I wish I had more time in revising this. It really changed a lot from the previous story and I feel like I had to end it too soon and I think additions may be good. I would love any comments or suggestions!
“So, why now?”
“Mom, you knew this was coming. It shouldn’t be a surprise to you.”
“Yeah, but do you really want to marry a 19-year-old?”
“He will be 20 by the wedding, and that’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point, Essie?”
“The point is that we have been praying for our marriage to happen in God’s timing. I mean, I can truly say I have seen Him work this out in our lives. Nate got that co-op last minute, I am graduating in time, not to mention...”
“Sometimes...things just don’t work out like that. God doesn’t always lead like that. It makes more sense for you to wait until you both have jobs...what if he is holding you back from your dreams?”
“What dreams are you talking about? Honestly, when have you ever thought of me as one to climb some corporate ladder? Can’t success have nothing to do with money?”
“Well good luck doing anything without money, Essie. What do you think you can accomplish without it?”
“Plenty, mom. Haven’t you ever thought loving your husband can be successful?”
“Sometimes you just need to make your own money. God won’t provide you things that you can provide for yourself.”
“I can’t win this, mom. You don’t really want to resolve this. I’m gonna to go now. Bye.”
Her end disconnected. I couldn’t touch the knitting project sitting in my lap. I closed my eyes and leaned back. A minute or two later I felt Doug sit down on the couch next to me. He ran his hand over my forehead and down the side of my face.
“Beth, I love you, but what is the matter?”
“Not you too.”
“I’m just wondering why you can’t be happy.”
I wouldn’t respond to him. I moved the yarn off my lap and went back to our room to get ready for bed.
The truth is, I knew Essie was still naive. I didn’t teach her to be the girl that got married so young, still in school without a proper income. But it had to be my fault she ended up that way. When she was young, maybe six or seven, she started to ask about my relationship with her dad. It was the girls at school who started it because the moms in the PTA were discussing what story they decided to tell their daughters about their marriages. Essie would come home telling stories about Jamie’s parents and Lindsay’s parents and then wanted to know her parents story to tell on the bus ride the next morning. I told her the romantic, conflict-free version of our marriage because it was all she needed to know at that age. I never told her anything false, I just didn’t give her the whole picture.
“Well, your dad and I, we started to date when we were 16 and we dated until we got married right after we both graduated from MSU. Neither of us had dated anyone else, so we were each other’s first loves.”
And that was the story I told the PTA moms and my daughter. And they were sighing over the dream-likeness of the story and soon I was sighing too.
“You must really have important love to love each other so long.” Is what Essie told me as we waited for the bus to come pick her up.
Essie and Nate started dating in high school. Essie was a senior and Nate, a sophomore. Nate was one of her brother’s friends and somehow they ended up getting to know each other. Nate wasn’t Essie’s first boyfriend. She actually had a different one for each year of high school. She told me she just couldn’t tell them no because it may hurt their feelings. But two months later she would get tired of them and send them whimpering back into singleness. The difference between Nate and the other boys was that he loves her and Essie loves him.
After two weeks, Essie and Nate came home from MSU for the weekend. Their faces were practically glowing with happiness as if they were billboards advertising getting engaged at a young age. They convinced Doug. A few bites into dinner that night and he was asking for the proposal story.
“I’ll let Essie tell it, she enjoys telling it and I like to watch her.”
“You only like it because you make fun of my hand motions.”
“Yeah, and I know your dad would appreciate them too.”
Essie couldn’t make a mad face at Nate that didn’t look like a smile.
After dinner Nate took Essie’s plate to the sink as she continued to talk to her dad. I took a few dishes to the sink as well so he couldn’t start cleaning our dishes for us. I just can’t let a guest clean our dishes, even if he has been familiar in our house for four years. He set the plates on the counter and turned around to smile at me.
“Can I help you Mrs. Beth?”
“No, I’ve got it. You can go relax with Essie.”
“I can load a dishwasher pretty well. You can hand me the dishes when you clean them off.”
“I’d hate to make a guest clean.”
“I really don’t mind.”
Just because I was tired, I let him help me. For a second I thought he may have wanted to talk to me about my sentiments toward the engagement, but he was quiet most of the time. He asked about work and let me talk until we were finished. As I dried my hands he looked at me like he wanted to express something he couldn’t put words to. He scooted closer to me and gave me a hug and smiled at me then walked to the den to sit by Essie.
“Mom?”
“Yeah, Essie?”
“I want to talk to you about Nate and me.”
“Okay.”
“Do you want to hear it?”
“Sure.”
“Well, I know that you aren’t happy. I know we had discussed about this happening a few years from now, but we made plans. I have a spreadsheet of our finances for the next five years and it works, mom.”
I nodded at her with an emotionless face.
“So, why wait when it all adds up? The waiting is hard. And I know you won’t believe me but I do believe that God is leading us.”
Essie told me again that they are getting married in God’s timing, that He cares for His children and that means He won’t let them fail if they are in His will. Her confidence scares me sometimes. It’s like she really believes what she is saying. I know that God is who He says He is, for goodness sake, I go to church every Sunday and give away a big chunk of my salary but I am also a practical woman and it doesn’t make sense to rely on something that isn’t certain. But there was a sincerity in her voice that can’t be faked. It made me wonder if I was wrong.
“Doug, do you remember how being engaged felt?”
“It felt like relief.”
“Yeah, I remember that too.”
“What did Essie talk to you about?”
“She was telling me more about God.”
“How was that?”
“I don’t know yet. Do you think Essie has changed?”
“Yeah, Beth, a lot.”
“Do you think she is wrong to get married young?”
“No.”
I taught Essie to garden when she was six. Before then she would watch me out of the window in the kitchen holding a plastic shovel and watching every move I made. But as she grew up we would go out early and pull weeds and water and she would be excited to see the blooms appear. The May she turned nine years old, I was driving her back from school when we passed her favorite house in the neighborhood. The flowers in the front yard were blooming and there wasn’t a patch of dirt left to fill in with some plant. “Mamma! Their garden looks like Southern Living. Oh, it’s beautiful.” I looked over and she was looking back over her shoulder, as best as she could, to watch the house until it was out of view.
So that year I had to make my garden look like a Southern Living garden, not because Essie demanded it, but because I wanted her to say that our garden was beautiful too. And it was. And as years passed, I let her fill her own bed. She really had a knack for it too. She never took long to plan what she wanted, she just had a sharp eye for seeing how things would look before they were there.
“You just have to trust that plants will be beautiful. They always have been.”
“That’s all, Essie?”
“Well, if you do your part there is no reason they shouldn’t grow.”
“There are other reasons, but I get your point.”
“I’m glad you know the reasons.”
“Yeah, I can help you and you can help me.”
I was starting to feel less and less like the one who knew the reasons. I could tell you about Noah’s ark and Samson’s hair and Jesus’ cross but Essie’s trust in God was stumping me. For years I relied on Doug to explain things I couldn’t. We were both diligent people and we knew that things needed to happen. There were plenty of times where I blamed him and he blamed me for things that went wrong, but somehow they never tore our marriage apart. I wonder how we love each other sometimes. Do I love him for him, or do I love him for me? It seems like Essie loves Nate for Nate.
I walked back to our bedroom and shut the door behind me. I grabbed my Bible off the nightstand and got on my knees on the floor. I couldn’t open it yet because I was pretty sure that when I opened it, it would be new to me. Tears began to slide down my cheeks and off the tip of my nose. I put the Bible on the floor and laid my cheek on top of it and closed my eyes, hoping the cool leather would be comforting too.
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