by Pamela Morsi
Sonny tried to imagine seeing his own daughters get married. Would it be like this? Would they look so happy? He hoped so. And he hoped that, unlike Lonnie, he would be there to see it.
“Who gives this woman to be married?” the preacher asked.
“My sisters and I do.”
It should have been Lonnie.
Tonya and Paul clasped hands, made vows, exchanged rings. As Sonny listened he took Dawn’s hand in his own. She glanced over and smiled at him. It amazed him that after all that had happened lately, she could still smile.
The unemployment thing had caught her off guard. With both girls in school all day, Dawn was taking a full course load at the university.
“I’ll drop out of school and get a job,” she decided immediately.
“No, you won’t have to do that,” Sonny told her.
She shook her head. “I don’t mind, really I don’t. I can wait tables or what I should really be is a cocktail waitress. That makes perfect sense. I’ll be working mostly when the girls have gone to bed. All I have to do is carry a few drinks. And the money’s real good.”
Sonny didn’t like that idea.
“Don’t worry about the money,” he assured her. “I’ll get something else very soon.”
He didn’t, of course. It had been five months and he still had nothing lined up. Dawn began to insist that she needed to find work. She even began applying at bars, knowing her husband didn’t want her there.
It was Phrona who eventually butted in with a solution.
“I’m not any fonder of the idea of you working in some whiskey lounge than Sonny is,” she told Dawn. “But not just because I don’t think it’s any kind of life for my grandchildren’s mother. I just think that it doesn’t teach you anything or get you anywhere. Shouldn’t you be using the talents that you have and the knowledge that you’ve acquired to do something that might really appeal to you as a life’s work?”
Dawn was momentarily dumbfounded.
“I never thought of myself as having a life’s work,” she said. “Except for raising the girls.”
Phrona nodded. “Raising Sierra and Dakota should be your first priority, but as an empty nester myself, I can tell you that you’ll be a better mother if you also go after some dreams of your own.”
Dawn thought about that, but couldn’t come to any conclusions.
“I don’t think I have any dreams,” she told Sonny. “When I look at my life with you, it’s wonderful. But when I look out into the world, the world that I’ve always known, the world I grew up in… To me, that’s just a nightmare.”
Phrona showed up with an answer for her, as well as a name and a number.
Dawn looked down at it and read, “Leslie Jochem, Department of Children’s Services.”
“She’s Jane Wickham’s daughter-in-law’s sister,” Phrona explained. “Jane says she’s always looking for hardworking, responsible people to hire.”
Dawn frowned. “I’m no social worker,” she pointed out.
“There are lots of clerical jobs and paperwork jobs,” Phrona said with a wave. “They either have something you might be interested in or they don’t. You’ll never know if you don’t give them a call.”
Dawn had. She’d also gone in for an interview. She thought that she would have nothing to say, but surprisingly they were very interested in her. “Leslie said, ‘A person who has been inside the system has a perspective that the rest of us will never be able to get,’” she told Sonny later.
“And what did you say?” Sonny asked.
“I guess I was a little defensive,” she admitted. “I said that when I left, I put all that behind me.”
He nodded.
“But then she pointed out that I hadn’t really, that what I’d been doing to help the Beales…that kind of care and oversight is exactly what a lot of the job of DCS is.”
“So what do you think?” Sonny asked her.
She shrugged. “I’m still a little unsure,” she said. “I worry that I’ll just become part of the problem.”
Sonny shook his head with certainty. “That will never happen,” he said.
“How can you know that?”
“I see how you are with Sierra and Dakota,” he told her. “I saw how you were with Tonya and her family. You’re not going to be any different with any other kid. They will be lucky to have you.”
In the end, she did accept a job. It was a paperwork job, a case assistant for a homes inspector. She didn’t actually even see any children, but somehow they weren’t just names to her on the paper. They were every kid she’d ever met, every home she’d ever lived in, every situation she’d ever run from. She took the job very personally.
Sonny was delighted. It was a state job. It didn’t pay as much as cocktail waitressing and she was away from Sierra and Dakota for much more of the day. But he could tell that she loved the work. And that it was healing her. It was forcing her to confront the past that she’d left behind and reevaluate it for the positive things it had given her. Sitting beside her in the little country church, Sonny watched his wife. Even given their current poor financial circumstances, Dawn was happier than she’d been in a long time.
The minister pronounced Paul and Tonya as man and wife. Paul kissed his bride and then the two, blushing and happy, turned to face the congregation as they were introduced as Mr. and Mrs. for the very first time.
Beside him, Dawn was smiling through eyes full of tears.
The reception was held in the church basement. It wasn’t the kind that would have impressed the apogee of Knoxville society, or rated a photo spread in some bridal magazine. There was a three-layer homemade cake, fruit punch, mints and nuts. The guest favors were only little bags of birdseed in squares of colored net.
There was no dancing allowed, but a grizzled old man was scratching out romantic tunes on an ancient fiddle. Well-wishers sat around in metal folding chairs exchanging stories and reminiscing about weddings past.
Sonny wondered what the groom’s parents must think. They were an affluent couple from Charlotte. But if they found the wedding low budget, they obviously thought their new daughter-in-law to be a very precious jewel.
Sonny found a seat next to Rob Pearson, a logger he knew from his days on the crew. They caught up on each other’s news. One of his sons was on the football team. His wife was now selling makeup on the side.
“So how’s the fancy desk job going?” Rob asked.
Sonny was sheepish. “I don’t have it anymore,” he said.
The man raised an eyebrow. “What’s that about?”
“Well, I sort of quit when it seemed like I wasn’t going to get another choice.”
“Dang, I hadn’t heard that, I’m sorry,” Rob told him.
“Thanks,” Sonny said. “I’m sure I’ll find something soon.”
“Where have you been looking?”
Sonny named most of the companies that operated in the area.
“I’ve even applied with OSHA and the forestry service, but it takes time,” he said.
“You know,” the man said, lowering his voice slightly. “I heard the Brotherhood of Timber Workers is looking for a man for this area.”
“Union? In east Tennessee?” Sonny was skeptical. “This is a Right to Work state.”
Rob shrugged. “Guess that’s why they’ve still got the job open.”
They both laughed.
A minute later one of the bridesmaids came by to hand them cake. Rob teased her about catching the bouquet. She blushed, but managed to dissemble with admirable grace. Sonny couldn’t help smiling. Lonnie’s girls had turned out fine. He knew their father would have been proud.
Out in the churchyard, someone had started a game of Drop-the-Handkerchief. It was new to most of the kids who were trying to play it, including Sierra and Dakota. He watched them racing around the circle in their matching dresses. Sierra still managed to look like a photograph. Dakota’s hair bow was hanging precariously from one side and the kn
ee area of her long skirt was grass-stained.
He saw Dawn standing in a group of women. Sonny winked at her and she rolled her eyes. But a couple of minutes later she extricated herself and made her way to his side.
“It’s a nice wedding,” he told her.
She agreed. “It’s sweet and old-fashioned,” she said. “The memories will be beautiful.”
“We should have had a wedding,” Sonny said.
“Duh!” Dawn said facetiously. “We did.”
“I don’t think fifteen minutes in the judge’s chambers is considered a wedding,” he said.
She grinned at him. “Well, Sonny, you’re just as married.”
“True,” he admitted. “But it would have been nice to have all our friends and family there, celebrating with us and wishing us well.”
“That’s because nobody felt like celebrating and nobody wished us well,” she said.
He nodded. “It could have been different,” he said. “I think we could have made my mother come around. She certainly likes you now.”
“I don’t think I would ever have been her first choice for you,” Dawn said. “But she and I get along well enough. I think I’ve proved myself to her.”
“And she’s proved herself to you,” Sonny said.
Dawn glanced up at him, questioning.
“She and Dad have proved that people can care about you. Not just be in love with you, like I am, but just care about you, human to human.”
She thought about that for a long moment and then nodded. “You’re right,” she said. “I guess I believed that you cared about me, loved me, because you are unique. I don’t think I believed that anyone else, anyone less extraordinary, could ever look beyond who I’ve been to who I might actually be.”
He kissed her.
“Hey, that stuff is for the newlyweds,” an old logger called out to Sonny. “You two are old married folks.”
“It’s a wedding,” Sonny called back. “A guy can forget who he is around all these frills and bows.”
A burst of good-natured laughter and nods of agreement trickled through the crowd.
Sonny and Dawn didn’t get a word with the bride and groom until late in the evening. While his wife listened with delight at Tonya’s exuberance over the day, he shook hands with Paul, told him what a lucky guy he was.
“I won’t tell you to take good care of her,” Sonny said. “Because I know that you’re smart enough to recognize the value of a woman who is smart, beautiful and willing to put up with you.”
Paul laughed and Sonny slapped him companionably on the back.
“Thank you so much for…for everything,” Tonya told him. She went up on her tiptoes to hug his neck. “You and Dawn have been so good to us, to me. You’ve just been great, how you’ve helped us and cared about us.”
“It isn’t that hard to care about kids like you,” Sonny said. “And I never forget that your dad saved my life.”
She nodded. “But somehow it never feels like you’re being kind to us out of some obligation you feel,” Tonya said. “It’s always like you really care.”
“Because I do,” Sonny admitted. “I guess I’ve just been thinking about Lonnie a lot today. I’ve been really wishing that he could have been here. And I know you’ve really been wishing it, too.”
Her pretty brown eyes brightened with tears.
“Actually, I feel that he was,” she said.
Later that night as they drove back to Knoxville, the kids sound asleep in the car seats, Sonny related the story.
Dawn sighed.
“It’s so sweet,” she said. “And so sad.”
“Sometimes when I think about it…” Sonny said. “When I think about him stepping in front of me like that. I just can’t imagine why he would do that. I mean, he knew me, but he hardly knew me. And those children needed him. How could he decide in that split second to leave those kids of his behind?”
Sonny took a deep breath and shuddered as if a ghost had walked over his grave.
“I can’t even imagine what could have motivated him,” he told Dawn. “I know that I could never have made such a sacrifice.”
“I don’t know,” Dawn admitted. “In my psychology class they told us that heroism and self-sacrifice can be based in the need to take control. You can’t change what is happening, but you can make a response to it.”
“I don’t know if I agree with that,” Sonny said. “Somehow I don’t think that he just reacted like Pavlov’s dog. I think he knew what he was doing. I think he intentionally gave up his life for mine. I just don’t know why he did it.”
“I am just so glad that he did,” Dawn said.
“I guess…” Sonny hesitated. “I guess sometimes I feel that Lonnie must have saved me for some reason. That I’ve got to fulfill some sort of important purpose. I just wish I knew what it was.”
“Being a devoted husband and father is a pretty important purpose,” Dawn pointed out. “The girls adore their daddy and they need you with them. And I love you, Sonny. My life wouldn’t be nearly this good without you.”
Sonny smiled at her, then deliberately steered the discussion away from the serious side of things.
“Yeah, you’re life is pretty darn good,” he said facetiously in a voice that closely mimicked his own mother’s. “There’s nothing quite like being married to a guy who’s out of work. Having to go out and get a job yourself and wondering if you’re going to be able to pay that mortgage.”
“We’ll manage,” Dawn assured him. “I know that somehow we’ll manage.”
“Of course we will,” he agreed. “Hey, I even got a lead on a job at the wedding.”
“Really?”
“The Brotherhood of Timber Workers is looking for somebody.”
“What kind of job is it?” Dawn asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sonny answered. “If I go to work in any capacity as a union organizer, I’ll never get another company job in my lifetime.”
“They would do that?” She sounded shocked.
“In a skinny minute,” Sonny said. “Collective bargaining costs companies money. They don’t want any part of it.”
“But if the workers want it…”
“Local loggers have learned to keep their distance,” Sonny said. “They’re afraid that if they join up, someone else will get their job.”
“And unions are corrupt, right?” Dawn asked. “That’s what people say, that they are not really for the workers, the leaders are just out for themselves.”
Sonny chuckled. “That’s certainly what companies say,” he admitted. “I’m sure some unions are corrupt, but most aren’t and none of them have to be. The concept of laborers banding together to offset the power of big business is important to democracy. But things are hardly ever really that cut and dried. Companies are attracted to states like Tennessee because we have non-union labor. If corporations don’t locate here, then all the unions in the world can’t create jobs that don’t exist.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true for manufacturing,” Dawn said. “But logging would be here because forests are here. And wouldn’t loggers get paid more if they were in the union?”
“Not necessarily,” Sonny told her. “Around here, logging is already highly paid labor.”
“So there’s no reason to join the union,” Dawn said.
“That’s what most people think.”
“What do you think?” she asked him.
Sonny hesitated, considering.
“I think that there are other issues than just pay,” he said. “There’s retirement and disability. A union could make sure that companies would never pull what they tried with the Beales, a five thousand dollar payoff to compensate six orphans. And then there’s safety. If the union had more local membership the best interests of the workers would carry a lot more weight. It would be a great tempering mechanism in those instances when greed gets the better of company management.”
“Then you’re thinking about taking
the job.”
Sonny shook his head. “I can’t. It would kill my career. I’m sure of that.”
Dawn nodded. “Or it would give you a career very different from the one that you thought you were going to have.”
REAL LIFE
30
It was hard to believe that my mother was having an actual real-life date with Del Tegge. It was one of those things that if you’d seen it on reality TV you would have said, “Aw come on, no way.”
But it was really happening. And in the worst possible way. Sierra was so excited and giggly, the two of them had spent all afternoon working up to the big moment. The way they were talking, planning, speculating, it was like she was off to the prom, not a simple dinner.
The whole thing just made me totally nervous.
He was not at all her type. Still, he could have been a Sonny. Just another Sonny looking for whatever it was that Sonnys wanted from my mom.
I didn’t tell her what I’d learned about his name. It was too spooky and I was afraid for her. She was sick and she was vulnerable. If he turned out to be like all the other Sonnys in her world, it wouldn’t be good. Should I warn her that he might be like the rest of them? Or would she then be more determined to actually try to make the thing work?
I wasn’t sure. And the more I thought about it, the scarier it got. Meanwhile, Mom tried on dresses and modeled them for me and Sierra.
My sister offered great tips and actually loaned pieces of her own wardrobe, including a very expensive well-made suit that Mrs. Leland had bought for Sierra to wear to church. It looked good on Mom. She looked like one of those nice ladies that attend functions of the PTA and served us punch and cookies.
“That looks great, Mom,” I told her.
Sierra agreed. “This is totally you,” she said. “Not too wild, not too boring. It says, I know who I am and you can take me anywhere.”
“You think so?” Mom asked.
Sierra nodded. “Look, we’ve even got this scarf that works with it. I’ll tie a turban around your head. You’ll look more than good, you’ll be downright chic.”
They laughed. Mom was pleased. Sierra was pleased. Even I was beginning to loosen up some. Maybe Mom could just go out with this guy, have a nice evening and that would be enough. I liked the guy. But he didn’t have to be our latest Sonny. He could just be the guy who bought Mom dinner.
