Page 102 of Good Days Bad Days
As I’m about to slip out of the room, I hesitate. I watch my father tenderly kiss my mother’s cheeks and pet her hair, and suddenly I see them as they once were: young, broken, and living this life like we all do—without instructions.
I rush across the tiled floor and lean down to kiss Betty on her head, just like I used to do with Olivia when she was younger, and as Betty did with me when I was a little girl, feeling a sense of coming full circle in this moment.
As I walk into the waiting room where Ian and Olivia are sitting, I’m grateful not only for all I’ve gained as I’ve faced the pain of my past but also for all that I’ve started to purge. Sometimes I forget that thefirst step of renovation is demolition. It’s not easy to look trauma in the eye and have a conversation with it, but I’m learning it might be the only way to not become captive in a prison of your own making.
We are not healed by any means, not me and my parents or me and Ian or even me and Olivia, but one month ago I thought our family was too damaged to repair. And now I think maybe we’re finally ready to try and put the pieces back together—one truth at a time.
Chapter 40
Greg
June 12, 1976
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
“Do you, Betty, take Greg to be your lawfully wedded husband? To love and cherish him, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, and forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto him, for so long as you both shall live?” The reverend stands between us on the swaying wooden dock that juts into the lake. Behind us, our freshly painted house sits up the hill, while a small gathering of guests is seated on rows of mismatched chairs brought over from the shop.
Pink ribbons line each side of a makeshift aisle Betty just walked down. It’s covered in pink rose petals, and the rows are marked with hanging vases of daisies. Pink ribbons are strewn through the towering willow branches, and rose petals float in the water by the dock. The strands dance in the warm summer breeze above us, and little bells tinkle with each gust, as if fairy kings and queens are attending our union.
As magical as the decor is, the most mystical sight is that of my bride. Her long hair cascades nearly to her waist, and her antiquepeasant-style dress flows from her neck to the ground and covers her wrists, with her skin visible through the lace at her neck and down her arms. A wreath of flowers and garland encircles her head, ribbons pouring down her back like she too is part of the canopy. I watch her pink lips repeating the same vows I just completed, in awe of her, of us, of the future we’re building together.
Betty hasn’t left my side since the day I brought her back to Harry’s store after that terrible night where she lost everything. As I washed the mud from her feet with warm water and a soft terrycloth towel, I told her what I’d said to the police—how I claimed that the call they would eventually trace from her house to mine came from Don.
She listened quietly, and as I patted her feet dry she agreed to adopt my storyline. I didn’t ask what really happened, thinking it’d only cloud my ability to tell my version of the truth. And I already knew the two most important details: First, there’s no way Betty is capable of murder, especially not of her own child and husband, and second, whatever she did inside that house that night she must’ve done out of desperation. Those two facts are enough. I’ve seen what desperation leads men to do, and it isn’t always simple or morally black and white.
We soon moved into a little apartment a few blocks from the shop when Harry expressed concern about the scandalous nature of our cohabitation, especially with the rumors about Betty spreading nearly as quickly as the fire that’d engulfed the Hollinger home. My name was cleared immediately, and after a six-month investigation, Betty was cleared as well.
However, it took longer for the public suspicion to die down, especially when people heard about the insurance payout—more than a quarter of a million dollars. The car was insured and was in the garage when the house burned. The house was fully covered, and of course there was Don’s life insurance.
I suggested we move far away, somewhere no one knew her name or face, and where no one had heard the story of her husband and daughter’s demise. But Betty didn’t want to leave. She wanted to stay close to Charlotte and her nieces and nephew, hoping that one day an opportunity would arise to spare her sister from the same tragic fate she had suffered due to an unhappy partnership.
Betty almost got her wish. Soon after she received her insurance payout, Charlotte called to say that Bill had been arrested again and that she was ready to leave. Betty promptly sent her sister a significant sum of money, enough to pay off any debts and provide a fresh start.
A week later, we made the drive to Kegonsa to help Charlotte pack up her kids and move into a small house in Lake Geneva. When we arrived, the house was empty with a “For Sale” sign at the end of the driveway. It’d all been a ruse to get some of the insurance money. Another gutting loss for Betty.
We searched for Charlotte and the kids for months, and then Betty suddenly stopped. “I can’t keep what doesn’t want to be kept,” she said. The next day, she purchased a piece of land on the lake, and we never spoke of Charlotte, the kids, baby Laura, or Don again.
From that point forward, she put all her energy into building her dream house, using the same plans she used to build her home in Janesville, only with a detached garage and a large deck in the back looking over the lake. Had it been my choice, I would have opted for a new design—something that symbolized her fresh start, but it was her money, and the project came at an enormous cost. I wasn’t her husband yet, not even her fiancé, when she broke ground on the new house.
That all changed once the house was finished. She handed me a key and finally said yes to a question I’d asked nearly every day for two years. Yes, she’d marry me. Yes, we could build a family together. Yes, she felt safe entrusting me with her future.
And I feel the same. Sheismy future. She has been since she walked into Ike’s with her red lipstick and misplaced keys. She was my missing piece, and I felt it—the gaping hole where she belonged and the urge to fill it with her presence. Now, it’s official: in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for better for worse ... for so long as we both shall live.
“I do,” she says as I slip the band around her left ring finger, mine already in place, my promise already made.
“You may kiss your bride,” the officiant declares. Her hands are clasped in mine as I lean in to kiss mywife. Her touch still brings me the same thrill it did in the dark studio when I was about to leave the country and she was about to marry the wrong man. It’s not her beauty or fame, nor is it her body or the clothes she wears that I love. It’s the resilient, creative, resourceful person inside her. It’s because of her painful past that I feel honored to try to shield her from any future loss.
As we pull away, Lucy, Mark, their two kids, Harry and his wife, and a few of our regular customers and neighbors explode in cheers loud enough for a crowd ten times their small size. They toss confetti into the air, where it swirls between the pink silk tendrils fluttering in the wind.
We run through the deluge, laughing as the handful of people we still have in our lives after losing so many cheer us on. Out of breath when we reach the deck, we stop for one more kiss—a dramatic dip. Our lips linger against one another, our heartbeats pounding in our necks and vibrating through our chests in sync.
I hold her there, suspended backward in my arms.
“So beautiful,” I say tearfully, overwhelmed with gratitude for both my bride and the stunning scene she planned and curated. “How the hell did I get so lucky?”
“I told you,” Betty whispers, pecking my lips gently before standing up. “You’re my hero.”
She squeezes my hand, my new ring pressing into my finger in a way I’m sure will become second nature.
