Love in a Small Town

by Curtiss Ann Matlock

  While she was speaking, Mama was setting the table with festive breakfast plates and cloth napkins and orange juice glasses and small butter knives. She enjoyed her breakfast in the middle of the morning. With the refrigerator open, she poured milk into a dish on the floor for Ace, who came running.

  Molly had decided to leave Ace with her mother when she went riding. She felt Ace might get lonely in a strange place, and she had long thought that her mother should consider getting a pet. She thought maybe her mother would be won over by Ace and go out and get her own cat, which would be company for her.

  Molly worried sometimes about her mother getting lonely. It saddened her to think of her mother married so many times and ending up alone, although her mother seemed happy with it. Molly wasn’t certain she herself would be happy, and it scared her now to think that she was on the brink of being as alone as her mother.

  Ace sniffed at the milk. “Mama, that milk isn’t ruined, is it?”

  “A cat won’t eat something that will make him sick,” Mama said.

  Molly thought of how Ace would throw up hair, but didn’t say anything. Ace went to lapping the milk.

  Mama said, “I really like this cat.”

  “You do?” Molly was pleased, but then a little sad, because she liked Ace. Last night he had lain on her belly and soothed her into sleep with his purring. She really didn’t want to have to give Ace to her mother.

  Her mother nodded. “He never bothers me, and he comes when I give him milk, then goes off again.” She spoke as if Ace’s behavior was unique. She then brought orange juice from the refrigerator and saw Molly’s questioning look. “It’s fresh. I bought it just yesterday.”

  “Thank you, Mama.”

  Her mother had brought brewed coffee from Hardee’s, too. As Molly poured it from the styrofoam cup into the china mug her mother gave her, she inhaled the aroma.

  Mama took the opposite chair and motioned at Molly’s hat, which she’d forgotten to take off. She’d become used to the tight feeling around her brow and felt a little light-headed when she removed the hat.

  “Where have you gone on your rides?” Mama asked.

  Molly sipped her orange juice, then replied, “Oh, around the home place—somebody’s cut the back fence, by the way. And I’ve been over onto Salyer’s place . . . and down the hole-in-the-rock road to the old schoolhouse.”

  For some reason, when Molly rode she didn’t feel the pressing urge to think. She simply rode, enjoying the feeling of the horse beneath her and the view of the countryside and the quiet all around her. What she liked most about riding a horse was the stark quiet in which it was easy to hear the slightest rustle of the trees and critters moving in the grass.

  Mama spooned honey into her coffee. “I forgot about the fence. Loren Settle told me back last winter that he’d cut it one night while he was coon hunting. He said he’d fix it, but I told him to leave it, since we didn’t have cattle anymore, and that way he wouldn’t have to cut it again.”

  “You let hunters chase coons on our property?”

  Molly didn’t like the thought at all. Men with guns running around in the dark seemed a reckless proposition, not to mention that they were after a defenseless little animal. Molly didn’t approve of hunting in this day and age, anyway, with meat readily available at any supermarket, and she especially didn’t care for it on land that at least in part belonged to her. Or would someday. The Collier land was reduced to only eighty acres now. Half of that was woods and little pastures and the other half was planted in an alfalfa field, which Mama cut and baled herself four or more times a year.

  “Well, honey,” Mama said in some surprise, “Loren brings his own coons.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything for Molly to say to that, so she fell quiet, and Mama did, too, each into their own thoughts.

  Molly thought of men with guns and dogs chasing coons all over the countryside she had ridden through. She had ridden the miles of dirt roads south and west of Valentine, and through pastures and down canyons on the farms and ranches where she knew the owners wouldn’t mind. Most people didn’t mind riders coming across their land, as long as the gates that were supposed to be closed were left closed. And thinking of this, she supposed she wasn’t much different than a coon hunter, except that she wasn’t out killing a defenseless animal.

  Just then Mama said, “Loren doesn’t kill the coon—not his own in summer anyway. He can only kill a coon in season, which is sometime in the winter. In the summer he has his dogs chase it up a tree. They’re trained to do that, and the dogs get points or something for doing it. It’s a sport.”

  Molly heard her, but what she said was, “This is the most riding I’ve done since that trail ride we went on with Boone when he was in school. There just never seems to be any time to ride, and if I take the time, I usually feel guilty, because Tommy Lee doesn’t ride anymore and half the time I end up leaving him with a sandwich for supper. Or the house is a mess, and Tommy Lee is workin’ in his shop, and I feel I should be doin’ things that need to be done.”

  “I’ve always thought Tommy Lee quite intelligent and capable,” Mama said, dabbing a chunk of butter on her already oil-rich egg biscuit. “If he wanted a hot supper, I imagine he could cook it, or would know where to go buy it.”

  “Tommy Lee likes sandwiches,” Molly said after a moment. She felt she had made him out in a bad light and needed to correct the impression. “A sandwich is about his favorite thing to eat, next to a hamburger. It isn’t that he complains. He isn’t one to complain at all. He never says anything about the house being a mess or me riding."

  Molly sat there a minute, holding her coffee mug with both hands. “Tommy Lee probably could be described as nearly a perfect husband. He doesn’t complain, he works hard to provide a secure home for us, and he never says a word about how much money I spend.” She raised her eyes and looked at her mother. “And I am so mad at him, Mama. I’m so mad, and I feel so guilty because he hasn’t really done anything wrong at all.”

  She knotted her napkin in her hand. She felt the guilt falling all over her shoulders in proportion to the anger and confusion welling up in her chest. What did she want from Tommy Lee? He gave her exactly what she told her mother—he was a husband most other women would give their eyeteeth for, and yet she couldn’t be content. She wanted his attention, which she had tried, and failed, to gain. Obviously she was the one at fault.

  “No one is perfect,” Mama pointed out. “Everyone does things that annoy other people.”

  “Well of course they do,” Molly said, now annoyed at Mama. “I didn’t say he was perfect. He leaves his clothes around for me to pick up and expects me to know where everything is. And he is critical about things I try to do, like painting the house trim—he didn’t like the way I held the brush. I used the glue gun in the joints of the old chairs, and he has to tell me the glue won’t hold. I use a nail instead of a drill to poke a little hole in the wall and his hair about stands on end. He wants me to watch shows on television that he likes, but he won’t watch ones I like, and he never goes riding with me anymore. If we are both in my El Camino, he has to be the one that drives. He doesn’t even ask if I want to drive—he asks me for the keys and just gets in.” Suddenly Molly heard herself and shut her mouth tight.

  “If that is a description of a nearly perfect husband, I wouldn’t want to see one who was slightly imperfect,” Mama said.

  Molly might have laughed, but she suddenly thought she might cry if she made any sound at all. She took her coffee mug and rose, walked to the counter, and sighed deeply.

  “None of that amounts to a hill of beans,” she said, after she was certain she wasn’t going to cry. She felt totally at a loss now and sinking beyond tears. “Most of the time I never notice those things—and heaven knows I have as many annoying little habits as Tommy Lee. But now it’s as if every little thing we each do separates us. We are so far apart, Mama, and that’s what I’m angry about. I’m blaming Tommy Lee b
ecause I’m so mad at him that I can’t love him, even though I know good and well I share as much of the blame for us being where we are."

  She squeezed her eyes closed and thought how much she wanted to be rid of the pain inside.

  “Well, Molly dear, a person can, and usually does, hold certain strong beliefs, while finding it quite difficult to put those beliefs into practice. Take, for example, my firm belief that we should never judge another person. ‘Judge not’ is a guiding phrase for me. Judging does no one any good, and God knows we all have our weaknesses. Yet, I would have to admit that my opinion of Ella Mae Jolley is that she is a woman of very low character, who wants something for nothing and refuses to own up to the fact that she is poor because she is lazy and graspy and envious and devious, and by that very fact she draws similar ugly things to herself. I have tried to like the woman, but I cannot, because I judge her, and I’m quite put out with her for being the despicable type of woman she is, which leads me to judge her.”

  Mama gracefully lifted her china cup and drank her coffee.

  Molly said, “I think the same thing you do about Ella Mae Jolley.”

  Mama’s eyes sparkled and her lips twitched. “That will remain our secret shame.” Then Mama looked at her with tender regard, and Molly felt an easing inside. A certain acceptance.

  She set her empty mug on the counter and ran her fingers along the edge of the cool enamel tiles. “Mama, I just couldn’t stand the way I was feeling around Tommy Lee. I didn’t leave because I couldn’t stand to be around him—oh, I have always loved to be with Tommy Lee. But when I’m with him now, I can’t stand the hurt and I can’t stand me.” She brought her fist to her heart, then let it drop.

  “I feel like I’ve failed him and like I’ll never be what he needs or wants, and that I’m just so tired of tryin’ to be whatever that is.” Her voice dropped. “And now he’s so angry at me because I left him . . . and maybe he’ll want a divorce."

  Tears suddenly sprang to her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them go in front of her mother. Mama rarely cried and tended to get irritable when anyone else did. As it was, she knew Molly was near tears, and tossing her napkin on the table, she spoke with impatience.

  “Of course he is angry with you. You are forcing him to think deeply. To look into himself, and if there’s anything men hate, it is havin’ to look into themselves. Men avoid deep thinking and looking into themselves the same way they avoid cleaning a bathroom. They prefer to shut the door on anything unpleasant and hope it will go away.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out in a loud sigh. “It is not a great sin to have taken some time away from your husband, Molly Jean. You haven’t run off with another man. Getting angry and leavin’ doesn’t mean your marriage is over, that you’ve sunk it with one shot. If you can sink it with this one shot, then there isn’t enough left to be called a marriage anyway."

  Mama moved her legs from beneath the table, crossed them, and adjusted her robe. “When I lost Al Moss, I was thrown into such pain and to escape it, I ran right straight to your father, without takin’ time to truly think and understand my needs and wants. I did this repeatedly, because I was avoiding lookin’ into myself. It was quite difficult to face what I saw in myself, so I avoided it, until finally I was alone and there was nothing else to do.

  “You are at that point now, Molly, and it is not your nature to run from things. You have always faced them head-on. In fact, you have always raced ahead to meet them,” Mama allowed, and not quite in a complimentary tone.

  “I’ve never done anything like this,” Molly said, whispering. “I’ve never felt so . . ." She was at a loss.

  “Disappointed,” Mama pronounced.

  Molly wasn’t certain if disappointed was exactly it; she was trying the word on for size, though, and it seemed to fit.

  Mama said, “Tommy Lee and marriage and most of all you yourself have not turned out to be all that you’d thought. That is a great disappointment. It happens sooner or later to all of us, honey. You suddenly must face that life isn’t ever going to be as you thought and dreamt it would be . . . and that you and Tommy Lee aren’t, either. So now comes the time when you begin to appreciate things as they really are.”

  “Well, I don’t know if Tommy Lee can appreciate me as I really am.”

  “Do you think you can appreciate him as he really is?” Mama asked.

  “I don’t know,” Molly said truthfully.

  “You both must find that out,” Mama said with firmness and finality. The next instant she was on her feet and bringing her dishes to the sink. “The best thing you can do is to give you both time to relax a bit, not try to work so hard at the marriage. Just see what happens. In my opinion, you and Tommy Lee have become much too stodgy, anyway.”

  Then she gave Molly a hug and went off to get dressed, saying she had an afternoon date with the hairdresser.

  Molly found her mother’s sudden buoyant mood and abrupt departure a little thoughtless. Then she told herself there was no need for her mother’s life to be set askew because of her own problems. And Mama had always swung from low to high, so she was staying right in form.

  A few seconds later, Mama poked her head back in the doorway. “I selected a few books you might want to read,” she said, wagging her finger at a small stack on the end of the counter. With a little wave, she whirled away again, but Molly called to her.

  “Mama.” Her mother stopped and looked over her shoulder. Molly said through a tight throat, “I love you very much.”

  Mama smiled softly. “Me, too, you,” and she swept away.

  Molly went over and looked at the books; an early one of anecdotes by Erma Bombeck; a mystery novel by Rita Mae Brown; a slim volume of the Book of Psalms; and the essay by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, “Gift from the Sea.” Mama liked to cover all the bases, Molly thought.

  Suddenly she felt very tired. She plopped her hat on her head, found Ace in the living room, curled on her mother’s ottoman, and took him up in one arm, sweeping the books up in the other, and went back across to the cottage. After a shower, she turned on the old black fan and stretched out on the bed. In only a large T-shirt and panties, she thought the breeze from the fan felt delicious. Ace came to lie on her belly, and she stroked his soft fur.

  She considered what her mother had said about her and Tommy Lee becoming stodgy. For some reason this statement stood out in her mind—it pricked her like a needle. It annoyed her. It was the truth, but it annoyed her. Why did Mama have to say that one thing, after giving her all that wise and comforting advice?

  Her mother had a number of times stated that Molly was being stodgy, and Molly resented the statement. For one thing, “stodgy” was an ugly word. It was hard and unappealing to say or to see. But more to the point, “stodgy” was a critical term. A more positive term, a more accurate term, would have been to say that Molly was “steady,” which was as she knew herself to be. “Dependable” would also have been a good word to use. “Steady” and “dependable” were pleasant words, and Molly had always considered herself a rather pleasant person. Other people certainly seemed to find her so.

  Molly reflected that she never had taken criticism very well, most especially from certain people, such as Mama or Tommy Lee. Or any of her three children. Kaye could tell her all day long that she was stodgy or bossy or stubborn, and Molly would only laugh at her or tell her to kiss my ass, but when Mama or Tommy Lee or the children criticized her, she was bruised.

  It was because she loved them so much, she thought with sudden clarity, and because when they were critical of her, she felt unloved.

  Of course that was not true. Simply because a person uttered a criticism did not mean they didn’t love you. How many times had she let slip criticism to her children or Mama or Tommy Lee—or been placed in the tricky position of having to criticize them for their own good? And she certainly still loved them completely. Why should she feel they didn’t love her?

  She didn’t know. It was simply th
e way she felt, and thinking of this made her very depressed. She felt not only stodgy, but crumpled, too.

  Then an inner whisper came: I wasn’t so stodgy when I broke those dishes.

  It was this other side of herself who was suddenly demanding to be heard, she thought. A bolder, wilder Molly, who kept getting all emotional and crying and breaking plates. It was this Molly who wanted to break free and do all manner of outrageous things—such as telling someone to fuck off. It was this Molly who was strong and confident, and who shrugged off criticisms.

  Molly sighed. She longed to let the bolder side of her nature have free rein. But she worried that maybe she would go too far, and that the other side to her personality might lead her into places she would end up being sorry to have gone. She reflected that Tommy Lee had been horrified at the bolder Molly who had broken their wedding dishes. Although she had gotten his attention when she’d done that.

  Chapter 8

  Life Gets Away From Us All

  Tommy Lee found himself feeling perpetually confused. For the better part of twenty-five years Molly had been within shouting distance most of the time; Molly not being near was something he couldn’t seem to believe had happened. When he looked up and saw his mother-in-law’s black Lincoln pulling up in front of the shop, he felt more confused than ever.

  His wife driving out of his life and his mother-in-law driving in, he thought, as he wiped his hands on a shop towel and reached over to lower the volume on the stereo.