Chin Up, Honey

by Curtiss Ann Matlock

  By the time they’d got all settled on Catherine’s sofa and Catherine had asked if either of them had anything particular to discuss, Emma had built up such a head of steam that she instantly said, “Yes, I do. I would like to know why my husband cannot discuss important matters in his life with me.”

  She then pulled the business card from her purse and handed it to John Cole. Watching his face carefully, seeing the damning evidence all over it, she explained in an explicit manner how she had found the card while taking care of his laundry.

  “I guess I am fully trusted with washin’ your dirty shirts and underwear, but not with the information that you have decided to have private counseling.”

  John Cole made no reply.

  Across from them, Catherine said, “I see you are upset, Emma. Let’s…”

  “Yes, I am upset. I thought the purpose of comin’ here was to bring us together. You knew he went to see your husband, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did, but…”

  “See. I was the last to know.” She had known the truth of it, but hearing it, a little bomb went off inside of her. “I live with him, I am his wife, and he did not tell me. He’s just livin’ this secret life, all apart. If he can’t tell me this, I wonder what else he is doin’ that he cannot tell me.” She shut her mouth, because she was near tears and amazed at the line of her own thinking.

  “What do you mean by that?” John Cole said then.

  “Just anything you think it means.”

  “Do you think I’m runnin’ around? Where would I have the time? Tell me that.”

  “I did not say that, but it is a thought. Not tellin’ me things like this is the same as lyin’.”

  He shook his head, as if thinking she were crazy. “This is why I didn’t tell you—I can’t talk to you, because you get all upset about everything.”

  “I do not get all upset about everything! You don’t think anything I think is important.” She managed to say that with admirable calm, while more little bombs were going off in her all over the place. She actually looked to the side with the thought of getting a magazine to smack him.

  By then they were each plastered to their end of the sofa, and Catherine was able to jump in and urge calm.

  “Let’s back up a little and take a look at what is going on here.”

  “What’s goin’ on is that I am good enough to clean his clothes, his dishes and his toilet, but not for him to discuss his life and our marriage.”

  “I’m here discussin’ our marriage. I’ve been here for weeks.”

  “Huh. Your body may be here, but your mind is at work, or on the pool, or wherever….”

  Catherine held up a hand to both of them. “All right, let’s slow down here and examine just what is going on. Now, Emma, are you saying that you feel angry at your situation in the marriage?”

  “How I feel is left out. Oh, yes, he talks to me about bills or house repairs or that he might buy a new car, but not anything personal. Not anything that matters—anything like this—somethin’ personal that’s botherin’ him—somethin’ I have a right to know—he doesn’t talk about.”

  “So you feel you have a right to know that John had a private counseling session?”

  “Yes, I do. I am married to him. We are supposed to share together…he and I. That’s the whole point of bein’ married, as far as I’m concerned. I guess I may not be the sort of wife that a man can share with, but I have been comin’ here to try to learn. I can say that.”

  “Do you think that a more accurate description of your feeling is hurt at your perception of being blocked out by John Cole?”

  “There’s no perception to it. It is.”

  “Is it also that you feel you are failing?”

  In response, Emma’s head came up. Catherine gazed at her, waiting.

  Emma came out with, “What I feel is that when it comes to discussin’ anything of a personal nature, I am the one who does all the talkin’, and John Cole doesn’t say a thing. He does not share anything about himself.”

  Catherine nodded and turned her attention to John. “I think it is important for Emma to know that you called me and asked if your consulting Ted would affect your sessions here, and I told you that talking with Ted might be quite helpful to you. Now I think it might be helpful for you to explain to Emma why you chose to see Ted.”

  Emma wanted to hear this. She watched John Cole, who shifted and coughed and swallowed about a dozen times and just generally looked so hopeless that she wanted to say she was terribly sorry for ever asking about any of it.

  Finally he managed to say, “I thought I might ask him some things…things that I needed to talk about privately.”

  When he did not appear to be going to say anything else, Catherine said, “Did you think Emma would be angry about you seeing Ted on your own?”

  At this question, Emma shifted and even leaned forward slightly.

  He glanced at her, then at Catherine. “I didn’t think she would have been angry…but she would have made a deal out of it. We had the pool goin’, and the weddin’, and I just really didn’t think it was all that important that I tell her about one visit. I really just didn’t think about it.”

  The last he said with the most thorough perplexity that Emma had ever encountered, and she knew in that instant that he really had not thought of it being important at all. It was as if a light from heaven shone down on him so that she could see him clearly for the first time.

  She had no time to assimilate this knowledge, however, because Catherine had them stand and hug each other for a full minute. Then she had them sit holding hands and for two full minutes explain their feelings on the matter of talking to each other. What Emma noticed was that two minutes was not enough for her—and she did not care for Catherine sticking that hand up to cut her off—and that two minutes was at least a minute and a half too long for John Cole, who, bless his heart, had to be prodded along by Catherine saying, “Time’s not up.”

  Catherine ended the session by saying that they had made real progress with honest communication, and then she suggested separate sessions for a while, with Emma seeing Catherine, while John Cole saw Ted.

  Emma agreed, although she was not fully thinking of the matter. She was preoccupied with studying John Cole, searching his eyes, his expressions and his mannerisms in the way one sees something brand new and intriguing. When she caught sight of their image together in the mirror behind the receptionist’s desk, she stared until jarred away by having to look at a calendar.

  Her mind went over everything, and by that evening she went to John Cole and said, “We are so different,” as if she had made a great discovery. He agreed with this, and then they sat going over their differences for nearly half an hour. Emma did most of the talking but was no longer overly concerned about it, nor about having to prod John Cole along with questions. He seemed perfectly willing to reply.

  They each thought it quite possible that they knew the other better than they knew themselves. This provided ten more minutes of conversation, which Emma discovered was John Cole’s limit. She felt very smart to pay attention to this observation.

  That night, she sensed attraction between them of a sort she had not felt in a long time. She sensed it when John Cole came into the bedroom while she was at her dressing table, combing her hair.

  In the mirror, she saw him look at her. She was wearing a brand-new negligee that she had had Belinda order for her. She had bought three such gowns in recent weeks, trying to boost herself and impress John Cole. It was the sort of gown that she imagined Liz would have worn in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, and quite suddenly, she felt as bold and saucy as Maggie the Cat, too. Hadn’t she been awfully bold and saucy that afternoon?

  He surprised her by saying quite shyly, “You look nice in that gown.”

  “Thank you.” In the mirror, she watched him remove his shirt, her gaze skittering across his bare muscular shoulders.

  “John Cole.”

  He turned
. “Yeah?”

  What did she want to say? “I’m sorry about today…gettin’ so angry.”

  He gazed at her. “I guess I should have told you.”

  “My gettin’ angry wasn’t helpful….”

  The phone rang. Instantly, and to her annoyance, John Cole reached for it. He always reached for the phone no matter what important discussion they might have going. Likely, he could not manage another important discussion and was glad for the phone distraction.

  But then she heard, “Hey, bud,” and knew it was Johnny calling, so she forgave him for answering.

  While the two talked, apparently about some matter with the stores, Emma went about spritzing on perfume, turning down the bed covers, opening the windows to the cooling night and generally being hopeful. They were making progress in relating, she was sure of it.

  Then John Cole said, “He wants to talk to you,” and handed over the receiver.

  “Hi, sweetie.”

  “Hi, Mama.”

  With those two words and his tone, she knew something was wrong.

  He said, “I got your message yesterday. I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you until now. I’ve been real busy.”

  As does every attentive mother who has automatically stored possible future problems in the back of her mind, or perhaps has mental telepathy with her child, she knew instantly the trouble and marshaled her calm voice and good sense to deal with it.

  “That’s all right, honey. I would have called back if I’d needed to speak to you right away.”

  Annoyed at John Cole for the mundane and intrusive act of turning on the television, she started down the hallway for the family room, saying, “I didn’t have Gracie’s phone number, or I would have called her. Would you like me to do that? With not getting a reply to the engagement card I sent, I really think I need to speak to Gracie’s mother. Maybe the card got lost in the mail, and we don’t want Gracie’s mother to think we aren’t welcoming of her.”

  The line hummed with silence, and then Johnny said, “Well, we didn’t want to say anything before. Gracie thought her mother would come around. But the thing is, her mother is against us gettin’ married and probably won’t be comin’ to the weddin’ or havin’ anything to do with it.”

  “Ah.” Well, there it was. She had suspected.

  She listened to him explain, in the same brief manner his father always used—a fact that part of her mind took in even as she processed the knowledge that Sylvia Kinney had not been for the romance of her daughter with Johnny from the start.

  “She doesn’t like me, Mama.” His voice broke her heart.

  “Honey, it isn’t you,” she said quickly. “She doesn’t know you enough not to like you. It is her own preconceived notions.”

  Johnny allowed as that could be true, but it did not change the fact that the mother of the woman he loved was against the marriage.

  Emma’s response was to advise patience and respect on his part. After all, it was not easy for mothers to face their children growing up. Not only was Gracie’s mother facing her daughter getting married but also living so far from home. She told him that Sylvia Kinney would be his mother-in-law, so it was better not to give her any fuel to work with. After they were married, if not before, when the woman got to really know Johnny, she would change her mind.

  The entire time Emma spoke these sound sentiments, she was thinking: I knew this. I knew it the minute I looked at Gracie’s face when she made up that story about her mother being unreachable. I knew it when I didn’t hear anything about the engagement card—and it was a real nice card, too. Not like their Johnny Ray? What sort of woman was this? And should Gracie now be suspect?

  “What matters most, honey, is for you and Gracie to do what you want to do. It is your lives.”

  Johnny said, “Thanks, Mom,” in a thoroughly grateful tone that brought tears to Emma’s eyes.

  When she hung up, she laid her head on the phone. She had calmed him, but she wanted to say a thing or two to Sylvia Kinney. Unable to do that, she hurried back to the bedroom to tell John Cole, walking so fast as to cause her gown to billow out behind her.

  Unfortunately, and to her great annoyance, John Cole had fallen asleep. Just forgotten all about her and was snoring softly while a rerun of The Twilight Zone crackled on the television.

  With a deep sigh, she clicked off the television and got into bed. She could tell him in the morning. After all, how important was it right that moment?

  It was darn important. She sat up, switched on the lamp and woke John Cole to tell him all about this rude, thoughtless and clearly misguided woman who was against their son.

  “I knew it was somethin’ like this. She probably considers us all a bunch of hicks and rubes.”

  His yawns and asking what was a rube and comments of, “Well, these things happen,” and “I imagine it will blow over,” were far from satisfactory.

  “I think I’m goin’ to fly out there,” she said.

  “You’re gonna what?” That got him fully awake.

  Ignoring his frown, she said, “I think I’m goin’ to fly out there and talk to Sylvia Kinney face-to-face. Maybe if I meet her and talk with her, she’ll feel differently. She’s makin’ a big mistake. She’s goin’ to alienate Gracie, her only daughter, and her whole attitude could end up ruinin’ their marriage. Gracie might even decide not to marry Johnny.”

  “Emma, don’t go blowin’ it all—”

  “Not talkin’ about it is not the way to go, John Cole. Somebody needs to speak up and say somethin’ to her.”

  He looked at her as if he had never seen her before.

  She told him, “I just don’t think we need to act as if her behavior doesn’t matter. It needs to be confronted.”

  “I agree,” he said, although she knew he was setting up to say how much he didn’t agree. “I know things need to be talked about, but you can’t go flyin’ up there.”

  “Yes, I can. I’ve flown lots of times.”

  “That is not what I mean, and you know it.” He raked his hand through his hair, and she could see him thinking very hard, an effort that softened her a little. “You need to stay out of it, and let Gracie and Johnny handle it. Isn’t that what you’re always tellin’ me—that Johnny is old enough to run his own life? I know I don’t know a lot about this sort of stuff, but I really think you need to listen to me this one time.”

  She sat there for long seconds, staring at him, until what suddenly came out was, “I do listen to you, John Cole. It’s just that mostly you don’t ever say anything.”

  His eyes widened with something of surprise, and she found she was quite surprised at the statement, too.

  “Well, maybe I’ve learned a little, okay?” he said, with a slight grin as he reached for her, pulling her down onto his shoulder, another surprise.

  She lay there against his warm and hard body, savoring a spark of elation about connecting with her husband. She offered to reconsider her plan.

  “Good,” was his muttered answer in an already half-asleep state. Indeed, another sixty seconds and he was again snoring gently.

  Emma, while a little disappointed, was not surprised. She turned her attention to memories long-forgotten and things she was seeing for the first time. It was a lot of thinking to keep her occupied far into the night.

  16

  In-laws

  1966

  Emma had met her future mother-in-law, Nedda Berry, over a long-distance phone call, made at her own suggestion. She had John Cole place the call and make an introduction.

  The conversation had lasted no more than five minutes, during which Emma had been forced to say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” twice and then go to guessing at exactly what Mrs. Berry said, because she was too embarrassed to repeat again that she could not hear the woman, who sounded like she was afraid to speak above a whisper.

  Admittedly, at that time, Emma’s experience of speaking long distance on the telephone was limited. The farthest she had
ever called was back home to her mother from a school trip to the mountains, but she had been able to hear her mother clear as day. Emma got up the nerve to ask John Cole if he had difficulty in hearing his mother. She wondered if maybe his mother had a voice problem, although she did not say this.

  “Sometimes she’s hard to hear,” he admitted. “Sometimes she doesn’t talk very loud…and Mom and Pop’s phone is old. They’ve had it since they moved into the house over thirty years ago.”

  Emma remembered thinking, Don’t these people own a hardware store? She was to find out that just like the last people to have cabinets live in a carpenter’s home, the last people to have improved and helpful gadgets were the families of hardware store owners. Mrs. Berry’s mops and brooms were all years old and frayed, and she didn’t have a decent bucket, because her husband kept forgetting to bring any of those things home.

  Two weeks before Emma and John Cole’s marriage, Nedda Berry came down with shingles and was too ill to travel out to the wedding. Emma could not say why she had suspected from the beginning that the woman would not come, even had she been well. Perhaps it was because of the fact that at that time Nedda Berry had never been more than fifty miles from her home in Eastern Oklahoma. As it turned out, not only did Nedda Berry never come to visit Emma and John Cole in all their years away in the Navy, but when she died at the age of sixty-five, she still had not traveled more than those few miles from her hometown.

  The only members of John Cole’s family to come to the wedding were his daddy, Charles Berry, who was called Pop, and his eldest brother, Charles Jr., who was called Charlie J. Strangely, the two men looked and acted more like brothers than father and son, the eighteen years between their ages seeming to be nothing. They drove out from Oklahoma in the elder Berry’s big white Plymouth and brought wedding presents: a stainless flatware service for twelve, the pattern Emma had seen advertised in magazines for $14.99, and a pair of embroidered and hand-laced pillowcases made by Nedda. The embroidery and lace detail was such that either the woman was a very swift worker, or she’d had the cases stored in the cabinet and waiting for an occasion. It turned out to be the latter; Emma was to learn that Nedda kept embroidery going and had stacks of pillowcases, towels and doilies in the cabinet. She was extremely accomplished at the art. The pillowcases she gave Emma and John Cole were some of her nicest work, but not the bridal type that Nedda had some years later worked up for a niece. That niece had gotten two sets of pillowcases and a lavender sachet.