*
Rodney retired from the army in May and the three of us went to Jean Ville as soon as Lilly got out of school the first of June. We had lots to do to pull off a wedding at St. Alphonse’s Catholic Church by the end of the month. Rodney said he would stay with his family until we were married because they missed him and wanted to spend as much time as they could with him. Anyway, my house on Gravier Road was small and would be buzzing with activities meant for girls like Lilly, Sissy, Marianne, and me as we planned and executed the wedding.
Marianne picked us up at the Baton Rouge airport and when we got to Jean Ville she took Rodney to his parents’ house on Marshall Drive.
Just before dark, Rodney drove up in my driveway in his dad’s car with Jeffrey, Sarah, and their two kids.
Lilly was in the backyard with Anna. I was in the garage apartment with Marianne and Sissy when I heard the car and looked out the front window. I saw Rodney get out, stretch, and head towards my front porch. I opened the window and yelled at him that I was upstairs and would be right down.
Lilly came running around the house and jumped into his arms as if she hadn't seen him in a month. It was hot and humid and I got a whiff of tar rising from the pavement on Gravier Road as I ran down the stairs.
Sissy and Marianne followed me to the front yard and I introduced everyone, including Rodney, Jeffrey, and Sarah, to Sissy. Sarah introduced us to her two children, Ward and Amber and was reasonably nice. I remembered how she’d made me feel as though I was invisible the only other time I'd met her.
Lilly and Anna took the kids to the backyard and pushed them on the swings while the rest of us went inside. Rodney put his arm around me and pulled me close before we followed the others into the house. We stopped on the porch and he whispered in my ear.
"When can we be alone?" He kissed me and I blushed before we walked into the living room. The others disappeared into the hall, Sissy and Marianne were showing Jeffrey and Sarah around the house. Rodney took advantage of their absence and kissed me again. "I love you, Susie."
“I love you, too.” I kissed him back and whispered the words into his mouth and he gasped.
"We came to take you and Lilly to meet my folks," Rodney told me as the others walked by towards the back porch. "My parents are excited to know you and, especially, to meet Lilly."
"So they're okay with all of this?" I looked at him as if I didn't believe him. "Honestly?"
"Honestly! They are ecstatic." He kissed me again and wrapped his arms around me.
We all went onto the back porch that spanned the rear of the little house and talked for a few minutes then called to Lilly, Amber, and Ward to join us in the front driveway.
Sissy and Marianne saw to it that Chrissy and Anna got home to the Quarters while Lilly and I went to the Thibaults' house with Rodney, Sarah, Jeffrey and their kids. Jeffrey drove while the kids sat on Lilly's lap in the back seat, loving on her and playing patty-cake. I sat between Rodney and Lilly and I bent towards her ear and whispered, "Happy?" I watched her face light up and she nodded several times and said, "Very."
The Thibaults were waiting for us on their front porch and came to the car before we could get out. They hugged Lilly and me, then Mrs. Thibault took Lilly's hand and led her up to their porch swing and patted it so she would sit right next to her grandmother. I heard Mrs. Thibault say, "My other grandchildren call me Mamaw. Does that sound okay to you?" Lilly was smiling with her whole face as she nodded, "Yes."
Mr. Ray put his arm around my shoulder as we walked up the steps and he said, "Welcome to our family. It's taken a while, but we made it, right?"
"Right," I said, and I looked at Rodney and winked at him. He smiled at me and winked back and I knew it was… right.
*
We got married at St. Alphonse's Catholic Church on South Jefferson Street on the 30th of June. The pastor, Father Remy, was from the Philippines and had no problem with the race issue. He counseled us and ordered Rodney's annulment papers from the Diocese of Phoenix.
A Catholic Church annulment is based on proof that a couple should never have been married in the first place. Rodney and Maria both had post-traumatic stress after Vietnam and weren't in a position to make such a decision at the time, so the annulment was mostly a matter of paperwork that Rodney initiated soon after his divorce was final.
I didn't expect half the crowd of people who attended our wedding. My mother and John came from Houston. She was decked out in a long, mint-green dress and enough jewelry to sink a battleship. All four of my brothers were there with girlfriends I didn't know, all dressed in mini-skirts with low-cut tops that showed their cleavages.
Tootsie wore a long, purple dress and brought Joe Edgars, her current beau, Marianne’s sisters, and their husbands or boyfriends. Marianne's aunts and uncles and their children came and filled the pews on both sides of the aisle. A number of Rodney's friends and football teammates from high school came, some wearing their old letter jackets in solidarity. It was charming.
Mr. Michel, the hospital administrator for whom I'd worked after I graduated from college, and his wife were there. Dr. Switzer and Miss Irma, and Superintendent of Schools, Mr. Ben Moss, and his wife Miss Rita came and sat on the bride's side. Even Sylvia and Ken Michaud were there and she smiled at me and winked when she saw me standing in the vestibule waiting to walk down the aisle. Several of my girlfriends from high school were there with their husbands, but lots of them didn't come, which wasn’t a surprise.
Joe showed up with his wife, Bridgette. He came into the bride's room off the church’s entrance foyer with a long, white box tied with a blush-colored satin ribbon. He kissed me on the cheek and walked up to Lilly and handed the box to her. When she opened it the unmistakable fragrance of lilies filled the room and she gasped. Three long-stemmed blush-colored lilies for our Lilly were lying in the white container. Joe looked at me and winked.
Lilly, Marianne, and Sissy were my bridesmaids and wore long, chiffon dresses in a bluish-gray color. Lilly handed Sissy and Marianne one of the long-stemmed lilies to carry, and kept one for herself.
My two sisters walked down the aisle and Lilly kissed me and was about to follow them when the church door opened and I turned around to see my dad walk into the vestibule.
"May I walk you down the aisle?" Daddy was wearing a tuxedo that smelled of dry-cleaning fluid. He had showered and shaved and had on black wing-tipped shoes, laced up, with black socks. I hadn't seen him dressed in anything but khakis, T-shirts, and flip-flops in several years and was shocked by his appearance. Then it hit me that this was my dad, Bob Burton, and he was offering to give me away—to a black man.
He handed me a long, white box tied with a white satin ribbon. He looked at me with a sideways sneer as I set the box on the small table near the front door and pulled on the ribbon, then lifted the top of the box. A dozen long-stemmed white lilies lay side-by-side and atop each other inside the box. They were pure white, with green leaves, and they smelled like new life, forgiveness, and redemption.
I gasped, lifted the flowers from the box, and held them in my arms like a newborn baby.
I grabbed him around the neck to hug him, pressing the lilies between us. Yellow pollen from the stamens powdered the front of Daddy's black tuxedo jacket and I used the hankie that Marianne had given me for something borrowed to wipe it off.
Lilly turned around to help and we started laughing. Even Daddy thought it was funny.
The weight of a dozen lilies was too much, so I put all of them in the box except for three, which I carried across the crook of my left arm and tucked my right arm through Daddy's.
We had been delayed walking down the aisle but no one seemed to care.
The look of surprise on Rodney's face when he saw my dad as we walked toward him was erased when he looked at me. His smile told me everything; and I knew this was the best decision of my life.
When he and my dad shook hands, Rodney reached with hi
s left hand and squeezed my dad's shoulder.
"Thank you sir," Rodney said loud enough for me to hear. "You've made your daughter and me very proud today."
"You take care of her, Son." My dad grinned, which was as close to a smile as I'd seen on him since my mother left. I turned to look at her and there were tears running down her cheeks.
Rodney turned towards Jeffrey, his best man, and when he turned back to face me he was holding a long-stemmed, white lily. He laid it across my arms with the others.
I don't remember the ceremony, just the glow I felt throughout my body when it was over.
After we were pronounced man and wife, Rodney kissed me and we turned toward the congregation. The organ played Ode to Joy by Beethoven as we walked back down the aisle, our guests standing and smiling as wide as we were.
I remember thinking I was the happiest I'd ever been in my life.
We walked out into the bright sunlight through the huge double doors of the church and turned to kiss each other. Out of the corner of my eye and I noticed a pickup truck move very slowly, then stop in front of the church and a flash of sunlight hit a metal object that stuck out of the passenger window.
It all happened so fast.
I didn't hear anything—no shots, no sounds, nothing but Lilly's screams as my life turned to slow motion and I was pulled to the concrete where I landed on my back with Rodney on top of me, his face on my face.
I felt a stream of liquid run down my cheek as if tears were draining from my eyes. I noticed the stream was red and was flowing from Rodney's face onto mine.
It was surreal.
I remember thinking about Lilly. Was she okay? And I remember wondering, How could this be happening?
Then I blacked out.
<<<<>>>>
Other Books by Madelyn Bennett Edwards
Catfish, A Novel
Biography
Madelyn Bennett Edwards is a Louisiana native who recently moved to an Atlanta suburb from Asheville, North Carolina with her architect husband, Gene. Lilly is her second novel, a sequel to her first, Catfish, published in 2017.
“Maddy,” as her friends and grandchildren call her, went to beauty school to put herself through college, graduating from Louisiana College with a BA in journalism and English at 38—a single mom with two children. She earned an MA in writing from Lenoir Rhyne University in North Carolina after age 60. The former television health journalist started MBC, a television production company, in Alexandria, Louisiana in the 1980s, moved it to Nashville, Tennessee in the 1990s and sold it in 2003.
Maddy is presently working on the third book in the Catfish trilogy, and on a memoir about withdrawing from Dilaudid after fourteen years on an intrathecal pain pump. You can read more about Maddy and her upcoming releases on her website:
www.madelynedwardsauthor.com
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