Page 133 of Marriage (Red, White &) Blues

“My Gloria,” she cried, over and over. “My Gloria.” She crashed into me and let me just say, the woman held some power. Once she let me go, she looked over to my husband, who beamed at us all proud and sentimental.

“Baba, this is my husband, Blake Parker.”

“Blake Parker.” she said, narrowing her eyes on me. “I can’t believe my Gloria is aParkernow.”

I nodded. “I’m a Parker now. This is our little girl.” Our Maria held her arms out to Baba like she’d seen the woman every day for the last year of her life.

Baba reached for Maria, hugging her against her chest, swinging her back and forth.

“My Maria,” she said as a huge sob broke free. She pulled my husband against her to hug him at the same time. I felt a bit left out, so I wrapped my arms around the lot of them. We stood there hugging for what felt like forever until a giant Tatra sheepdog bounded out of the house and down the steps, leaping into our circle. When I saidgiant, I meant the thing looked like a smaller version of a polar bear with all that long, white fur. The family had always owned them, from what I understood. They herded sheep and my family owned sheep. So, it made sense. But seeing as the dog landing on us sent me sprawling against the hood of the car, with the rest of my family falling on top of me, our moment ended.

We moved inside the house. Uncle Alfred carried our bags in from the trunk and Baba showed us up to the spare room in the attic. Because the roof sloped, the room felt a little tight, but it was big enough for the three of us, and if Blake kept to the center of the room, he could actually stand up straight.

Baba told us to get settled, and then clean up. About twenty minutes later, she called us down to dinner. We walked into the kitchen to find her leaned over stirring a huge pot of zurek, which basically contained ham and vegetables in a fermented ryemeal broth. Baba’s always had a hard-boiled egg cut in half and dropped in the center of the bowl. She served it with a rustic, crusty bread and fresh butter.

She held Maria on her hip the entire time we ate. She wouldn’t put my daughter down and my daughter was all about that life. Baba played with Maria’s soft, curly red hair, just like her mama’s. She had my eyes, too. Jupiter always teased that she thought maybe I’d cloned Maria rather than Blake adding any DNA whatsoever.

After dinner, we sat in the living room, me and Maria on the floor so I could keep her away from the fire raging in the fireplace. Blake sat in an old chair that Baba said belonged to her father, and her grandfather before him. The history of this house went back generations. Baba told stories of her youth, in both Polish and English, more for Maria than us, because she spoke Polish to us (most of which I had to translate to Blake) but would turn a soft voice in English on my daughter. I thought she was trying to teach my daughter Polish. My daughter would definitely learn Polish.

Mywujekand their wives, myciotka, jumped in to pick up parts of the stories that Baba apparently got wrong, and she glared at them. “Whose story is this?” she snapped, yes, in Polish. Again, you’re welcome.

We laughed and drank heated cider while the siblings bickered. Eventually, we wandered up to bed. They’d found a crib for Maria. Blake turned on his bedroom eyes. I turned on my ‘open all night’ sign. Yes, we did it in the attic of my ancestral home. Ask me if I cared. Hell, yeah, I cared. What an awesome memory to share with my husband.

The next morning, someone pounded on the attic door and it flung open before I had the presence of mind to tell them to stop.

“You have that much energy,” Wujek Alfred said, “then you can help in the field.”Oops. Apparently, they’d heard us.How embarrassing.

I started to get up when Alfred stopped me. “Not you—him.” Then he continued to mumble under his breath, “All night long.Squeak, squeak, squeak, bang, bang, bang, scrape,scrape, scrape. Give the woman a break.”

Blake whipped his head to look at me, and I threw my hand over my mouth. “Be down in a minute,” Blake answered. His cheeks were almost the same color as my hair.

Baba and I watched out the window. Blake helped the uncles with the lambing. He jumped right in. We cooked for the family. “He’s a good-looking man,” Baba said, “but now I know why you married him.”

And I thought my heart stopped. Shedid notjust go there.

“Don’t,” she admonished. “You take care of your husband. A good wife does. The first time I brought your grandfather home”—again, since he’d died of the same cancer as my dad, I got screened every year. Maybe it was overkill, but I planned to shun that legacy—“we got caught with our britches down in the cow barn. Can you imagine how humiliating it is to have all of your brothers and both your parents file in to gawk at you while you used hay to cover all the unmentionable parts?”

“Oh, my God!” I laughed so hard.

“He made your grandfather sleep in the attic. Maria had to sleep in our childhood bedroom with me,” Antonina added.

“He made you sleep in separate beds?”

“We weren’t married yet,” Baba replied. “Though we had a quick wedding here in town. Thank goodness, seeing as your uncle showed up about seven months later.”

Maisie and Clinton FaceTimed us every day so we were able to talk with the fur-babies back at home.

Maria thrived under the care of all her great-great-aunts and great-grandmother. The men were impressed with Blake’s work ethic. When we decided to extend our trip, Blake worked in the den as his makeshift office to keep up on his clients back in the States. Murielle proved to bethe bestassistant. Time and again, Blake noted, “I couldn’t be here without her. She gets the job done.”

My husband paid her way more than she ever made at the old job. She deserved it.

He worked outside to help the uncles on the farm all day, then set aside a few hours each evening for his clients, by using his phone as a hotspot to connect with the internet. My husband enjoyed working with his hands. My Wujek Bartek, one of my great-uncles, taught Blake to carve wood in the evenings after the business work was over. Everything about this life appealed to me on a certain level. Could I live it for the long haul? No. I missed my American family too much. But I loved giving my eighty-year-old grandmother the chance to bond with her namesake. I wouldn’t give this up for the world.

Blake and I ended up staying for three months.

Three months.

My daughter babbled in Polish.

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