The Wedding Chapel

by Rachel Hauck

  “So you went to New York with Spice because she forged letters to the both of us. Surely we’d have figured it out over time. But you ran off so quickly.”

  “I had to, Jimmy.”

  “Had to?”

  Colette sighed. Six decades and the news was no easier than the day she found out. “When Peg came to see you? That wasn’t Drummond’s boy on her hip, Jimmy.” Colette moved to the kitchen door, drawing in a fresh, cool breath. “That was your boy. Our boy.” She glanced back at Jimmy. “I left because of the letter and because I was pregnant. Drummond Branson is your son.”

  JACK

  Friday afternoon unfurled before Jack with long limbs of light as he drove Ford around Heart’s Bend looking for Colette.

  They’d driven to Nashville, but Colette wasn’t at the hotel so Ford made him turn around.

  Ford called Colette’s phone every other minute and bordered on panic.

  “Pick up your phone, Colette.” To Jack he said, “Let’s stop by her sister’s grave. Or her aunt and uncle’s old place. Or by that man’s house, Jimmy. The coach.”

  Jack navigated Ford’s request while navigating the white water of emotions roaring through him. He held on to the steering wheel, his jaw tense, his arms taut.

  Rotten. Rotten timing. Returning to the house and bounding up the stairs just as Taylor voiced her honest, uninhibited feelings to Emma.

  I agree, eloping was a stupid idea.

  Or hey, maybe he’d finally happened across some serendipity. Because now he knew. Taylor believed their marriage to be stupid. If Ford hadn’t been in the car laying on the horn, he’d have duked it out with her.

  But hey, this made his London decision easier. He’d make Hops happy. Perhaps this was all a blessing in disguise. He could put some space between himself and Taylor. And if she wanted out of their marriage, she could walk away. No fuss, no muss.

  What a waste to have worried over the London decision. Or Doug Voss.

  “Jack, slow down, there’s her car.” Ford rapped on the passenger window.

  Jack slowed. Sure enough, the car formerly parked outside Granny’s was in Coach’s driveway. But he didn’t turn in. Instead, he cruised on by.

  “Jack, stop. Turn in. Please.”

  “You’re not going in there.”

  “I most certainly am. And in the vernacular of kindergarteners, ‘You’re not the boss of me.’ ”

  “And you’re not the boss of me. Or Colette. And you’re certainly not the driver of this car.”

  “I need to check on her. See if she’s all right. Now I demand you pull over.”

  “If she’s with Coach, she’s fine. Leave her be. She must have something powerful on her mind to bug out of the FRESH meeting the way she did. If Coach built that chapel for her, then I bet they have a lot to say to one another.”

  Jack turned around at the cul-de-sac and headed back to the main road, Ford sulking in the passenger seat. In the rearview mirror, Jack caught the pastoral scene of Coach’s lawn and for a second he yearned.

  He’d always wanted a place out this way, to raise a family. To create something he never had as a kid.

  But it was all vanity. From now on, marriage and family would be something he admired from a distance, like a fine painting.

  “I demand you pull over and let me out,” Ford said.

  “Leave her be.” He’d fight for Coach and Colette, if not for himself.

  “Jack—”

  Rolling through the stop sign, Jack turned right and gunned the gas toward Heart’s Bend proper.

  His last thought boomeranged in his head. Why not fight for his marriage? Fight for himself?

  He was letting his father, and every sour foster family experience he’d ever endured, control his life. Wasn’t it time he became the man he wanted to be? Put his past behind him?

  “Jack, I can’t just leave her,” Ford said.

  “Tell you what, there’s a charming inn you’d love. A restored plantation home that has the best cooking this side of the Mississippi. I’ll drop you off—”

  “Nothing doing. I won’t be stranded without a car.”

  “Fine, then you drop me off.”

  “Where? What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to fight for something.”

  “The FRESH account? Don’t worry about them. I can smooth that over.”

  “I’ll smooth it over with them. This campaign will be a big hit. But for now, I’ve got something else to do.”

  The more he contemplated it, the more his spirit unlocked. He was going to go all-out for love like he did for advertising. For his job at 105. For the FRESH account.

  Jack pulled up to the Fry Hut, shifted into park, and stepped out. “The inn is just down First Avenue,” he instructed Ford. “All the way to the end. You can’t miss it.”

  “What are you doing?” Ford scrambled out of the passenger seat, quick-stepping around to the driver’s side. “Where will you be?”

  “Fixing stuff.” As he passed by, Jack gripped Ford’s arm. “Don’t go to Coach’s. Give them time. Text Colette to tell her where you are, then go to the inn dining room and have a nice dinner. The back veranda overlooks the Cumberland River. It’s storybook material.”

  “I suppose she can call if she needs me.” Getting behind the wheel, Ford powered down his window and hung out his elbow. “Why do you care so much, Jack?”

  He gazed at the Fry Hut, then over his shoulder toward Chelsea Avenue. “Because I might be starting to believe in second chances.”

  JIMMY

  “Drummond Branson is my son?”

  “Yes, conceived that night in the chapel.”

  “So you ran off without telling me?”

  “You were in the army, and as far as I knew, done with me. I was scared, Jimmy. Embarrassed. How could I display my shame all over Heart’s Bend? It’s not the man who wears the scarlet letter but the woman. I couldn’t do it to Aunt Jean and Uncle Fred.”

  “Why didn’t you write to me? Dad would’ve taken you in, Lettie. I know he would’ve.”

  “I wanted to write to you, but Peg convinced me you’d only be with me for the baby. She said I couldn’t tell you I was pregnant when you couldn’t do anything about it. I told her we’d said our vows that night and she reminded me they were not binding. She reminded me of your letter and—” Colette shook her head. “I was ashamed, scared, and confused. By the time I knew I was pregnant, three months later, I’d not heard another word from you. Spice was heading to New York, so I went with him. His cousin had a job in television and he thought we could find work there. I imagined being an assistant or a secretary. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine she’d send me on auditions. Jimmy, I had to go. A town scandal would’ve killed Aunt Jean right where she stood.”

  “I know, but . . .” He wrestled to understand, hearing her pain but not feeling it. But she was right. An unwed woman, in the eyes of 1950s society, brought shame on the family. He also knew that while their vows had been sincere, they’d not bound them publicly.

  “Did Spice know? About my child?”

  “I had to tell him. I was so sick on the drive to New York. He helped me hide it for a few months. I even hid it while I had a six-week job on Love of Life, but when I was seven months, I just popped. Couldn’t hide any longer.”

  Her voice faded. She looked tired, beat up. Sixty years felt like a moment ago, her shame was so rich and real.

  “Why didn’t you marry him?”

  “Because he also had a secret.” Colette lifted her gaze to his.

  “What secret?”

  “I think you know.”

  Jimmy coughed. “So all that skirt chasing was a ruse?”

  “Yes, so you see, we had equal shame to conceal. Of course today, those issues aren’t so scandalous.”

  “It still weren’t right for me not to know, Colette. I can’t believe you’d not demand I step up and do my duty as a father, no matter what I said in a letter. Didn’t you know
me at all?”

  “All reason was out the window. If I’d considered a way to let you know, those notions left when I went to New York.”

  “Well, do tell. How in the world did your sister end up with my boy?” The sharpness in his voice could not be helped.

  Tears glistened in Colette’s eyes.

  “I tried to keep him, but there were no single moms in New York or day care or help of any kind. I wondered, deep down, if when you came home you might accept us. If not me, then him.”

  “You know I would, Lettie.”

  She gazed toward the door. “He was born in the Salvation Army Booth House. I told them I was going home, so they let me leave with him. I didn’t investigate adoption. I’d fooled myself into believing I could raise him on my own. But one week after bringing him back to my flat, I couldn’t manage anything but crying. Even if you knew, even if you sent your entire army salary, I could not have managed on my own.” The tone of her memory filled Jimmy with loneliness. “I wore a cheap wedding band, told people my husband was at war, but I was sinking so fast.”

  “Colette . . .”

  “I couldn’t get a job because I had no one to watch him. My flatmates were done with me and my little crying chap. My hands were red from washing nappies in the toilet.”

  He ran his hand over his face, along his jaw, the sheen in his eyes thick and spilling over. “Dad would’ve helped you.”

  “And how was I to know? Even if he agreed to help, was I to go around Heart’s Bend with your bastard child? Ruin his reputation before he even had a chance?”

  As she spoke, his understanding grew. He didn’t like it, but he understood. “So you gave him to Peg?”

  “Yes. Because I had nowhere else to go.”

  COLETTE

  NOVEMBER 1951

  HEART’S BEND

  For more than an hour, she sat in Spice’s truck, the engine rattling, heat blasting in spurts from the chrome vents. She held one hand on the door handle, the other on baby James’s belly, sensing his heartbeat through the tips of her fingers. He’d cried these last two hours of the trip from New York. Wanting his dinner, not understanding why his mother made him wait. He was hungry, as was she.

  But Colette had no choice. With only two cans of Similac remaining, she had to be wise. She would save one for tonight and one for the morning. Until the market opened.

  But that would not be her concern, now, would it?

  She’d stopped at a petrol station just north of Heart’s Bend to prepare her little man for his adventure. In the loo, she’d changed his nappy, put on his best outfit, and wetted her fingers and smoothed his fine baby hair.

  “You’re going on an adventure, my darling. Mamá knows it will be marvelous for you. You’ll be safe and dry, warm and fed.” He watched her with wide eyes, kicking his feet. “I know that makes you happy. Dinner.”

  The nurse at the Booth House had showed her how to bind her breasts to keep her milk from coming in, but how she ached every time James cried. Oh, what she would give now to nurse him until his belly popped round and full!

  Perched on the toilet, she cradled him against her, rocked him from side to side, singing him her last song.

  “Mamá will miss you, sweet boy / but don’t you cry, it’ll be all right / you’ll have a warm bed tonight.”

  Colette’s tears spilled down her dry cheeks. She was tired and weary, at her wit’s end. She had never felt more alone.

  James fussed, squirming against his tight blanket, his small cry like a kitten’s mew. She loosened the wrap and kissed his tiny cheek.

  “I’ve failed you, baby James. I’ve failed you.” Colette’s tears anointed her son’s face.

  Someone rattled at the door. “Anyone in there?”

  “Yes, I’ll be just a moment.” Colette stood, legs trembling, shivering to her backbone. The room’s block walls and bare white bulb brought no warmth at all.

  But it wasn’t the cold that bit through her and sank into her bones; it was the knowledge of what she was about to do.

  She caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She looked tired and gaunt, a gray hue to her pale skin. She must work to eat, but there was no work for a single girl with a baby.

  Exiting the small space, she smiled at the woman who waited with her little girl. “Sorry . . .”

  “No worry, I see you’ve got a little’un. They’re so sweet, ain’t they?” She bent for a peek at James. “He’s a runt, now, ain’t he. Well, never you mind, he’ll fatten up when you feed him more.”

  Back in the cab of the truck, Colette exhaled, panic trapping her against the seat. She was starving her child. Wouldn’t Peg have something to say about his gaunt wee cheeks? He was so thin and small, even for being only three weeks old.

  Colette fired up the engine and moved the heat sliders to high. In the light of the dash, she peeled back James’s blanket and looked at him, really looked. He was so frail.

  Hands shaking, she fixed up the last can of Similac and took James in her arms. On his last night with her, he would feast like a little prince.

  James winced at the cold formula, then suckled on the bottle with loud, slurping, hungry noises. The formula was gone in no time. Settling him back in the linen basket on the passenger side, Colette shifted into first, the gears grinding.

  The road’s rhythms and a full stomach rocked him to sleep for the final leg of the journey.

  When Colette pulled the truck up outside Peg’s house, the one she shared with Drummond, she wasn’t sure how to execute her plan.

  The small house glowed with lamplight and seemed to beckon Colette inside. Say what she would about Peg, she was not the one who had a baby out of wedlock.

  Lord, please, for James, let Drummond and Peg be agreeable.

  Hand on the door release, Colette faltered, sobbing. She couldn’t . . . couldn’t.

  In the basket, James awoke and fussed, and her reality came into focus. She had no money. No job. No food for her child. Keeping him was only for herself, to ease her pain.

  Looking through the streetlights, she peered toward Peg’s home. “Come,” she whispered to James. “It’s warm and cozy at Aunt Peg’s.”

  Then she caught sight of her sister passing by the window, taking up a magazine and sitting on the sofa. Drummond followed, a cigarette in one hand, the newspaper in the other.

  “’Tis our cue, darling.” Colette drew in a long, shaky breath. “Peg, if you love me at all . . . For Mamá and Papá.”

  Scooping James from the basket, Colette cradled him against her one last time, unable to stop the tears and her lips from pressing against his soft cheeks. She wanted to remember how sweet he tasted, how innocent he smelled.

  “I’ll never stop loving you.”

  Stepping out of the truck, Colette crossed the quiet, tree-lined street, the November chill about her legs as she marched toward the light, an eerie calm gripping her.

  Ringing the doorbell, she stepped back, her maternal heart exploding, sending shards of love into every part of her being. She couldn’t. She just couldn’t.

  Wheeling about, she aimed for the steps as Peg called her name.

  “Colette?”

  She turned round. “Hello, Peg.”

  “What are you doing here?” Peg stepped through the doorway wearing a smart housedress and a string of pearls about her neck. “Is that—”

  “Baby James. He’s three weeks old.”

  “Peg?” Drummond Branson appeared in the door, his imposing physique filling the frame and dimming the warm light. “What are you doing out here in the cold?”

  “It’s my sister, love.”

  “Colette? Well, haven’t you been a stranger. Come in, it’s cold out.” He shoved open the screen.

  “Drum, give us a moment, please?” Peg said.

  “All right, but—” He paused. “Is that a baby?”

  “Love,” Peg sighed. “A moment? Please.”

  Drummond hesitated, then withdrew, leaving the door sl
ightly ajar so a sliver of light fell across Colette’s boots.

  “I can’t manage, Peg.” Tears soaked Colette’s confession. “I’ve no money because I can’t work. My flatmates are weary of me. I’ve not slept—”

  “So, what do you want? Money? I’ll not just give you money.”

  “I don’t want money.” With one large draw on her shallow courage, Colette jutted forward, shoving James in her sister’s arms.

  “Take him. Raise him as your own.”

  “What?” Peg reached for the baby, clutching him close, fumbling with his loose blankets. “You can’t be serious.” The tenderness in her voice melted Colette.

  “I can’t take care of him,” Colette cried. “I can’t . . . Please, take him. Be good to him.”

  James squirmed, his small cry touching Colette so she nearly collapsed to the porch boards, her heart breaking, breaking, breaking . . .

  “Well, I should have known it would come to this—”

  Colette rose up. “I’ve no choice. Peg, do you hear me? He needs a family.” She ran her hand over her tears, wiping her nose with the edge of her sleeve. “H-he likes to sleep on his back. But don’t wrap him up tight—he likes to kick.” Her voice faltered and she pressed her fingers to her eyes. Please stop weeping. “Feed him Similac, warm. He doesn’t like it cold. One can every four hours, maybe more if he won’t settle down. He’s a good eater, this chap. He won’t cry about a dirty nappy unless he’s really in a mess. He likes singing . . . I-I sing to him every night.”

  “Colette, do you know what you’re doing?”

  “No, Peg, but I’m doing it.” She turned to go.

  “Colette, wait. I-I must tell you something.”

  Colette glanced back at Peg. “What could you possibly have to say?”

  The front door opened again. “I know it’s been awhile, but you two girls ought to come inside—Peg? Colette? What’s going on?”

  “Meet our son, Drummond.” Peg eased the baby into her husband’s arms. He fumbled, trying to hold him with care, his expression a mix of surprise and wonder. He looked toward Colette. “Yours?”

  She nodded.

  “Who’s the father?”