A Life Well-Hidden Page 2

  I know that’s why I left with him and wanted to marry him. That’s what his mom said as she was helping pin up my hair for our tiny wedding on his Uncle Troy’s horse farm in the neighboring county. Lisa Hunt nodded to herself, bobby pins sticking out of the corner of her mouth, “Smart choice, locking him down. That boy’s wild. He’s the reason I’m not a natural blonde anymore. I’m surprised he and his daddy haven’t killed each other by now, but I know he’ll be a good man and he’ll succeed at whatever he does. You’re the kind of wife he needs—you don’t put up with his nonsense.”

  So, there I was, sitting next to Adam almost 11 years later—the wife who only put up with some of his nonsense. As Carolyn walked down that aisle to meet Travis at the altar, I glanced over at Adam. He still looked the same, save for rougher hands from years of machine work and more defined cheek bones, his baby face gradually melting away over time. He didn’t seem to age, though. Some husbands and wives let themselves go and fade into overweight, chronic despair. Even though I would dress him down for it throughout our marriage, I was secretly thankful that Adam was such a peacock. He would never stoop to become the kind of husband or father that couldn’t keep up with his children or not be able to do manual labor.

  It was years later, when I was pregnant with June, that my parents and I finally spoke to one another again. Granted, my mother almost ruined that, too, when I told her I was pregnant, and she asked me if I was going to keep the baby. I told her she was a wonderful Catholic and nearly hung up on her. The only thing that kept me on that phone was the thought of my child not having both sets of grandparents. People say having a grandchild turns your parents into completely different people. I think it’s true. My mother finally came around and let bygones be bygones once she realized that she was going to be a grandma. Then she got excited. Part of our reconciliation was because of June, but it could have also been that they finally saw that Adam was becoming successful and we weren’t living in a slum in abject poverty. We saved our money and Adam bought us a house. Now, he’s 30 and helps my dad build additions onto their house while my mom agonizes over whether the meat is seasoned enough for him.

  Even so, we aren’t the perfect couple. There were times we fought constantly, but we made it through. Years passed, and then we had June. Our relationship is much better now, but it was only last fall that I didn’t know whether it would last. Adam worked constantly, and it began to erode the relationship I had with him and the relationship our daughters had with him. Finally, after numerous ugly fights and months of sleeping in different rooms and avoiding one another until the following evening, something changed.

  Adam’s Uncle Troy—his dad’s only brother—died suddenly of a heart attack and left his 18 acres of farmland to Adam and his brother, Ryan. In his will, he spoke about having no children of his own and the boys being like sons to him. Adam was devastated by the loss of Troy, almost as much as his dad was. Having no interest in taking on the responsibility of additional real estate, Ryan offered to let Adam buy out his half of the farm. Adam immediately accepted the offer, promising to maintain it and never allow it to fall into disrepair. The property had a pole building and a couple of barns scattered throughout, but the horses were long gone, ever since Troy decided he didn’t have the energy to take care of them. They were gradually distributed to the surrounding neighbors with horse farms.

  Adam and I decided to put our house up for sale and move to the farm as soon as possible. I started packing that day. At the time, I watched a few neighborhood children during the day, but moving further out of town meant that I wouldn’t have to work anymore. Since leaving school and getting married, I had never found a career path that made me truly happy. When June and Vivian were born, I was glad to stay home with them, but there were times we still needed a second income. When Adam became more and more successful, I felt like I could breathe easier. Not contributing financially bothered me for a while, but Adam didn’t seem to mind. He always said he was proud that he could take care of his family because, as a man, that was his job. I never argued.

  Fortunately, the move occurred just in time for Carolyn to realize that she was completely behind on wedding planning. I promised her I would bake the cake, which then turned into cupcakes, which finally turned into two flavors of cupcakes on a tiered stand. The girl couldn’t decide what she wanted until I finally sat her down and told her she had to decide, or no one was getting cake and her wedding would be a disaster because no one goes to weddings for any reason other than cake.

  You’d have thought I told her the entire thing was cancelled. Maybe it was mean to imply that cake is the only reason to attend a wedding, but she was starting to get on my nerves. Finally, those cupcakes—amaretto with buttercream and chocolate with bourbon dark chocolate—were cascading down a white ceramic stand in front of a Kentucky sunset. And there I was, sitting between my husband and the maid of honor, who was still fussing over her strapless mint dress that was falling down because she’d “told Carolyn 9,000 times” that strapless dresses weren’t meant for women with cup sizes larger than B. I didn’t say it, but I found the exact opposite to be true. Without much to hold that sateen monstrosity up, I was at just as much of a disadvantage as she was.

  I hadn’t realized how much of a reunion Travis and Carolyn’s wedding would be. Nearly all the guests in attendance belonged to one of two groups—family or people I knew from varying degrees of high school separation. Therefore, when Carolyn led a woman over to our table and they both sat down next to me, I knew this woman wasn’t a stranger—not really, anyway. Adam was right behind them, scooting behind us to lean against the floor-to-ceiling window with a freshly opened beer. Carolyn introduced the girl with the black sundress and blonde hair rolled into a bun on top of her head as Diana Sanderson.

  Diana came to the wedding as a plus-one with a mutual friend of Carolyn’s from medical school. It’s impressive I was able to keep that connection straight. Carolyn went on to say that Diana’s brother, Luke Sanderson, was in the same class I was in high school. I knew the name, but I didn’t know him personally. I did remember he was the valedictorian, and as such, according to Diana, he went to college down south and became a “hot shot doctor” in Miami. Diana worked for the university at one of their research facilities on the edge of town. I recognized the name of it only because Adam does contract work for them periodically. It didn’t fail—every person at that wedding was connected in some way.

  Someone waved at Carolyn from across the room and she shot out of the chair, waving her beer in the air to the beat of the music. Diana leaned closer to me to be heard over the music, which was gradually increasing in volume.

  “Do you know where the restroom is?” she annunciated, compensating for the inability to hear anything below a yell. I pointed toward the doorway leading to the front of the country club, rising from my chair as I did so. The two of us wove in and out of the crowd until we finally reached a heavy, cherry door with gold gilding in the foyer. Our heels sounded like gunshots on the marble floor. Once inside, we both turned toward the mirror, framed in artificial ferns and gold cherubs. With scoffs and noises of disgust, each of us began smoothing our hair, tucking the fly-aways back into place and rubbing away smudged makeup melted by the humidity. Diana reached into the purse hanging across her shoulder, extracting a small bottle of body spray. After spritzing herself with it, she offered it to me. I eagerly took it from her.

  “I’ve never understood weddings in August. It’s like saying, let’s all get dressed up and light each other on fire.”

  “If I melt into the floor, at least I’ll smell nice,” I muttered, spritzing the fragrance across my neck and chest. It smelled of freesia with sweet, fruity undertones. I handed the bottle back to Diana. She tossed it back in her purse and raised her hand, pointing back at the restroom door with her index finger.

  “I’ve got to be honest—that bride is hammered.”

  I liked Diana Sanderson immediately.

&n
bsp; Once back at the table, Diana and I talked for nearly an hour, people-watching and laughing at Carolyn becoming more of a disaster by the minute. I love her, but Carolyn can be such a mess. Finally, the grandparents left, and the DJ began taking requests for uncensored material. I’ve been to quite a few weddings but having so much fun and dancing with Adam that night almost made me forget about the recent months full of marital turmoil and tribulation.

  My husband and I could finally hold each other close and I didn’t wonder whether it was for real or if an hour later, we would be at the brink of collapse. You’d think living on a shoe-string budget and barely scraping by would be the cause of such turbulence, but it wasn’t. In a way, that part of our lives built our solid foundation. It was only after we were financially stable that the personal problems began. They continued throughout the years, lying dormant and suddenly resurfacing without warning. Finally, when that came to an end, only in the past couple of months, I felt as though the weight of two kids and a decade of hardship had finally melted away. This was the man I was supposed to be with.

  The country club kicked all of us out of the dining room at 11:00PM. Surprisingly—or not so surprisingly, depending on how you look at it—a fourth of the guests and the entire wedding party were still partying with no intention of leaving anytime soon. Fortunately, Travis and Carolyn had picked The Steeplechase, a country club which also housed a swanky bar downstairs for the rich folk in the neighborhood that was open much later. Everyone took advantage, especially Carolyn, who at that point could barely make it down the garden stairs in her giant bustled dress. My parents were no help, of course, as my dad was buying her shots and my mom was bribing the bartender to turn up the music.

  It must have been 1:00AM by the time everyone started to disperse. The girls, having arrived with Adam since I was on cupcake duty, had already left with his parents after the champagne toast, so we promised Travis and Carolyn that we would help drive people home if necessary. No doctor fresh out of medical school wanted to have a drunk-driving death on her conscience, after all.

  After gathering Travis and Carolyn, which was like herding cats, I was finally ready to drive them to their house and go home. Before leaving, I exchanged numbers with Diana, who promised to send me the pictures she took of the reception on her phone. Travis and Carolyn were out the door, so before missing my opportunity, I kissed Adam goodbye, high-fiving our success in getting the bride and groom out the door at the same time. Both of us had assumed the usual—that Travis and Carolyn would get in a fight at their own wedding and we’d end up having to deal with a drunken mess and drive them home separately.

  I’m not going to lie, just witnessing that kind of relationship was exhausting. As I drove my brother and his wife home, in a better mood than I’d anticipated, I knew my relationship with Adam had, at times, been very similar. It seemed like such a long time ago, though. We were kids. Then we had kids. Now, we’d just climbed out of a hole that I thought was going to be the end of it all.

  Suddenly, I laughed to myself. A relationship that lasted as long as ours, and had spanned over a decade, could never end in the blink of an eye.

  Diana

  I met Carolyn Cox—now Parker—only months before her wedding. I had no idea she was engaged to some kid I used to run around with in high school nearly ten years ago. Travis Parker used to be the kid who second-guessed the foolish decisions of everyone while the other boys lit up their cigarettes on the tailgates of their trucks in the school parking lot. I met his fiancée, unknowingly, at a get-together with my friend from college, Anna Bartlett, who went on to attend medical school with Carolyn.

  One night, after meeting Anna and Carolyn at a local bar, I finally reunited with Travis and almost didn’t recognize him. He was still tall with strawberry blonde hair, but he was a completely different person. As far as friends from high school went, I thought Travis Parker would end up a quiet success, as shy as he was when we were kids. He was always pleasant, and he seemed like the kind of guy who would get a decent job, marry a nice girl, and live a comfortable life somewhere with a golden retriever.

  I was wrong.

  Instead, Travis was the kid who went to college and barely graduated because he discovered alcohol and parties. He’d grown into an attractive man, but he probably would have been more interesting had I not known him in a previous life. When he spoke, I could see the insecure kid inside peeking out through the overly-masculine exterior. Therefore, when I spoke, I knew he couldn’t wait for me to stop so he could say something else about himself. This would have only been a minor annoyance, but he didn’t have anything impressive to say to begin with. I knew exactly what kind of man he’d become—a cliché one who claims to like smart girls, but when they say something contrary to his worldview, he freaks out, calls them a slut, and runs off to cry into his bucket of Bud Lights. It was clear that his life goals only extended to his marriage license, which was only a cover page for his fiancée’s paycheck.

  There was also something overtly slimy about the way Travis flirted with Carolyn’s friends, including me. This wasn’t so much the kind of flirting someone does to befriend and secure the good graces of his fiancée’s friends, but rather a flirtation that indicated he was building a certain kind of list. My image of him was sealed when I noticed three plastic cups lined up against the wall on the far edge of the table. After a minute of inspection, I realized the mauve liquid inside them was not strawberry daquiri, but Travis’s vomit because he couldn’t hold his liquor. It was that moment I realized the vital statistics of Travis and Carolyn’s relationship could be summed up by those three plastic cups lined up against the wall.

  It was completely evident why Carolyn was marrying Travis—Carolyn had zero self-esteem. This was a shame, because I though Carolyn was a lovely person. She was smart as hell, too, even if only in the academic sense. Everyone has flaws, her and I included. However, with some confidence, she could have chosen a mate exponentially better than Travis Parker. So, when Anna invited me to their wedding as her plus-one, I accepted despite the realization that I would bear witness to the slow demise of Carolyn Cox.

  “I’ve alluded to the fact that Travis is garbage, but how do you tell someone that? If she loves him, she’s not going to listen to me or anyone else.” Anna said one night as we perused her closet for wedding attire. It had indeed been awhile since I’d been to a wedding, and I knew this one would be exceptionally interesting, but not for the reason Anna thought.

  “I don’t think you realize this isn’t going to be just a wedding…” I glanced back at her as I eyed a black sundress, stretching it at the hem to get a better look. No one in the Parker family ever left town, which meant that I would know practically all the wedding guests. I anticipated the wedding would be a few people shy of a high school reunion. After living in Atlanta for three years and returning for a new job, the idea of potentially seeing so many people from my past seemed rather bizarre. I was morbidly curious.

  “If it’s anything like where I’m from, I’ll be sitting in the corner with a bourbon, waiting for the maid of honor to profess her love for the groom, watching the cake begin to fly.” Anna scoffed, examining a pair of earrings from her jewelry armoire. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, but stranger things have happened. After making a final pass through Anna’s closet, I chose the black sundress.

  Black matches everything and, plus, it had pockets. Who doesn’t love a dress with pockets?

  When Anna and I arrived at the church on the day of the wedding and took our seats, I was hit with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. I had attended two weddings in the same church prior to Carolyn and Travis’s. I surmised it was because the fee to use the church was much less than others in town. However, it was ideal to have the reception elsewhere, as there was no alcohol allowed on the premises—an incredible blow to us people of the bluegrass who love our bourbon. I laughed to myself, remembering the last wedding I’d attended in the church. I’d been a bridesmaid, w
earing a sateen, rose pink dress that looked horrendous on all of us. The stained-glass windows let in a gorgeous flood of natural light, but the dark green carpet reminded me of a funeral home.

  My reminiscing was interrupted by Anna, who nudged my arm with her elbow. I glanced over, she was still facing forward. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her hand jiggle slightly down by my thigh. She held a flask in her hand, her mouth pursed, clearly trying not to draw attention. I scanned our surroundings, which was clear of elderly church ladies and only yielded a couple of groomsmen and ushers running back and forth before the ceremony. I leaned over, pretending to rustle through my purse on the floor. I took the flask from Anna and ingested a healthy swig of Woodford Reserve—Anna never disappointed. I casually lifted my head to make sure no one was looking before I handed it back to her beneath the pew.