Surrender
Jennifer DeBell
I married a man I didn’t love. His creative persistence wore me down.
Ginnia Gray’s relic of a farm sat at the foot of Bent Mountain. The front lawn, a billowing skirt of meadow, sloped gracefully down to a wide creek bed. We laid a pallet of rough pine across the creek the summer that Virginia’s youngest son Neil asked me to marry him. Until then, there had been no bridge to the house for a good ten years. Ginnia had to park at the gate and wade through the shallow water, or she could drive through the creek and up the hill to the house. She drove a pickup with a high chassis, so clearance was usually fine. I guess the reminder of the inconvenience made her angry, though. It wasn’t unusual for her to throw the truck into neutral right there in the water, pull a pistol out of the glove compartment, and shoot at water snakes from the driver’s seat. The first time Neil and I witnessed this spectacle, he rolled his eyes. He knew his mother well, but I was unprepared for the sudden violence, and scrambled. Her free arm hugged the steering wheel in fury while she blasted away.
“Lord God, son! Can’t you get your father…?”
“Mom, would you…!”
Just moments before, we’d been happily chatting about errands having to do with the wedding, the sunlight sliding across our legs as Ginnia turned onto the pitted driveway.
The road beyond the creek was just tire-rutted grass. A faint shadow remained of the semicircular drive in front of the house where a broad-pillared front porch still hung on. Stout boxwoods bowed forward, waxy, the thick stalks threatening to engulf the floor of the porch.
Ginnia generally drove up and entered from the back where a simple screened porch spanned the width of the house. When her arms were full, she’d kick open the door with her heel and then shoulder her way into the kitchen. The flimsy door rested loose on its hinges and was scuffed and dented from her abuse.
Albert Gray, Ginnia’s ex-husband, was a psychiatrist. He worked at the state hospital in Catawba Valley and was rarely home. He spoke indirectly to his children, as though they were his patients, and often referred to himself in the third person. These habits kept them watchful and at arm’s length. Like Ginnia’s house, Albert’s was grand and old, but its only history was that Albert had landed there after his divorce. The children had grown up coming and going from the house, and though they were used to it and were always welcome, none felt at home. One by one they left, promising themselves a clean break. And one by one, in no special order, they returned to the nesting ground like migrating birds. I think they believed that their parents were a riddle to be solved. This expectant silence filled the house during our visits with Albert. Wandering around, I secretly felt I had stumbled into the beast’s lair, and looked around for tangled walls of white roses that surely disguised the locked doors to his hidden chamber. But I didn’t say anything.
Though it now technically belonged to Albert, the farm was Ginnia’s childhood home. It was falling apart around her, brittle and bleached like the iced replica of a wedding cake settling in a bakery window. She refused to leave the place, banking on the odds that Albert would drop dead ahead of her, but she was unable to maintain the place on a nurse’s salary. Albert, when Ginnia could reach him, made elaborate promises for repairs. Good intentions floated in his mind for a day or so, and then evaporated, leaving Ginnia stranded and explosive. She was appalled that her family had blindly deeded her inheritance to Albert simply because he was a man. Because he was a man! She shook her head in wonder at the impotence of young women in 1951. It was humiliating to be under the thumb of a man with so little sense, for God’s sake. In her mind, he was as ineffectual a caretaker as he had been a husband. The couple had lived apart for close to twenty years, yet his presence was as palpable as the mildew she gazed at nightly on the ceiling above her bed.
Based on Neil’s stories, Albert was as battle-scarred as his former wife, but his home offered a more solid presence: brick rather than peeling clapboard, etched leaded glass instead of the farm’s flimsy panes that rattled in their casements at the slightest kick of breeze. One side of the interior was a mirror of the other, split to the third floor by a winding staircase that gleamed with the attentions of a regular housekeeper. Each room was furnished with soft carpets and handsome furniture. There was no evidence of the chaos of stuff that filled every possible corner of Ginnia’s farmhouse. The Gray children cared for their mother as though she were the child. But in their father’s house, no doubt due to the façade of splendor, they rattled locked doors looking for warmth.
But I’m only 23.
Neil and I were riding in Ginnia’s truck one morning when he asked me to marry him. I was leaning against his shoulder, contemplating my fingernails, when he swerved over to the side of the road and braked. I sat up fast.
He dragged hard on his cigarette and then flicked it out the window. His knee was jumping up and down, and I put my hand out to calm him.
“Whoa, whoa, git along little pony,” I teased.
He pulled a pink plastic heart-shaped box from his shirt pocket and offered me the ring that had once been accepted by his mother. Cars swished by on the clean black road. This stretch of highway had recently been widened, and its smooth banks were netted with a froth of bright green fertilizer.
What had he said? He’d spit out some words, and I was supposed to respond properly. I knew that much. He was beaming. He was melting. He was so earnest. I became conscious of my reaction, wanting to get it right. I wondered if it was fair of him to spring this on me so suddenly. Did I look pretty at this moment? Did that matter? Had I even thought about marriage before? Questions richocheted through my mind, like the shiny metal balls pinging against each other inside a pinball machine. It occurred to me, from what I’d seen of his family, that a ring from such a bitter marriage might not be the best symbol for our future. All these thoughts occurred to me in a slow instant. Then I smiled, and the moment felt like a fabulously silly leap into adulthood. Neil put the truck in gear. I settled back into his shoulder. We rode into town holding hands. The diamond on my finger threw off the morning sun in prisms.
My introduction to Albert took place behind his house, in the back seat of his car. Neil and I banged through a potholed alley and pulled in next to him. We abandoned our car for his. Its interior smelled neglected. Dry leather cracked as we slid along the back seat.
What I saw in the front seat was an older man, fast asleep. He was slim and muscled like his sons, with a shock of white hair pulled roughly into a ponytail. His neck was securely propped on the head rest. He was in profile to me: nose to the sky, his mouth lolling open. I stared for a while, looking for something familiar. His aging skin had a look of soft bluish transparency.
“Hey, Dad,” said Neil, lighting a smoke. His dad bounced up and twisted around to us.
He rubbed his hands together as if to re-ignite himself, and then stretched, arms forward, and pounded on the dashboard. He yawned openmouthed, catlike, before turning to us again.
“A man I know fell under his own tractor,” he said with no greeting. “He crushed his left ankle, and they say he may never again walk without a limp. He was out on his land moving dirt, and the tractor overshot an incline. It took a good while for him to finally pull free and get help. He had to drag himself on his elbows across the field. It was about dark when he finally made it to the road.”
I waited for more. Nothing.
“Why don’t we go inside and find some coffee,” he finally said. And just like that, I knew I’d missed the first clue to the riddle.
We opened the back door and got out, while Albert seemed to struggle. He used the open window of the driver’s side door for leverage and then stooped to lift a pair of crutches lying on the ground.
“Dad?” questioned Neil, his eyes wide.
It was thrilling to feel the energy that Ginnia poured into her hatred of Albert. Talk of him punctuated most of her conversations with me. I was both invisible (simply pulled into the whirlwind) and the guest of honor to the wreckage of a life. When we visited, I sat cross-legged on her bed and listened, chin in hand, as though Neil had delivered me to her on purpose to bear witness. Albert and Ginnia had been married long enough to produce five children. During their wedding trip, over a candlelit dinner, Albert had laid out his plans for their future. He would no longer allow her to work outside the home, nor would he permit her to smoke. Ginnia shared her story with me, doling out a little more with each visit. The shock of her disappointments sustained her as powerfully as an unshakable faith. She rocked in the chair by her bed, her long legs outstretched. In one hand she held a bottle of Scotch whiskey. In the other she clutched a tiny plastic pill cup from which she took tea party-sized sips. Five cc’s, she called them.
“You know, I’d planned to have a career as a concert pianist. Did Neil ever tell you that? Neil! Did you ever mention that, son?” She poured another five cc’s and shook her head in disgust. “God Almighty.…”
By the time Neil introduced me to his family, Ginnia and Albert had been divorced for seventeen years, but the two existed as antagonistic shadows of one another. Ginnia raised her fists in fury. Albert shook his head at the wonder of her. As far as I could see, they were as entwined as the ropey strands of bittersweet that entangled the trees at the banks of the creek below Ginnia’s house. Once caught in the vine, the trees were pulled toward each other by degrees. And though bent against their wills, still they created a lovely, shady bower over the running water.
Around a crowded table, I often drifted above the group, just out of range. My friends were used to this impulse. Often, they were so absorbed with the conversation that I was allowed to float, cloudlike, and to watch.
Plans for our wedding began to take shape. We would throw a party at the farm in early September, just weeks away. The ceremony would take place in the upper meadow, facing a setting sun. And like our affection for each other, it would be simple and perfect. We would carry folding chairs for the older guests, who might not appreciate the poetic nature of the moment. Neil’s brother, Boo, strung lights into the trees surrounding the house. I planned to decorate the tables with vases full of the wildflowers that grew around the farm. Neil’s oldest brother Billy took it upon himself to take out the tractor and to mow the upper meadow into the shape of a heart. And as I said before, Albert finally rallied all the boys to hammer together a new bridge.
Virginia announced her intention to host a bridal luncheon. I drove out with my mother, who had not been as brazen about driving through rushing water, on a day so dusty and blond with heat that we fanned at our legs with the hems of our skirts as we walked up the hill to the house. A furnace of hot air pushed at us. I squinted against light that was like moving panes of wavy glass. Two tables on the front porch were laid with soft white linen cloths and gilt-edged china. The napkins were pressed and tucked, origami-like, under heavy silver. A crystal pitcher of ice water sweated on each table. I was delighted. It was hard to imagine that Virginia had anything so beautiful stashed away in the sagging boxes that littered her house. A little surprised at myself, I sighed with relief at such a symbol of normalcy.
Both of Neil’s sisters and several of his aunts greeted us. Ginnia herself scurried around seating everyone, and rushed to fill the plates with roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, and tomato aspic, a blood red molded vegetable salad. When everyone had been seated and plates had been heaped with a daunting amount of food, Ginnia disappeared into the house and shut the door. The group waited politely, and then her head popped out from an upstairs window.
“You’all go on and eat,” she insisted. The women protested, but she would not budge. “I had a can of black olives a while ago. I’m full.”
My heart sank. Was this another test? Couldn’t I just marry Neil, just lean against his shoulder and study my nails as we rode on toward some fuzzy horizon line that was our future? The idea of marriage was beginning to shed its romantic dreaminess. Neil’s eccentricities were so endearing, but the family that had produced them was beginning to be more than I was able to negotiate. Our visits left me shaky.
The talking head kept us company from above as the luncheon progressed. Billy appeared in the wide drive and spun wheelies on a white motorcycle. Great clouds of dust rose up around us, and Ginnia screamed at him over the din. She yelled as though he were a small troublesome boy and not the bearded, thirty-five-year-old man whom the rest of us saw.
“He’s just looking for attention,” Ginnia apologized during a lull.
It dawned on me that I was experiencing a set of rituals that would bind me to these people for good. I stared at the heavy food curdling on our plates. In the distance, the mountain shimmered. My bones weightless, I gazed up from the mountain to the still, hot sky and rose to meet it. Gently, gently I floated up from the chair and hovered above the scene. Not so high as to cause worry, but far enough away to be able to watch and to wonder from an untouchable distance. Dresses and flowers were discussed. The peculiarities of men were analyzed. Chatter never ceased. The air began to feel less oppressive. I studied the hazy ridge of Bent Mountain and, farther, the Twin Peaks of Otter. I could leave this horizon behind, I thought. Just as I made out the feminine curves of Twelve O’Clock Knob, Ginnia grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled me into the upstairs window.
I shook off my daydreams and excused myself to find the bathroom. I washed my face and pressed a warm washcloth under my arms and across the back of my neck. Windows ran the width of the bathroom at shoulder level, framing a view of the back pastures that led to the base of the mountain. Oddly, the window ledge was lined with dozens of mismatched jars. Each one had the food label crudely scraped off and held a variety of spiders. Some had crawled up near the lids. Others were only crumpled leggy remains and appeared magnified against the curved glass. At chest level, my view of the world outside was filtered through this webbed landscape. My skin prickled in the mushy humidity. The light was unbearable. I couldn’t remember shade anymore, or rain, or the need for a coat.
It bore me along, but I easily set this book aside and forgot it when it disappeared under others.
Albert had a number of theories, one of which had to do with organic fuels. He stored his urine in five-gallon jugs in his study. They were lined up neatly around every wall and carefully sealed with red wax. Another theory maintained that, in his view, a woman reached her sexual prime at the age of sixteen. He announced this at dinner the night before the wedding. Both of our families had gathered in his home in anticipation of the day ahead.
I blushed in anger. It was one of the first times he had addressed me directly, and I heard the comment as a challenge. In a flash I imagined Ginnia as a young bride, not yet equipped to respond quickly, publicly, negatively. I smiled politely and thought quietly of the beast. It was suddenly clear to me that my time with this family was destined to be short, just a quick blink in a life just barely begun. I wound my arms around Neil and buried my face in his neck. I squeezed hard, trying to completely infuse him with love. I breathed in the comfort of his familiar smell, and then excused myself for the evening.
That night the heat broke. Rain fell as though the parched earth had begged the clouds above for a cool drink of water. It rained without warning, and it rained beyond all reason. Newscasters stood in the small light of cameras, their collars pushed up against their wet ears, and gestured urgently into the black night sky. Neil and I had spent several weeks planning a twilight ceremony in the ebb of summer in an open meadow. And in our dreaminess we had never considered rain.
I pressed my hands against the glass as the rain lashed at the house. I felt a tremendous sense of relief, as though a spell had been broken. Water rushed along the gutters and carried away sticks and trash in a thousand miniature floods. I wondered if the new bridge at the farm could stand up to its first challenge. As an accompaniment to the drumming water, I filled a bath and submerged myself just to the very edge of my lower lip. The water hovered there. The steam rose. My skin blushed red. I lay very still for a long time, and when I couldn’t stand it for another instant, I stepped out, dressed quietly, and tiptoed down the stairs and out the front door.
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