Page 15 of Home Body
“How did that happen?” Mamie wanted to know.
Kenyon looked at her mom, passing the baton for telling the story. “I was married to a Vietnam veteran,” Llayne explained. “He served overseas before I met him. When we got engaged, he told me he’d been in love once before with a young woman over there. But they never connected again once he shipped home.We hadn’t been married for long when we found out he had cancer. He died soon after. Thirty-three years old.”
“Oh, how awful. I’m so sorry.” Mamie’s hands went to her chest.
“I was destroyed, to put it mildly. That was until I got a letter – I called it a magic letter – that told me about a young mother in Vietnam who’d died giving birth and the Red Cross was looking for the father. Instead, they found me, his widow. He’d had no idea he’d left a pregnant girl behind, of that I’m sure. It took some doing but I was able to adopt his little girl and bring her home to America. That was the best day of my life, just like Dalia walking down that lane was for you.”
“Then she married my dad,” Kenyon added. “Well, you get it. The only man I’ve ever known as my dad. And I have a younger brother. He just turned eighteen. A typical American life. It’s only in recent years I’ve realized just how incredibly lucky I am. Lots of babies of American fathers were born over there and were abandoned by them. When I was younger, all I knew was that this was my life, and I loved my family.”
“As it should be,” Mamie insisted. “Kids shouldn’t be burdened with how it all came about. They should just be kids.” She paused before going on. “I’ll let Dalia tell you the story about her birth mother, the one who didn’t care that she was gone, but I can tell you about Rose’s father. Dalia was still in high school when she got pregnant by her boyfriend, a cocky kid Butch and I never did like. He skedaddled the minute he found out Dalia was pregnant. Haven’t seen hide nor hair of the bastard since.” She gestured broadly to indicate the guy was gone.
Llayne shook her head. “Well, she’s better off without him if he can’t stand up to responsibility.”
“I agree. Dalia went through a lot, madly in love and pregnant at sixteen and heartbroken and a single mom by seventeen. She doesn’t talk about it. But someday, if you get toknow her better, she might tell you about it. She’ll also tell you that having little Rose was the best thing that ever happened to her.”
Awareness rushed through Kenyon. She always known she’d had an easy life but the differences between herself and Dalia struck like a tsunami. She herself had never known real loss. She’d never known either of her biological parents, so her connection to them had always been abstract. All her grandparents were living. Yes, she’d lost the man she’d thought would be her husband, but he hadn’t died or anything. Unfortunately.
Guilty over that wicked thought, she brushed it aside.
Dalia, on the other hand, was her age yet she’d lost her dad, a man she loved abandoned her, and she was a single parent. She’d most likely only taken a job as a stripper because they were strapped for money. Kenyon couldn’t imagine handling all that at this point in her life.
“Maybe that’s what I should write about,” she said. “I mentioned it briefly this morning – I was preoccupied with the big whoop-de-doo wedding-funeral and all – but I’ve applied for a job as an investigative-human-interest reporter atTheDetroit News. They want me to write a sample article to see if they’ll hire me. The ones I wrote in college are too rinky-dink. Maybe I could look into what life is like for single moms, women who’ve been abandoned by their children’s fathers. Dalia may not want to share her story, but I bet others would.”
“Kenyon, I like that idea,” her mom said. “There are so many. You could find them easily enough, I bet.”
“I’d read an article about that.” Mamie pointed at the newspaper folded up on the kitchen counter.
“She’s rejected all my ideas.” Llayne mildly chastised her daughter.
“Mom, you wanted me to write about the Cherry Festival in Traverse City. I mean, I love that festival but really? I think that’s been covered. A lot.”
“Okay, okay. I was going too easy on you. This is a much better idea.”
“I agree,” Mamie said. “But I want to go back to what you said about the whoop-de-doo ‘wedding-funeral.’ Dalia told me all about it. How are you doing, honey? Are you sorry you called it off?”
Kenyon cocked her head in thought. “Huh. No. No! I haven’t thought about it yet. It hasn’t sunk in that my whole life has changed. But it’s undeniably the best thing I ever did.”
“It is. I’m sure of it.” Her mom agreed whole-heartedly.
“I know that in a remote sort of way but haven’t figured out what to do next. I probably should feel embarrassed about what he did to me, cheating on me like he did. But somehow, I don’t. He’s the one who should be embarrassed. I feel…free!”
Mamie slapped the table. “Good girl! Get on with your life. I only have one question.”
“Yeah?”
“Are you gonna wear your wedding dress everywhere you go from now on?”
The three women – one young, one middle-aged, and one approaching her senior years – laughed together like old friends who’d known each other forever.
“Maybe.” Kenyon shrugged. “I really like it.”
CHAPTER 11
“What in blazes is that?” Kenyon leaned forward to get a better look out the windshield as her mom drove them home.
“Huh. That’s odd,” Llayne said. “They’re painting one of Chad’s billboard signs at this hour. It’s suppertime.”
“Mom! Look at what they’re painting! And look who it is!”
