Charlaine Harris - The Julius House

“Be a little more specific, Amina,” I said very stiffly. “Funny? How?”

Amina shifted from foot to uncomfortable foot. “Could we sit down?” she asked plaintively. I recognized a delaying tactic, but she really was tired. I pushed a folding lawn chair in her direction. I pulled over one for myself. Martin and I had been sitting out on the lawn the evening before, looking at the house and talking about our plans.

“I shouldn’t have started this,” Amina muttered to herself and tried to arrange her altering body in the light aluminum-frame chair. “I’m just worried about you,” she said directly. “If Martin was a regular guy in a regular job who came home every night, I’d like him fine. And I do like him as he is, because he obviously thinks you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread. But he’s gone so much, he works so hard, such long hours. Why does he have to be out of town so much? Plant managers are supposed to stay at the plant, right? And these Youngbloods.” She shook her head.

“Amina, stop.”

“Your mom’s worried, too.” She was crying.

The Youngbloods had finished their strange ritual and were doing some kind of exercise in which they faced each other, squatted, and whacked each other’s arms.

My mother, I reflected, had been smart enough not to say anything.

To tell the truth, this conversation shook me.

I handed Amina a Kleenex from my shoulder bag.

“I’m just scared that-it almost looks like you’ll be their prisoner.”

“Amina, I think you need to go lie down,” I said, after a little silence.

“Don’t patronize me! I may be pregnant but I’m not stupid.”

“Then you’ll believe me when I say that I don’t want to hear any more of this.”

We each stared off angrily in opposite directions, composing ourselves, trying to be friends again.

It took a few days.

The ceremony itself was brief and beautiful. Lawrencetonians filled up my side of the church and half the rows on Martin’s. Being older, and having moved so many times, Martin had not invited many people, and those who came were business associates from Pan-Am Agra, a few old friends from Ohio, and his sister Barbara. I had some sympathy for Barby since I’d learned more of her history while I was in Corinth, but still I knew she would never become my favorite person or my confidante. (She brought her daughter, a sophomore at Kent State, a pretty, dark, plump, young woman named Regina. Regina was not blessed with many brains and asked far too often why her cousin Barrett hadn’t come to see his dad get married.)

So St. James Episcopal Church was full, Emily Kaye played the organ beautifully, my mother walked down the aisle with the dignity that was her trademark, Martin appeared from Aubrey’s study with John at his side-Martin looked absolutely delicious in his tux-and Amina went down the aisle in her full-skirted dress that fairly well concealed her pregnancy. Then it was my turn.

My father and his wife had finally decided to come, pretty much at the last minute; you can imagine how their lack of enthusiasm made me feel. And then they’d left my brother Phillip with some friends in California.

My crushing disappointment had permanently altered the way I felt about my father.

I am no apple-cart upsetter. I am no flouter of tradition. And I am not a person who likes last-minute changes in plans. But when my father had arrived, I had told him I wanted to walk down the aisle by myself. My mother drew in a sharp breath, opened her mouth to say something, then looked at me and shut it. And I didn’t explain my decision to Father, or wait for his reaction, or tell him not to get his feelings hurt. And Betty Jo had no say at all. So Father and Betty Jo had walked in before Mother.

That’s why I came down the aisle by myself when Emily began playing the music I’d waited so many years to hear. I’d had my hair put up, I was wearing the earrings Martin had given me the night before we’d gotten engaged, I was wearing full bride regalia. I felt like the Homecoming Queen, Miss America, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and a Tony Award nominee, all rolled into one.

And we got married.

WE PULLED INTO OUR very own gravel driveway, groggy from the trip, glad to be home. I knew Martin had started thinking about the plant again, and I had been visualizing my own-our own-bed, and my washing machine, and staying in my nightgown until I was good and ready to get dressed. And my own coffee! Our honeymoon, which had been as sweet as honeymoons are supposed to be, had been wonderful, but I was really ready to be back in Lawrenceton. It was hard to believe we had to get through the rest of the day before going to bed. Martin had slept some on the airplane coming across the ocean, and I had too, but it wasn’t especially restful sleep.

The house looked wonderful. The new carpet, paint, and the bookshelves were in. God bless the Youngbloods; they’d arranged the furniture I’d thought would be lined up against the walls. I’d left diagrams of how I wanted the bedrooms to be situated, but I hadn’t been able to visualize the living room. It actually looked very nice, though I was sure I’d want to change a couple of things. Madeleine had already chosen a chair and mastered the pet door in the kitchen. Judging by her girth, the Youngbloods had been feeding her too well. She seemed faintly pleased to see me, and as always, totally ignored Martin.

In that distracted way people have when they come home from a trip and can’t settle, we wandered separately around the house. Martin went to the large box of mail on the coffee table and began to sort through it-his pile, my pile-while I roamed through the dining room, noting all the wrapped presents on the table, to check out the kitchen. I’d moved most of my kitchen things here myself and gotten them in place before the wedding, and Martin’s household goods had been retrieved from storage before the wedding, too, but there was a box or two yet to unpack; the essential things that I’d kept at my apartment until the day of the wedding. I’d have cleaned out the apartment and moved in with Mother if the furniture left me by Jane Engle hadn’t already been taking up the third bedroom, and the second one had been promised to Barby Lampton for the week of the wedding.

I knew, catching sight of the back of Martin’s head as I began to open the belated wedding presents stacked on the dining-room table, that I was going to experience an after-wedding slump, as we began the day-to-day part of our life together, so I was glad there was some work left to do on the house. I stared blearily at yet another set of wine glasses, and checked the box to see if they were from the Lawrenceton gift shop; they were. I could take them back tomorrow and trade them in on something we really needed, though what that might be, I didn’t know, since it seemed to me we had enough things to last us our lifetimes.

The next package contained purple and silver placemats of such stunning hideousness that I had to call Martin to see them. We puzzled over the enclosed card together, and I finally deciphered the crabbed handwriting.

“Martin! These are from Mrs. Totino!”

“Mrs. who?”

“The mother-in-law! The one who found out they were all missing! Why has she sent us a present?”

“Probably glad to have the house off her hands after all these years.”

“The money. I guess she’s glad to have the money. The house did belong to her?” A sudden thought occurred to me. “Has the family been officially declared dead?”

“Not yet. Later this year, in a few months, in fact. The check to buy the house went into the estate. It was a strange house closing. Bubba Sewell represented the estate. Mrs. Totino, evidently, was appointed the conservator for the estate after a year. I don’t think there are any other relatives.”