Chapter 31: Handfasting

I stiffened. And not in a sexual manner. My daughters were too young to be preparing for marriage. I was going to sit them both down...

“They’ve both taken home economics in school to learn to sew and cook. That nice Mrs. Abernathy actually teaches a little about managing a household. You should be proud that our girls are preparing for a future husband and home.”

“I thought you meant...”

“Oh, I’m sure Lexi is pure as the driven snow. Our little puttana, though ... I’m sure she is sexing that boy, Brian. You weren’t concerned so I just let it go.”

“Lily, are you trying to aggravate me? Do not call my daughter a whore! Even if she were not ‘as pure as the driven snow,’ as you say Alexandra is, I am certain Samantha is saving herself for her intended.”

“They all broke up in October and Samantha was impossible to live with. Then suddenly, at the end of the month they are all happy and back together again. What do you think that means? I’ll tell you. Makeup sex.”

“They have an agreement. Boyfriends and girlfriends breakup and reconcile all the time. It does not mean sex.”

“Brian is seventeen.”

“So?”

“I discovered that seventeen is when the agreement removes the ‘no penetration’ clause. They are fucking.”

“Samantha is not seventeen. And if she made that decision at that age, I would defend it. Reserve your judgment, Liliana.”

She turned away from me and went to sleep.

And Brian became a television star.

Samantha was his first guest ‘girlfriend of the day.’ I didn’t see the finished segment until it aired a little more than a week before Christmas. They’d shown me an unedited version when I went in to sign a release for her so that I knew she’d done nothing embarrassing. Fifty dollars would give Sam some spending money for Christmas presents.

She went home with Brian. I followed. I knew enough not to just enter the Frosts’ driveway. It was potentially hostile territory. I knew how to move through this kind of environment whether it was an Asian jungle or an urban jungle. I moved silently through the fields without being observed. I used my binoculars trained on the house from behind a neighbor’s shed and soon enough, I saw them leave the house and go to the barn. She was certainly not in riding clothes but I knew she loved the horses and I was thankful the Frosts had a couple so I didn’t have to worry about finding and boarding horses for my daughters. As soon as they entered the barn, I moved quietly around the field to quietly enter the barn by a back doorway. If my daughter was fucking this boy, I would find out and bring it to a fast end. It made me more angry that she would break her agreement than that she might be sexually active.

A large horse turned his head and snorted at me. Then he went back to munching his hay. I thought at first I’d missed them and they left the barn already. Then I heard a sound from above and crept to the ladder up to the hay mow. I had one foot on a rung when I heard them.

“Brian?” Her voice was tiny and seemed far away.

“What is it, Cutie?”

“Why won’t Hannah answer my calls or letters? I miss her.” She is with her boyfriend and talking about missing her girlfriend?

“I don’t think her parents will let her. Honey, I miss her, too. I miss her more every day.”

“I think ... I fell in love with her and I can’t stop.” My heart stopped. My daughter was confessing to her boyfriend that she’d fallen in love with a girl and was now brokenhearted. The statement was apparently news to Brian as well.

“My precious, precious girlfriend, I didn’t know. Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”

“I know you love her as much as I do. Probably even more. How do you stand it, Brian? How do you keep going on? I heard what you really said at the end of the tape this morning. It wasn’t a message to me or to the rest of us or to all the single and married young women watching the show. You told Hannah you still loved her, no matter what. I’m so proud of you. I love you.”

“I’m going to end every episode with those words, love. Maybe someday she’ll see one and know. But it goes for you, too. I still love you and I love you more every day. Please don’t doubt my love for you.”

That last bit I heard just before I left the barn and walked away, no longer concerned whether I was seen. I had a lot to think about. Yes, I was certain Sam was in love with Brian and he with her. With that kind of statement, I was no longer concerned about them making love. But that both were even more in love with Hannah ... I didn’t know what that meant. Did they believe they could have a relationship like Hayden, Marilyn, and Anna? What about Anna’s daughter and friend in Kokomo? Or the other signers of the agreement? Parents had been kept abreast of the membership and there were nearly thirty of them now. Did they all share together? And then I wondered about Lexi and her little group. There were a dozen signers of their agreement and they had all agreed to abide by the same terms the older group had established as freshmen. Lexi and several of her friends were younger siblings of the older group.

I was uncertain what to do and found a tree in the woods that I could climb. I had city shoes on and they slid on the limbs. There was a slight frost but snow had not penetrated the canopy of this part of the woods. I climbed about twenty feet and settled onto a branch. Lily would be upset about the tear in my tweed jacket. I reflexively touched my shoulder holster to be sure my gun hadn’t slipped out. Nearly twenty years out of the army and I still never left the house without my pistol.

The army. In basic training we’d been sorted into barracks alphabetically. I doubted Joe’s and my buddy enlistment would have stood up if our names hadn’t been sequential in the alphabet. Five more recruits in this class and we’d have been split into different barracks. We listened to the talk, occasionally whispering to each other. Even in basic, we kept our voices low.

“Andy, what you gonna do in da jungle with Charlie chasin’ you?” There were several Andersons at the head of this class and most of them were black.

“Andy,” said his bunkmate, “I gonna close my eyes and shut my mouth. Charlie won’t see me nohow.” Nearly a third of the kids in that barracks never made it out of Vietnam. Joe and I were lucky.

I closed my eyes and shut my mouth as I sat up there in that old oak tree. I listened. Not just to the forest, but to my heart.

It was dark when I opened my eyes and tried to loosen my stiff joints. Everything was cold. The temperature had dropped significantly with the setting sun. I cautiously made my way down from my perch, managing to rip my slacks as well as scuff up my polished shoes. I looked like I’d ... been on a sniper patrol.

But I’d made up my mind. Whatever was necessary, I’d protect, defend, and support my daughters.

“Happy birthday, my good little witch,” I said to my daughter. I promised Lily and Lexi that we would be back in time for birthday dinner. We got in the car and I turned it east on 30 toward Fort Wayne.

“Oh! We’re not taking the train to Chicago?” she asked.

“I promised we’d be back in time for your birthday celebration at home tonight. I didn’t want to rush your shopping trip.”

“Shopping? I’m going shopping?”

“Glenbrook Center seems to have everything anyone could want. Maybe we can have lunch at the L.S. Ayres Tea Room.”

“Papa! You would take me to the Tea Room? Isn’t that awfully girlie-girlie for a big macho Spaniard like you?” she teased. I’d seldom seen my daughter as happy as she appeared today.

“I’ll have you know that I have completely mastered the art of using a knife and fork,” I growled. “When did I become Papa instead of Daddy?”

“Oh. Um ... Well, we kind of adopted it as the way we address all the parents in the dating group. Those we see most often at least. Of course, the first were Papa Hayden, Mama Marilyn, and Mama Anna. But, you know ... All the parents have been so good to us in the dating group that we can’t help but feel like they are all our parents. Some more than others, of course, but our own parents especially.”

“What other Mamas and Papas are rocking your world? ‘And nobody’s gettin’ fat except Mama Cass.’” I sang.

“Papa! Cassie is not fat. And she’s not a Mama.” I think she was being deliberately obtuse. But The Mamas and The Papas hadn’t released an album in nearly twenty years. Maybe not. “There’s Papa Paul and Mama Amanda, Brenda’s parents. They’ve been like mama and papa since we were in grade school. And Papa Rex and Mama Maria are always helping out at the lake or at school events. We all talk about Papa John and Mama Bea, but none of us are brave enough to call them that to their faces. But really, they’re nice people. I heard Brian call Mommy Mama Lil when he came to our house for the premiere of Young Cooking.”

“Hmm. Mama Lil. I might try that on her as well.”

The shopping date with my eldest went well and she was a bit more extravagant in her purchases than Lexi had been at thirteen, but as she explained to me, “I’m not growing any longer. This is pretty much the shape I plan to be for the next twenty or thirty years.” If she managed that, she’d be as stunning at forty as her mother was. Eventually, we found our way to the Tea Room and talked. I managed to bring up the conversation I wanted to have with her.

“So, you’re all grown up now. I suppose you’ll be getting married soon.” She glared at me.

“Papa, you know that’s not going to happen. I’m in love with a boy who has seven other girlfriends, and I’m just as in love with all seven of them.”

“Plus Hannah,” I said softly. Her lip quivered.

“She’ll come back to me. I know she will.”

“And Brian?”

“She’ll come back to both of us.”

“You are seventeen now. I know what your agreement says. I want you to know...”

“Papa!” she said sharply. “Just like when I was fourteen, the agreement has always said what we could do, not what we have to do.”

“I understand but you are so close to Brian. How often do you spend the night there ... with your other girlfriends?”

“Hmm. Not often enough. Thanks for reminding me,” she giggled. “Daddy, um ... Brian says we should never be embarrassed to talk about anything with our parents and if we are, it means we must have done something wrong. I haven’t done anything wrong and I don’t plan to. It’s still a little uncomfortable talking to my father about girl things, but that’s your problem, not mine.” She took a deep breath. “No matter what Mom thinks, I’m a virgin. I plan to stay that way until the day I give myself to Brian. No, Daddy. There is no doubt in my mind that Brian is my true love—as far as boys are concerned. He’s a virgin, too, you know? There is also no doubt that I love Hannah ... and probably Jennifer and Courtney. I know it’s not the way you were raised, but we will all be lovers. I know it.”

“I just don’t want you to be hurt.”

“Any one of them would die before they hurt me. Do you understand? They’d die for me.”

I got it. It wasn’t just that they considered Brian to be their hero for whatever reason, I didn’t know. They considered each other to be their heroes. I just nodded.

“Just because I’m seventeen, doesn’t mean I’m going to jump into bed and make love to Brian. Whitney won’t be seventeen until May and no one is going to jump in line ahead of her.”

“You mean you’ll let Whitney claim your lover?”

“She gets to be first. This summer, all bets are off. Only...” She looked down at her nearly untouched salad. I thought I saw the sparkle of a tear in her eye.