handed her a couple of flowers. She chuckled through her tears and dabbed her eyes.
“My girls…my girls were a different kettle of salmon,” she continued. “There isn’t anything here for women, but marriage. Oh, there’s the odd one with book smarts who manages to get some training and who gets one of the few secretarial jobs at the mills in Boiestown or Doaktown or at the bank there. But those jobs are few and far between.”
“But…” I started to interject.
She held up her hand to silence me.
“As I said, my girls don’t have book smarts. It was always a struggle to keep any of them in school as long as we did. Mary Gail is a baby-making-girl. She wants nothing more from life than to have babies of her own. If she wanted more, I’d try to find a way, but she don’t.”
“But if she knew…” I tried again.
“You can’t make an apple pie from oranges, dear. You can peel and peel and you can spice it up all you want but it still won’t be an apple pie. And I won’t force my will on my children and I won’t force anyone else’s on them either.”
She looked at me through her puffy eyes. Pursing my lips, I nodded. I didn’t say anything else. Mum smiled and nodded in return at my compliance.
“Well, let’s get this decorating finished up!” she said rising with effort from the chair and returning to the wedding cake.
Chatting about Wavell’s escapades as a boy and about family members and people from the community I would encounter that evening at the reception, she completed the cake and I decorated the kitchen and sitting room. The wedding cake was exquisite in a homey sort of way, as ornate as you would find in any shop back west. Mum had a real talent for such things. The rooms didn’t look half bad either, if I do say so myself, considering all I had to work with was Kleenex and crepe paper.
Near three o’clock we heard the door of the porch open, and then snap shut.
“Oh, if that’s Mary Gail I don’t want her to see the cake and the decorating you’ve done till it’s time,” Mum exclaimed, hurrying out to see who it was.
“You’re home,” I heard her say. “Did you have a good time at Belinda’s?”
“Yes, we played Barbie’s,” Mary Gail replied.
“Now you close your eyes, when you come through the sitting room. I don’t want you to see all of the lovely decorating Sonya’s done for you. Careful now,” she advised, leading Mary Gail to the foot of the stairway. “You go up and get ready for your wedding. Cleve will be here in an hour and a half to pick you up. There you go. Straight up the stairs now! No peeking! Holler when you want me to come up and do your hair. There’s a good woman.”