Love in a Small Town

by Curtiss Ann Matlock

  She stuck her chin out and looked stubborn, as if she expected more criticism.

  Molly couldn’t keep herself from saying, “Honey, you should have told me you wanted to come back home. I would have come up and gotten you.”

  Inwardly she kept thinking of Stephen and wanting to smack his face, but she didn’t think this would be a helpful attitude.

  Savannah said in a very practical tone, “I was just so mad. And it isn’t the same at all to get mad and call your mother to come get you. That is childish, Mama.”

  They all had to chuckle at that. Mama commented that she didn’t know why people were always pointing at other people and calling them childish. “There’s none of us that ever grow up. We just get older.” She patted Savannah’s arm.

  Thus far Mama and Rennie were restraining themselves from many comments, obviously believing, and rightly so, that this was a time between mother and daughter, but they had to be in on it. It didn’t matter what Savannah’s attitude was, either. They were so for her. This struck Molly, made her feel a surge of thankfulness.

  “My car is new and it is only a six-hour drive, Mama,” Savannah was saying. “Well, it took me more like seven hours, because I got out and walked every hour or so, like the doctor told me to do, and I had to keep peein’. But I didn’t have any trouble at all on the trip, and if I would have, I had the cellular. Now, what is the problem with any of that, I ask you?”

  Molly said Savannah had done remarkably well. “But, honey, why didn’t you say anything about wantin’ to come down here? We would have arranged everything weeks ago.”

  Savannah looked defiant for a moment more, and then she seemed to sink. “I guess I kept thinking that I should have the baby where Stephen wanted me to. I mean we do live up there now, and he just seems to think it so important. But the closer the time got, I just didn’t want to, and I don’t see that it is all that big a deal. All I wanted was to come home for a few weeks. Stephen just refused. He never wanted to come for you and Daddy’s anniversary, and when it was called off, he told me I was not going to come down here and that’s all there was to it. He told me that.”

  Molly thought that Stephen was the foolish one for using that tactic. She met Rennie’s and Mama’s eyes and they silently agreed.

  Savannah continued, “We got in this horrible fight last night, and Stephen slept in the guest room. When I got up this mornin’, I just got my stuff and came home.”

  “You didn’t tell Stephen you were leaving?”

  “I didn’t see the need in gettin’ into another fight. I left him a note.”

  “Well, have you called him at all?”

  Savannah shook her head and bit her bottom lip. “I guess I should have. I guess that is childish, not callin’ him, even if he deserves it.”

  Molly said, “Call,” and Mama brought the telephone. When Savannah got no answer at her home number, she dialed Stephen’s cellular number, too, but she got no answer there, either.

  “He’s on his way down,” Mama said.

  “Oh, Grama, do you really think so?” Savannah said, looking from her grandmother to her mother and then to Rennie, too.

  Molly said that of course Stephen was coming down, and Rennie said, “Well, if he isn’t, you don’t want him."

  Savannah began to get agitated and to stuff peanut butter and crackers into her mouth at an alarming rate. Molly suggested that Savanna needed to lie down. Savannah agreed that she was tired, but she didn’t want to lie down at her grandmother’s. She wanted to go home to her own bed. She did not mean Arkansas.

  “You’ll come home, won’t you, Mama? At least for a little while?”

  Molly said she would, and she went to get Tommy Lee from the living room. In the few minutes they were alone, Tommy Lee said, “How is she?”

  “Well, she’s pregnant,” Molly said. “Really pregnant.”

  Tommy Lee just looked at her and nodded. Then they were both gazing at each other and without speaking they knew exactly what the other was thinking: What about us?

  “She’s our daughter, Tommy Lee,” Molly said.

  He gave a tired grin, and he put an arm around her as they returned to the kitchen.

  * * * *

  They had been home no more than fifteen minutes and Savannah had gotten settled into bed, Molly massaging her feet, when Stephen arrived. Savannah, who had excellent hearing, recognized the sound of his car.

  “That’s Stephen!”

  She jump up and hurried down the hall. Molly was amazed that Savannah could move as fast as she did. The weight of her abdomen made her do this curious waddle in which she seemed to keep a precarious balance. Molly worried that her daughter would either fall over backward or pitch over forward. She couldn’t recall how she had managed in such a state, but that had been years ago.

  Molly followed Savannah to the window in her and Tommy Lee’s bedroom, where there was a view of the driveway below. It was dusk now, the driveway illuminated by the lights. Tommy Lee, who had gone directly to the shop, was striding toward Stephen. Molly recognized that walk; it meant Tommy Lee was mad.

  She and Savannah pressed their foreheads against the screen, straining to see and hear, but the men’s words were indistinct. It did appear that they were arguing, however, and in minutes their voices rose.

  “What do you think you were doin’, lettin’ her drive off by herself like that?”

  “I didn’t know. . . . She didn’t tell me.”

  “You should have known,” Tommy Lee said. “You are responsible for her.” He went to pointing that finger at Stephen like he did when he got upset.

  They tossed a few more angry accusations back and forth, Tommy Lee more or less faulting Stephen for lack of attentiveness to his responsibilities, and Stephen saying Tommy Lee hadn’t known how to raise a daughter with any sense, and then Stephen came stomping inside saying, “I want a word with my wife!”

  Savannah looked wildly at Molly for a moment and then turned and headed out of the room in that curious waddle again. Molly hurried after her, determined to catch her if she fell, whether forward or backward.

  At the top of the stairs, Savannah looked down and said in that righteous way she could have, “You do not need to come in here, disrupting everyone, Stephen.”

  Stephen looked upward in surprise. “Me disrupting? What do you think you’re doin’? You ran off, Savannah!”

  “I came home. I made it home without your assistance, so you can just go back to your precious job that you couldn’t possibly take time away from.”

  At that Savannah huffed off to her bedroom and slammed the door while Stephen called, “This is not your home!” and came up the stairs, taking them two at a time, casting Molly a look that was somewhere between a glare and uncertainty as he passed.

  Savannah wouldn’t let Stephen into her room. He banged on the door and frowned at Molly, but she refused to budge. She felt the need to stay right where she was, in case Savannah came out and took it in her head to go down the stairs. Savannah had come up the stairs quite well, but Molly worried that if upset, she might not handle going down too well.

  Stephen was leaning up against the door now, and her anger at him eased. He was hunched over, as if hunched against the world. The back of his shirt was sweat stained after the long hours of riding in the car. He looked at Molly for a minute, and then he knocked on the door and said more calmly, “Savannah, I have to talk to you.”

  Molly went down the stairs then. She told herself she should not be interfering, and she prayed Savannah would not fall down the stairs.

  When she came around the corner, she almost bumped into Tommy Lee, who had obviously been standing there, listening. For a moment, both of them stood there together, trying to hear. Stephen was still knocking on the door and talking to Savannah through it, speaking too low for them to hear what he said.

  Tommy Lee slipped his hand to the back of Molly’s neck. “Do you want a Coke?” He moved away to the refrigerator.

 
Molly took the can he handed her and poured half the contents into a glass with ice and gave Tommy Lee the rest. Taking their cold drinks, they went out the back door and to the driveway now crowded with cars. Molly sat on the fender of her El Camino and Tommy Lee leaned against it.

  Tommy Lee said, “She isn’t gonna let him in.”

  “No, I don’t think she will. She might come out to go to the bathroom, though.”

  Savannah took a long time to get mad, but once she did, she burned for quite a while.

  Tommy Lee said, “She’ll wet her pants first.”

  After several long minutes Molly said, “Those two remind me of us.”

  “No.” Tommy Lee shook his head. “We were never that stupid.”

  “Oh, Tommy Lee. Remember the fight we had over the television? You said it was your television because your parents had given it to you when you were fifteen, and so it was your right to take it into the bathroom to watch television while you shaved, never mind that I was watching it.”

  Tommy Lee started laughing. “So you poured a glass of water in the back of it and blew it up.”

  Molly remembered how she had cried and thought their marriage was over after only two weeks, and how since they had no television for a number of months, while they saved to buy one, she and Tommy Lee spent many evenings talking on the back steps and afterward they would make wonderful love with the summer breeze blowing in the window. Thinking of it now, she realized the loss of the television had been a very fortunate thing.

  She looked over at Tommy Lee. He was gazing downward, lost in thought. Was he thinking the same thoughts? She noticed his hair curled down on his neck. Without her reminding him it was time to get a haircut, his hair had gotten longer than he normally let it, and it curled behind his ear. Molly raised her hand to stroke him there, then let her hand drop without touching him.

  “Stephen is not totally responsible for Savannah," she said. “She’s a woman grown, and he isn’t her father, he’s her husband.”

  “He married her. He should take care of her.”

  “He can’t take care of her if she won’t let him. And she shares the responsibility for herself. She can and should take care of herself.”

  Tommy Lee gave a little derisive snort.

  “She did okay comin’ down here.”

  “Only because nothin’ happened. If anything had happened, she wouldn’t have known anything to do but panic.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do know that. She isn’t the woman you were when you got married. She’s six years older than you were when you had her, and she’s ten years behind you then. Our daughter is still pretty much of a spoiled little girl. But be that as it may, Stephen married her, and he should be able to take care of her.” Even though he held the Coke can, he still pointed his finger.

  Molly herself thought Savannah might have panicked, but she didn’t care for Tommy Lee thinking that. Then what he had said about Molly herself struck her. It was pleasant that he spoke of her in a rather glowing way.

  She said, “Stephen is not the man you were, either. He doesn’t know at all when to keep his mouth shut. You always knew how to at least pretend to understand me, and how to maneuver me, but Stephen keeps trying to order Savannah. For a young man who graduated top in his class at college and who thinks he knows everything, he doesn’t know anything that matters.”

  That all sat there between them for a long minute, and then Molly said, “Oh, Tommy Lee . . . I should have seen this comin’. I know Savannah. I should have known how much she wanted to come home. I did know it . . . but I was just so distracted by myself and me and you. I haven’t talked to her hardly at all these past weeks. She’s needed me, and I just haven’t been there for her.” Molly felt so tired and wished to go to bed and pull the covers over her head.

  “Molly, you have a right to your own life. And Savannah is twenty-four years old. She has to start facing her own choices and mistakes. And she has to quit thinkin’ that whenever she’s scared, she can come runnin’ back to you. That way, she’ll never face what she needs to.”

  “I suppose that’s so,” Molly said.

  She mused on this, finding Tommy Lee’s attitude a bit contradictory. She didn’t think she should call him on it, though. She said instead what she had been thinking for the past weeks.

  “I’ve often thought that one of the reasons you and I made it over the years is that we never had anywhere to run to whenever we got angry at each other. We only had each other."

  Tommy Lee looked up at her. Then he moved and shoved in between her legs, encircling his arms around her waist.

  “Honey, you’ve always been there for the kids. What I said the other day, actin’ like I resented that—I don’t. I’ve always admired that you put them first, before yourself and me and even God himself. They’re my children, too, and one of the things I love most about you is how you have cared for them. I guess I took advantage of that. Knowin’ you were so vigilant, I didn’t have to pay as close attention. I could go on about whatever I wanted or needed to be doin’ and leave the kids to you.”

  “Oh, Tommy Lee . . ." She stroked the hair behind his ears and gazed into his eyes and felt tears welling into her throat. “You have always been a good father. You were even a father to me, and sometimes I fought that, but the plain fact is, I’ve needed you to be that for me. I guess it wasn’t fair to you . . . but I couldn’t help it. I’ve grown up now . . . at least some, and I know that’s hard on you. But it’s you who have helped me to grow."

  He looked long at her, and she at him. He pressed his hand against her back, and she stroked the hair behind his ear. She blinked tears from her eyes and kept on looking at him and holding on to him.

  The next moment the back screen door smacked and the back porch stairs creaked, drawing Tommy Lee around. Stephen came into view, shoulders slumped so that Molly’s heart tugged for him.

  “Tommy Lee . . . speak to him.”

  “No. I can’t stand him. You do it,” and he shoved from her and started away for his shop.

  After a moment of absorbing that, Molly hopped down and walked over to where Stephen stood with his car door open, waiting for her. It struck her that Stephen’s car was a Mercedes sitting alongside the El Camino, Tommy Lee’s old Chevy pickup, and Savannah’s Taurus, which Tommy Lee had picked out for her. Stephen was as different from them all as Molly had been from Tommy Lee’s parents.

  “Give her time to cool off, Stephen. You both need time to cool down.”

  “She had no right to run off like that.”

  “No more right than you have dictating to her,” Molly said.

  Stephen got into his car and slammed the door. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Maybe. Until then, I’ll be stayin’ at my sister’s.”

  Molly watched him drive away and thought, I guess I handled that poorly. She went back into the house to check on Savannah. Savannah’s door was closed but not locked. Molly simply twisted the knob and went in.

  Savannah was propped up in the bed. She said, “Stephen never tried the knob. I never did lock it, and he never did try it.”

  Molly couldn’t tell if Savannah was amazed or annoyed; perhaps a little of each. Molly thought that both Stephen and Tommy Lee underestimated Savannah.

  She went about seeing to her daughter’s comfort, enjoying the hovering and comforting and protecting. She got Savannah another pillow, brewed her some chamomile tea, lowered the thermostat a notch.

  “Mama, Stephen tells me everything to do . . . just like Daddy always has done you. But I can’t do what he says, like you always have done just exactly what Daddy says.”

  Molly raised an eyebrow. “Oh, have I?”

  Savannah nodded.

  “Have I?” Molly said once more.

  Savannah blinked, then frowned, thinking.

  “Savannah, you are gonna have to learn to pay attention to what your husband says, and then do what you want, without making a big ruckus out of it, or you’re
gonna either be divorced or wrung out in short order.” Then she conceded, “I have often done as your father said, but your father is right so very much of the time.” And it was always easier, she thought.

  “I don’t want to play games.”

  Molly breathed deeply. “I never did either, but maybe doing so comes natural to human beings. I’m coming to think that it isn’t so much playing games as being diplomatic and keeping life smooth and enjoyable all the way around. It’s like manners. Some people don’t see the point in them, but manners enable humans to live together in a civilized manner.”

  “I’ve hurt his feelings,” Savannah said, looking pensive and slipping down further into the bed. “I wish I could feel more sorry.”

  “I wish I could say that you and Stephen will never have another fight . . . but you will.”

  Molly decided she needed to go then because she wasn’t being very positive. “You’ll feel better after you get a good night’s sleep.” Savannah’s eyes had already drooped shut.

  Molly turned out the hall and stairway lights as she went through the house. She paused in the kitchen and looked around before taking up her purse.

  Tommy Lee was standing beside the El Camino when she came out. He asked how Savannah was, and Molly said fine and sleeping. He opened the car door for her, closed it after she got inside, and stuck his head in the window to kiss her lightly.

  Then she drove away, back to the cottage. She didn’t really ask herself why she had come back, until she walked into the kitchen and the heat and the scents closed around her.

  She found her cellular phone and called across to talk to her mother.

  “Well, hello honey,” Mama said. “What’s the story?”

  Molly told her all of it, in the same manner that Savannah had come telling.

  * * * *

  Ruthann Johnson, Savannah’s childhood friend, came out early the next morning, and soon after she arrived, Stephen showed up. Savannah did speak to him this time, but she refused to return to Arkansas with him. She intended to have her baby in the bosom of her family. Tommy Lee heard her yelling that at Stephen all the way from outside: “I’m havin’ my baby in the bosom of my family!”