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Authors: Anne Korkeakivi
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bed skirt.
“Oh, come on. You’re my flower girl. I want you to look pretty.”
Sissy folds her chubby arms over her chest. “I’ll look like Jell-O.”
“Green is lovely with red hair.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Sissy, whose brothers—and probably the kids in the playground, too—have teased her more than once about her ginger crop, scowls. But then her spunky little daughter suddenly relents, lifting her arms up, as though somehow intuiting this is not the moment to give her added trouble. Because it is true—now that the time is getting so near, now that she’s back in this bedroom, knowing she’ll soon be again sharing it with a husband—her nerves are getting a little raw. She runs her free hand over her stomach, not big but not as flat as it was before giving birth to five children. What will it be like with Ronnie? She’s into her forties now, long past being the girl she was when she and Michael married.
She won’t find out tonight. With Jeanne and Molly occupying the girls’ room, Sissy has been sleeping with her. We could go spend the night in a hotel, she told Ronnie, laughing, as they made their plans. The honeymoon suite.
Ronnie laughed, too: Don’t worry about it. I’ll wait until after Jeanne and Molly have gone to move in. Maybe that’s better. It will be easier for Jeanne.
She was laughing, but in fact she wasn’t joking about checking into a hotel. The idea of exploring another man’s body for the first time with the kids down the hall—she would have liked to do that someplace private, anonymous. Didn’t he want that also? Wasn’t he eager to be alone with her?
But Ronnie is always so thoughtful. There can’t be many men who would be so considerate—she should be thanking her lucky stars is what she should be doing. Of course, it will be easier for Jeanne not to see her going off for the night with a man other than Michael. One thing at a time; the wedding is already enough.
“Help me, Mommy?” Sissy says, her voice muffled by cloth.
“You need to take the dress you are wearing off first,” she says to Sissy, smiling.
While Sissy wriggles out of her cemetery dress, she slides out of her own clothes. She ordered a light blue suit with a matching pillbox hat for the wedding; with five kids, she wasn’t going to act the fool and dress in white, like a virgin. She removes its wrapper now and runs her fingers down the front of it. She’ll slip it on in a few minutes, once she’s rolled hose up her legs and put on her makeup.
With him in the room or not, when she takes the suit off again tonight, she will no longer be Mrs. Michael Gannon. She’ll be Mrs. Ronald McCloskey. That’s what is going to happen.
Independence Day / July 4, 1968
Barbara
Y OU AREN’T REALLY GOING to leave Los Angeles?” Patty Ann says, staring over the kitchen sink into the backyard, where Ronnie is talking with Mike and Mike’s girlfriend by the grill.
Ronnie is switching the focus of his company from individual air-conditioning units to central air, and he says it means he needs to switch his office location as well: People in Southern California are too reliant on the sea breeze . The desert is where to get a foothold.
As far as she can tell there’s not much sea breeze to be had in LA, certainly not east of the new 405 highway. But she did tell Ronnie before they married, I’m not moving to a new house in LA. And I’m not going to have the exterior repainted. It’s the last thing Michael did, and I like it . If Ronnie simply doesn’t like living in another man’s home and this is a way to get her to move, who is to blame him?
“If Ronnie’s loan comes through,” she says, “and he decides to go, we’re going. And soon, before school starts back up. He’s paying the bills, Patty Ann. It’s not for me to argue.”
“Just up and leave your home like that?”
“I up and left my home twenty years ago to follow your father.”
“Twenty-three.” Patty Ann points to
“Oh, come on. You’re my flower girl. I want you to look pretty.”
Sissy folds her chubby arms over her chest. “I’ll look like Jell-O.”
“Green is lovely with red hair.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Sissy, whose brothers—and probably the kids in the playground, too—have teased her more than once about her ginger crop, scowls. But then her spunky little daughter suddenly relents, lifting her arms up, as though somehow intuiting this is not the moment to give her added trouble. Because it is true—now that the time is getting so near, now that she’s back in this bedroom, knowing she’ll soon be again sharing it with a husband—her nerves are getting a little raw. She runs her free hand over her stomach, not big but not as flat as it was before giving birth to five children. What will it be like with Ronnie? She’s into her forties now, long past being the girl she was when she and Michael married.
She won’t find out tonight. With Jeanne and Molly occupying the girls’ room, Sissy has been sleeping with her. We could go spend the night in a hotel, she told Ronnie, laughing, as they made their plans. The honeymoon suite.
Ronnie laughed, too: Don’t worry about it. I’ll wait until after Jeanne and Molly have gone to move in. Maybe that’s better. It will be easier for Jeanne.
She was laughing, but in fact she wasn’t joking about checking into a hotel. The idea of exploring another man’s body for the first time with the kids down the hall—she would have liked to do that someplace private, anonymous. Didn’t he want that also? Wasn’t he eager to be alone with her?
But Ronnie is always so thoughtful. There can’t be many men who would be so considerate—she should be thanking her lucky stars is what she should be doing. Of course, it will be easier for Jeanne not to see her going off for the night with a man other than Michael. One thing at a time; the wedding is already enough.
“Help me, Mommy?” Sissy says, her voice muffled by cloth.
“You need to take the dress you are wearing off first,” she says to Sissy, smiling.
While Sissy wriggles out of her cemetery dress, she slides out of her own clothes. She ordered a light blue suit with a matching pillbox hat for the wedding; with five kids, she wasn’t going to act the fool and dress in white, like a virgin. She removes its wrapper now and runs her fingers down the front of it. She’ll slip it on in a few minutes, once she’s rolled hose up her legs and put on her makeup.
With him in the room or not, when she takes the suit off again tonight, she will no longer be Mrs. Michael Gannon. She’ll be Mrs. Ronald McCloskey. That’s what is going to happen.
Independence Day / July 4, 1968
Barbara
Y OU AREN’T REALLY GOING to leave Los Angeles?” Patty Ann says, staring over the kitchen sink into the backyard, where Ronnie is talking with Mike and Mike’s girlfriend by the grill.
Ronnie is switching the focus of his company from individual air-conditioning units to central air, and he says it means he needs to switch his office location as well: People in Southern California are too reliant on the sea breeze . The desert is where to get a foothold.
As far as she can tell there’s not much sea breeze to be had in LA, certainly not east of the new 405 highway. But she did tell Ronnie before they married, I’m not moving to a new house in LA. And I’m not going to have the exterior repainted. It’s the last thing Michael did, and I like it . If Ronnie simply doesn’t like living in another man’s home and this is a way to get her to move, who is to blame him?
“If Ronnie’s loan comes through,” she says, “and he decides to go, we’re going. And soon, before school starts back up. He’s paying the bills, Patty Ann. It’s not for me to argue.”
“Just up and leave your home like that?”
“I up and left my home twenty years ago to follow your father.”
“Twenty-three.” Patty Ann points to
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