So we began our long ride home. With just a little bit of tension in the air. Of course, Gulley and I were totally fine, but we weren’t sure about the kids.
We stopped for kolaches in Caldwell, and everyone seemed to regroup and find their happy place. We picked songs on the iPod, did a little car dancing, and talked about our Christmas wishes. Then, as we were on a vast, empty stretch of land known as Highway 21 between Bastrop and San Marcos, Will announced that his tummy hurt. And that announcement was followed shortly by a high-pitched scream and the unmistakable sound of throwing up.
There was nowhere to go. No gas station. No convenience store. No fire department where we could drop the kids off and see if they were too old to be placed for adoption.
I continued to try to break the land speed record to get us all home while Gulley turned around and did the best she could to clean everything up. Fortunately Jackson had received a large Aggie bucket at the football game that Saturday. I feel certain it wasn’t intended to be used that way, but on the other hand, they were passing them out on a college campus, and odds are good ours wasn’t the only one that got used as a yuck bucket.
We finally arrived home, definitely worse for the wear, and I had barely gotten our suitcases in the door when I informed Caroline we needed to go to the grocery store to get a few things for Thanksgiving. I knew it was going to be awful, especially because we were going to Central Market, which is the mecca for people who consider Thanksgiving a culinary Super Bowl. And I was just a stressed-out rookie dragging my child around, trying to figure out where they keep the pomegranate molasses while she complained about the cruelty of life, because Bobby Flay had filled my head with delusions of brussels-sprouts grandeur as all chefs on the Food Network are wont to do. This is why it’s so much safer for me to watch The Rachel Zoe Project on Bravo instead. I know how to shop for a fur vest, but I have no idea how to find gourmet food ingredients. It’s not my skill set.
When we finally walked in the door from Central Market, I was past the point of stressed and frazzled in that way all mothers get after a three-hour road trip and an hour in the grocery store listening to “Can we buy these cookies?” and “I didn’t mean to knock over that display of canned pumpkin!” Frankly, I made stressed and frazzled look like a free trip to a resort in the Bahamas that specializes in thousand-thread-count sheets, down pillows, and fruity drinks with umbrellas in them.
So you can imagine my reaction when I walked through my back door and immediately spied an enormous antelope head hanging right next to my new front door that still had a piece of plywood where the beveled glass was supposed to be.
No.
Just no.
(There was a piece of plywood because we’d recently had a new front door installed. And by recently I mean six months before. And the door guy broke the glass in our window and still hadn’t come back to repair it. Which was fine because the plywood looked super classy.)
I stood there in shock, trying to figure out what this thing was and why it was on my wall. It didn’t help that it was hung in such a way that it appeared to have been running down the block when it suddenly crashed through the front of our house.
Perry walked in the house about that time and asked, “What do you think?”
At that time he had known me for sixteen years, which makes me think it must have been a rhetorical question. I looked at him and said, “I don’t know what that is, but it looks a lot like a demonic goat. It can’t stay there, and I need to know why you hate our house.”
This wasn’t an unprecedented situation. A few years earlier Perry attended a dinner for the National Rifle Association with a group from our church while on a mission trip.
Church group, mission trip, NRA.
We are a living, breathing, right-wing cliché.
He won a wooden sign at the dinner that featured a picture of the Liberty Bell and a quote that read, “Those who are willing to trade liberty for security deserve neither.” He was so proud that he was the big winner, and if you could have seen this sign, you’d know I am playing fast and loose with the word winner. He decided to surprise me by hanging the sign in our kitchen, leaving me to wonder what had happened to my life. Did Charlton Heston move in?
Anyway, for months, MONTHS, I’d been engaging in conversations about how we were going to reduce the number of animal mounts in our living room and find a nice vintage map of Texas to hang on the wall. We were going to decorate like real grown-ups and not like college kids who think those jackrabbits with deer antlers (the jackalope) are hilarious conversation pieces. I was going to get a new lamp, hang some new pictures. I’d pretended to be domestic and made FAUX WINDOW TREATMENTS, for goodness’ sake. Apparently all these decorating conversations had just been me talking to myself.
Because there was an enormous nilgai antelope hanging right by my front door.
It was a little tense at our house for the next few days. Like the kind of tense when you give your spouse polite smiles to hide the fact that you can’t believe you’re married to someone who has just desecrated your home with an animal that looks like a cross between a cow and a deformed goat.
But ultimately we attempted to find some middle ground because at the end of the day we love each other in spite of all our many and vast differences. He may not love or understand my fondness for expensive denim and shoes, and I don’t really love or understand his fondness for things with horns or fur hanging on the walls, but marriage is about compromise.
That is why the scene by my Christmas tree that year involved a giant antelope head looming over our tree like it was its guardian and protector.
And also why every time I walked in the living room, I would proclaim, in a theatrical voice that would make James Earl Jones envious, “And, lo, an antelope of the Lord appeared, and the glory shone round about him.”
And there was peace on earth and goodwill toward men and some serious internal strategy about how to make the back house the new permanent residence of the antelope.
CHAPTER 24
Coming Home
ONE DAY, when Caroline was four, she was riding around on her scooter in the kitchen (which I loved because it’s fantastic for the hardwood floors), and she came to a stop right next to me.
She proudly announced, “Emily and I are in our very own club. You can’t be in our club.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a club for four-year-olds, and you’re not four.”
And since I am very, very mature and have read many parenting books that are chock-full of parenting wisdom, I replied, “Well, that’s fine. Daddy and I have our very own grown-up club.”
Perry piped up from the living room, “That’s right, it’s called MARRIAGE, and there’s no escape. It’s like being part of a street gang. You have to die to get out.”
He is hilarious.
But what really holds us together? What are the fragile threads that bind us together in spite of all our differences? Love, commitment, friendship. I remember when I was just a teenager, I read a quote from Ann Landers that said, “Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.”
Yes. It’s all those things and the grace and mercy of God that bind two flawed people together until death. It’s not always easy, and there are hard days or years when you don’t know how you’re going to make it through.
But then there are the times he walks through the door at the end of the day, and I catch my breath at how handsome he still is or we laugh hysterically at the same thing or we sit on the couch and watch old music videos by the Police while he shares that a girl dumped him in eighth grade for a boy who could play “Every Breath You Take” on the drums, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that there’s no one I’d rather have by my side as I go through life. There is nothing fancy about a good, solid marriage, because
at the end of the day it’s just two people deeply committed to the same thing.
Caroline played T-ball when she was in kindergarten. We’d sit in the stands and cheer her on wildly every time she walked up to bat, and yell like idiots when she dog-piled with all the other kids in an attempt to field the ball.
One time, both of my parents were at one of Caroline’s games. My mom had flown in from out of town, and my dad and stepmom were also in attendance. My mom and dad have been divorced for more than thirty years, and both remarried, so the relationship is cordial enough, but something in me still regresses to an anxious ten-year-old girl every time we’re all together in the same location.
As we all sat there and cheered for Caroline, this profound thought came to me, and I take those where I can get them. I realized that I would be devastated if the day came many years from that point when Perry and I were the grandparents sitting in the stands watching Caroline’s kids play T-ball, or whatever, if we weren’t doing it together.
It broke my heart. And I don’t fault my parents. That’s not what I’m trying to say. They did the best they could. Marriage is hard. I realize that at least 50 percent of all marriages don’t make it for the long run. Those aren’t really great odds. Honestly, with stats like that, it’s a sheer wonder that so many people keep taking that optimistic walk down the aisle.
I just knew at that moment that I was going to do whatever I had to do to fight for my marriage to make it for the long haul. I once heard Beth Moore say that sometimes the best part of staying married is being glad later that you did. That’s what that day at the T-ball fields symbolized for me.
It was the tangible awareness that it’s not just a marriage between Perry and me. It’s a union that’s creating a legacy for Caroline. And Caroline’s future children. In this world that sometimes treats marriage like it’s a disposable commodity we can throw away when it no longer seems to serve our purposes, a world that whispers to us that the grass might be greener on the other side, that’s something worth keeping in mind before you throw the whole thing out. One of the prayers I continually pray for our family comes from Deuteronomy 30:6 —that the Lord would circumcise our hearts and the hearts of our descendants so that we will love God with all our hearts and with all our souls. That’s the legacy I want to leave. That’s the legacy that’s worth working through the hard times to leave for our daughter.
The thing I share with all my girlfriends as we sit and drink margaritas and eat queso once a month is that in spite of the fact that we’re all married to different men with different personalities, not one of us is married to the perfect man. One is stingy with the budget. One can’t remember to pick up his dirty clothes. One doesn’t think gifts are important for Mother’s Day.
And it’s a reminder that Mr. Right isn’t out there. There’s just Mr. Right-for-You. He may look totally different from what’s right for your best friend. Your marriage is a unique being with as much of its own DNA as you and your husband bring to the table.
I remember early on in our marriage, Perry and I were friends with a couple who did everything together, even grocery shopping. I thought something was wrong with us because we had so many separate interests. But that’s just who we are. It’s not wrong; it’s different.
A while back, I was away on a trip and left Perry at home with Caroline. Which meant that he was also in charge of her wardrobe.
This is not a task for the faint of heart.
I tried to help him by laying out various acceptable outfits because I knew it would only be a matter of time before she tried to convince him that she could wear her gymnastics leotard with her platform disco shoes to school. And maybe a tiara for that extra something special.
He did car-pool pickup. He coordinated playdates. He came up with things they could eat for dinner.
Rumor has it they even ordered sushi one night.
And when I got home late Thursday night, he had flowers and dinner waiting for me. These were all things I never could have imagined the day I stood at the altar with him. They are the little gifts that only come as you live real life together.
Our life over the last several years has turned into an unexpected adventure. We’ve made some scary decisions that have sometimes felt like we were holding hands and jumping off a cliff.
Perry worked in ministry for the majority of our marriage. During that time, I worked in a job I wasn’t necessarily crazy about but knew was God’s financial provision for us. My income allowed him to be in full-time ministry, which nobody really gets into for the sweet cash flow.
Eventually Perry began to feel like it was time for him to move on from his work with Campus Life and transition full time into the landscape business. Less than a month later, I resigned from my sales job to pursue writing as an actual career.
We watched our roles switch.
A while back, someone asked him if he was interested in getting back into ministry, and he said, “It’s Melanie’s turn. She supported me all those years, and now I want to support her as she goes where God leads.”
And to say that he has is such an understatement.
Over the course of a marriage, life doesn’t always turn out the way you envisioned. There are twists and turns, ups and downs, good and bad. Perry and I aren’t the same two crazy, skinny kids who vowed to love and cherish each other until death do us part more than fifteen years ago.
Those two fools had no idea all that life would throw our way, and if someone had told us, we never would have believed we’d be able to survive it all.
What I’m trying to say is that we have been blessed. I’ve been blessed with a man who can drive me crazy with his love of hunting shows, UFC, and leaving half a paper towel sitting on the kitchen counter, but who supports me, loves me, and makes me feel cherished.
It’s more than I could have asked for or imagined. And, for better or for worse, Perry falls into the category of my life labeled God’s Outrageous Blessings. He is my Ephesians 3:20 in the flesh.
When I look in his eyes, I don’t see perfection. I don’t see a love story that would necessarily be something people would watch on a big screen and dream about. I see someone who will fight for me and protect me and love me in spite of all the ways I am still a wreck. I see home.
Wherever he is.
That’s my home.
Acknowledgments
WHEN I REALIZED I was actually going to write a second book, I had to take several deep breaths into a paper bag and look to the following people to preserve my sanity.
To my sweet Caroline: When you tell me that you want to grow up and write books just like your mom, it makes all the hard work worth it. God has given you so many gifts, and there is nothing you can’t do. I love you so much it hurts.
To Perry: I’d marry you all over again. And it’s because you don’t take yourself too seriously that I was able to tell all these stories. Thank you for that. I love you.
To Dad and Cher: Thanks for all the times you picked up Caroline from school and kept her entertained and well fed at various restaurants while I worked on the book. You have encouraged me and loved me and shown me what a good marriage looks like. Love you both.
To Amy: The best thing about a sister is that you’ve lived through every bit of this with me. Love you.
To my mother-in-law, Sallie: You did a remarkable job raising the man who makes me laugh every day. Thank you for your faithfulness and prayers for him over the years.
To Gulley: My marriage wouldn’t be nearly as strong if you weren’t around to listen to all the things Perry doesn’t want to hear about. Thanks for always loving me, defending me, and reading my terrible first drafts. We’ve been loving each other a long time, and I’m so grateful.
To Sophie: I can’t imagine doing any of this if I didn’t have you to always encourage me. We thought we met because we had the same throw pillows on our couches and each of us had an only child, but God had so much more in store for our friendship. I’m so thankful for you
.
To Debbi: Thanks for being my barometer of the funny. And for helping me figure out how to make a joke and be politically correct at the same time. I’m so glad you decided to become my head of unofficial marketing and public relations.
To Bill Jensen: None of this ever would have happened without your encouragement, enthusiasm, and advice. Thanks for always listening and advising and talking football with me.
To Stephanie Rische: What a gift you are! I cannot even imagine how much time you’ve had to spend Googling all my absurd cultural references. You are the best editor a girl could want.
To Lisa Jackson, Carol Traver, and the rest of the Tyndale team: You all took a chance letting me write this second book before my first one ever came out. Thanks for that. And thank you for indulging me in discussions about what constitutes an antelope versus a deer. I am eternally grateful for Tyndale and the support you have given me. Not to mention that my life is significantly richer thanks to Carol’s e-mails that never fail to make me laugh out loud.
To my blog readers: Y’all are the gift that keeps giving. Thanks for all the love, support, prayers, and hilarious comments over the last seven years.
And, most of all, to God: Your extravagant grace and mercy are the glue that holds my life together. I’ll never get over your love for me.
About the Author
MELANIE SHANKLE, lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband, Perry, and daughter, Caroline. She graduated from Texas A&M in 1994 while possibly on scholastic probation. Melanie began writing her blog, Big Mama, in July 2006. She’s also a regular contributor to The Pioneer Woman blog. In her spare time she likes to shop good sales, watch too much television, and laugh at things that are sometimes inappropriate.
The Antelope in the Living Room: The Real Story of Two People Sharing One Life Page 17
