Hope Out Loud

by Kristina Riggle

  And it is in this way that I’m giving away my mother to the man who loves her, who probably loved her quietly all those years; a decade he spent buying Snickers and Diet Coke at her little ramshackle store. Sunny, cheerful Al, who turned out to be excellent at biding his time.

  We’d decided just to walk next to each other with our flowers, but now that seems silly, so I extend my hand and she takes it, having to slip hers into mine because she’s shorter. I therefore feel like I’m leading her, steadying her, over the uneven sand, and maybe I am. I was prepared to always be the one to steady her, even if she thought of herself as a burden.

  This trip across the sand is taking longer than we thought. We didn’t practice this in the casual and rushed rehearsal, not thinking a beach wedding needed very much fuss.

  Al looks unruffled, so whatever the last conversation they had about my mother moving in, he must be satisfied. Or maybe he’s faking it, who can tell? Maybe he’s about to throw up.

  I squeeze Mom’s hand and turn my head to smile at her, but her gaze is locked straight ahead, distant, as if on the horizon. Her solemnity makes me worry. I quickly search the rows of chairs and see Beck. He nods to me, and nods back at the woods, letting me know he’s paying attention, he’s watching. I’m sure my mother is afraid my dad will suddenly materialize for some grand and pointless gesture. I can’t help but wonder if a tiny part of her, the fossilized remnant of her love for my father, is hoping he might.

  I doubt it will happen, because I trust Beck to take care of it. He said so, in our whispered conference after he returned from the woods. He said he’d keep my dad away, and Beck doesn’t lie to me. He doesn’t make promises he can’t keep, either, which is why he was honest with me five years ago. Many men in his position would have spun whatever lies were necessary to keep me in Haven, waiting, like a flopping fish on a line. I’m reminded now what a painful gift that honesty was.

  We melt through the few rows of chairs and pick our careful way up the gazebo steps, Mom having to drop my hand to pick up her dress. We are wearing nice flat sandals, all the easier for walking in the sand. Al had campaigned to go barefoot, but it’s a wood gazebo and there are slivers.

  Al’s brother Dale stands next to him, a version of the groom with darker hair and a bushier moustache. With my mother there’s just me. Out in the crowd are Mom and Al’s Haven friends, with whom they raise a glass at the Tip-a-Few on more than a few Friday nights. Grant and Veronica, mom’s oldest friends, sit in the center of the front row, all sappy smiles. Mom’s relatives are all far away, or dead, and so this small crowd here represents the whole of Mom’s sphere and mine, too, when I’m in town. It steadies me to know Beck is out there, and not just because he’s keeping my wayward father at bay.

  As the minister clears her throat to draw our attention, I steal a look over my shoulder. There might be a dark figure in the woods, but I think that’s my imagination, because I blink and it’s gone. I do see Beck. He gives me a sad smile and then looks down, as if he doesn’t have the right to hold my gaze.

  “Welcome, one and all, as we celebrate the wedding of Maeve Callahan Geneva and Albert Louis Landry.”

  We move through the steps of this brief wedding, rapidly approaching the big moment, and I keep stealing glances at my mother’s face. She looks grave, still. It is serious business to get married, but she picked a beach gazebo and a hippie female minister in deliberate opposition to a sonorous churchy proceeding.

  Even Al’s sunny composure looks a little ruffled as he tries to catch his bride’s eye, but her gaze seems to only go from the minister to the lake vista behind her.

  “Do you, Maeve, take this man . . .”

  My mother begins to fidget, shifting her weight back and forth. I am by now holding both bunches of flowers, and Mom has been prompted to face Al, so I can no longer see her expression. I can only see Al’s concern and guess what she looks like. Pale, worried. Mom also blinks a lot when she’s distressed.

  Al breaks the script. He drops my mother’s hands and steps into her, wrapping her into an embrace. The minister is thrown for a moment and trails off, then she quips, “I guess he just can’t wait” and the audience breaks into giggles. I know they couldn’t have detected my mom’s anxiety from back there in the sand. Only the few of us up here on these weatherworn and slivered wood slats realize what’s going on. He’s loving her through it. Whatever is causing her to be so worried right now, he’s gathering her up, saying I’ve got you. My tears start rolling.

  I loathe public crying, but today I don’t bother to look skyward and blink the tears away.

  Al steps back and nods to the minister. The minister resumes the vows, and my mother has stopped her shifting.

  “I will,” Mom finally declares, in a voice clear and strong. When Al gets his chance, he booms it loud, like a ringmaster or something, prompting more chuckles. He sneaks a look at me, and winks. He’s saying it to me, too. I’m suddenly and surprisingly glad I have a stepfather.

  At “You may kiss the bride,” I can’t help but look back at the woods. This would be the most outrageous moment for Robert Geneva to appear, but all seems calm. Beck nods to me when he catches my eye. Then the high school quartet strikes up their chamber music version of the recessional and they’re off down the steps. In the sand, Mom and Al make a big show of kicking off their shoes, so I do, too, as does Al’s brother, and most of the wedding guests happily follow suit. My toes sink into the sun-warmed sand. She did it. She got married with a smile, and never even saw my reprobate father. I could faint with relief.

  Chapter Ten

  Anna

  Saturday, July 6, 2013

  Instead of a receiving line, the guests are just crowding around, waiting for their turn to give their good wishes. I toy with my daisies and hang back, because I’ll get my private moments with my mother later.

  Beck approaches, and he extends his arms half-heartedly, like he’s afraid I’ll decline his hug. Of course I won’t, not after what he’s done today, after what he’s meant to me all these years. He’s a good egg, after all. He’s no more flawed than any of us.

  “You look beautiful,” he says when I step back. I glance down at the dress. Halter style top, knee length, a pretty pale green. Mom let me pick it out via pictures emailed from Agatha.

  “I do clean up nice for weddings.” I bite my lip and cringe, pretending it’s a squint in the setting sun. Our past has littered our conversation with landmines. “So, coming with us to our very fancy reception in the tent?” I point over my shoulder at the white tent in the sand with chairs, tables, some munchies, and an ordinary sheet cake. Mom didn’t want some towering confection to get covered with blowing sand or knocked over in transit across the beach. The food is simple, almost comically so. Bacon-wrapped weenies on toothpicks, that kind of thing. There will be a tub with beer and fruity Seagram’s wine coolers and a box of chardonnay sits in a tray of ice. “You’ve got to have yourself a plastic cup of Korbel before you go.”

  “Sure. Anyway, I’m still acting in my capacity as so-called security. We got Maeve married off peacefully, but you never know.”

  “I spy a sheriff’s car in the parking lot. Has that been here the whole time?”

  “Well, look at that. I do believe you’re right.” Beck winks at me.

  “I’ll invite him over. I’m sure he can’t have booze right now but he could grab a piece of cake, have some punch.”

  “Anna, can I tell you something?”

  “Not if it’s serious. I’m too worn out for serious.”

  Beck falls silent and stares at the sand.

  “Oh, fine. Do serious.”

  “No, this isn’t a good day . . .”

  “There never is a good day. Really, go ahead and tell me.”

  “Being here today reminds me of Amy and Paul’s wedding.”

  I look away from Beck to hide my expression.

  Beck clears his throat. “I know. I was an asshole. I never apologized for it. It wa
s wrong on every level.”

  “I know we were wrong. You were married.”

  “No, listen. I wronged you. That’s what I’m trying to say. Not just my wife. I wronged you, too. That one night it was raw emotion, for both of us. But later, with all the texting, leaving you the book, yet the whole time I was going along with Sam as if nothing was changing. I was careless with you. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Well, it’s not okay, but I don’t have the words for accepting apologies on that scale. Anyway, I knew you were sorry without you saying so. I gave you that much credit.”

  “More than I deserved.”

  The crowd around my mother is thinning as they amble over to the tent, but now the photographer has the happy couple together, frolicking and kicking water at each other. Beck stands beside me and watches them. Al seizes Mom and flings her into his arms, dolllike, and plants one on her. God, I hope the photographer grabbed that shot. Everyone should be loved like that, and everyone should have a photo like that, too, for the days when love doesn’t come so easy. Al sets her down and pantomimes having hurt his back. Mom whacks him with her flowers, and daisy petals spray into the lake breeze.

  “God, they’re so happy,” says Beck. “It’s too bad they had to wait so long to find each other.”

  “And yet I’m sure Al would have preferred his wife never got sick and died in the first place.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know he was a widower.”

  “I’m just saying that it couldn’t have been any other way. If Mom had divorced my father immediately she’d have dated people, maybe remarried someone else, then when Al’s wife passed and he was ready to love again, Mom wouldn’t have been there. Or maybe Al’s wife never got sick, like I said, which would have been the best, obviously. I’m sure Mom believes that, too. And what would have been best for Mom, come to think, is if Dad had lived up to everything he was supposed to be. No one wants to be abandoned, no matter how well it works out a quarter-century later. I’m glad we can’t wish our lives into something else. We might wish away something great without meaning to.”

  “Like my kids. If I wished away my marriage to Sam, I’d never have had Madeline or Harry. I can’t imagine living without them.”

  “And now look. Mom and Al have made something happy out of their own tragedies.”

  Beck takes my shoulders and turns me gently to him. My back is to the sun but he’s squinting into it. His expression is nearly painful in fact, with the full force of the evening summer rays striking him.

  I interrupt him. “Wait. Let’s get in the shade, what do you say?”

  “No, please, don’t wait. I don’t want to wait. Waiting is . . . I love you. Still do, always did.”

  He spits it out rapidly, like a kid blurting out lines in the school play. He jams his hands in his pockets and stares down, avoiding the glare and probably my expression.

  “Beck . . . That’s sweet, but . . .”

  “I know. My kids, Chicago. But why can’t we figure it out somehow? Look at your mom and Al, and all they went through to get where they are.”

  The photographer has left them now, and they are taking a moment on the beach, as the rest of the party has now convened in the shade, around the drinks and food. They’re swaying together in the breaking waves, ignoring their wet clothes and potential sunburn and whatever else there is.

  Beck grabs for my hand. “We’ll do Skype and text if that’s all I get. I’ll put a million miles on my car driving to Chicago every other weekend. Do you know what it’s like in that stupid townhouse filled with toys when my kids aren’t there?”

  “I’m not a placeholder.”

  “Everyone else holds your place. I fill my days with people, but no matter how pretty the girl, no matter how important the business people, even my family . . . The only people who fill that hollow space are my kids and you, Anna. Not because you’re a distraction. Because you’re the only woman I want to be with. Every day, or whatever I can get. I’m tired of pretending I’m over you. We’re too old to pretend, isn’t that what you said? I’m terrible at it, anyway.”

  My heart jitters along and I feel sweaty and faint. Must we do this again? How many times, how many ways, do I have to tell him it’s impossible, before he believes me?

  “I can’t possibly be that special that I’m holding your attention for twenty-five years. You’re wavering and sad and nostalgic.”

  “Dammit you are that special.” He’s loud enough that people in the tent have turned to stare. He steps closer, lowering his voice. “You always were. I was just too pathetic to stand up for you. So I’m making my stand. You’ve got me, always. No matter how far away you are. It’s as simple as that.”

  I sink into the nearest folding chair and drop my daisies on the sand. I would love things to be simple; if only they could be. Beck crouches down and picks up my flowers, then hands them to me from that position, kneeling on the sand. I have to look away from his open, hopeful face, waiting for an answer I can’t give him.

  *

  My mother, genuinely tipsy, is one of the most hilarious sights I’ve ever witnessed. She keeps folding at the waist to laugh at everything, tipping her glass out onto the beach, where her drink splashes into little dark dots trailing her as she goes.

  Neither Al nor Mom are the types to be interested in some splashy tropical vacation or a cruise ship, so they have booked an inn down in Saugatuck, which is really just a stone’s throw from here, and they only plan to stay the weekend, at that.

  I catch Al at the cake table with frosting in his moustache as Mom’s shrieking laugh peals across the sand. “So, do I have to drive you two drunken lovebirds to your honeymoon?”

  Al swallows his gob of cake. “Not unless you can get drunk on sugar. I laid off after the champagne toast. Your mother never cuts loose much, so why not?”

  “She might fall asleep on the way there at this rate.”

  “Eh, we’ll make up for it tomorrow.” He elbows me and winks.

  For that, I have no words.

  Someone has produced a laptop and music is blaring from the tinny speakers. Disco, from the sounds of it, which was never my mother’s thing but she’s getting her boogie shoes on anyway, along with several other tipsy baby boomers. The sun is gone now, and I’m feeling chilly in my dress. I hadn’t realized the party would go so late. I figured once the sun set and our official rental of this strip of beach was over, the newlyweds would motor off and I’d be loading leftover cake into the car. As it is, the table rental people have arrived and are starting to fold things up under here.

  My mother calls, “Al! Get your ass over here!” and now it’s my turn to fold in half, laughing. My mother never swears. She barely says “butt,” preferring “derriere” and “rear end” and other gentle euphemisms.

  I sit on one of the folding chairs the tent people haven’t spirited away yet, and watch my mother and new stepfather.

  After Beck ambushed me with his love declaration, my mother swooped over to me, her arms open to wrap me in a sandy, damp hug. Beck slunk away then with only a quick nod to my mother in response to her shouted “thank you!” for his guard duty. I’ve seen him here and there since, sipping a bottled water and roving around the periphery.

  “Miss? I need to start packing these up. Sorry, but the party was over an hour ago, technically.”

  The burly man with stubble on his chin looks tired and I feel guilty for this party keeping all these guys out late. I stand up and relinquish the chair, noticing that the guests are finally saying their farewells. I spy a couple of cabs in the parking lot: good, someone arranged for rides for the tipsy ones. That was probably Beck, too.

  I decide to go looking for him, to thank him once again for all his help today. No matter how awkward it will be, I owe him that, and I can hardly avoid him like a middle schooler who thinks he has cooties.

  The moon is up by now, a nice big juicy one, so that once my eyes adjust to the dark, it’s not even that hard to se
e. I spot him off by the woods, and jog a little in the sand to catch up, though I twist my ankle a bit and have to hop a few steps.

  It’s only when I get right up on him that I realize he’s far too short to be Beck.

  “Dad?”

  “I didn’t bother nobody.”

  I sigh. Technically this is true. A lot of what my dad always said was technically true.

  “Leave her alone. She’s deliriously happy and she doesn’t need your bullshit. I thought Beck and the deputy chased you off.” I scowl at this; I thought Beck would make sure . . .

  “Oh don’t be mad at him, Anna Banana. He’s why I stayed in the trees. I’d have loved to sit right down in a chair like a proper guest and raise a toast.”

  “I bet that’s what you wanted.”

  “Can you blame me for not believing it? Twenty years my beautiful Maeve waited for me. Guess I thought she’d give me a few years more.”

  “She told you last time you came back not to bother again. God, you never listen to anyone, do you?”

  “You sound like my wife.”

  “Which one?”

  He holds his hands up like I’ve got a gun on him. “Fine, fine. Guilty as charged.” He folds his arms and for a moment his conniving, slick charm fades away and I see heartbreak written in his bent posture and downcast gaze.

  “I thought maybe she was kinda hoping I’d come get her, which was why she told me the date. Thought maybe I could save her from marrying some boring old geezer. But she sure didn’t look like she wanted saving. ’Cept from me, I guess. So, anyhow. Hey, did that fellow catch up to you yet?”

  “Who, Beck? We talked. Why?”

  “Nothing. Never mind. Well. I’ll get out of your hair, honey. I’ll write next time I’m near Chicago and my hotshot attorney daughter can buy me lunch.”

  I want to scream at him to go away, scream at him to stay and talk to me for one damn second about something real, but it’s all futile so I agree that sure, I’ll buy him lunch.