Ruthanne exhaled, relieved he didn’t appear angry at Vern. She grasped her daughter’s left hand firmly between both of hers, kissing it over and over. “But I am concerned,” said Sherman, “that this was allowed to happen. The point of the Blessed Acres is to spare our citizens the very pain you are feeling right now,” he said. His voice boomed like he was up behind the pulpit, and she felt his words fill her.
In that moment, Vern had envied his surety. What a gift it must be to feel always in the right, to walk through life with only specks of doubt, easily dismissed or rubbed out like a smear of pen ink on your finger.
“You’re special, Vern. You may think I dislike your rebellious spirit, but I cherish it. You keep me honest. But it also makes you especially vulnerable to outside influences. It is of utmost importance that you are protected from the cruelties and dangers of that world. That’s why, even though it’s not conventional, I’d like to take you as my wife,” said Sherman.
Her mother grunted sharply but covered it quickly with a smile. “Now, Sherman, though I know you only have my baby’s best interests at heart, I’m not sure such a young girl should be rushed into marriage and all that entails.”
And all that entails. Vern’s mam was good with words, knew how to layer them so they meant multiple things simultaneously.
Sherman nodded in agreement, but Vern stilled at the look on his face, like he’d just seen three moves ahead in a game of chess and knew he was going to take Ruthanne’s queen.
“Age as we tend to think of it today is a very Western concept,” he said. “This strict separation of adulthood and childhood in the modern sense was born of whiteness. In Africa, there were nations where boys became men at eleven, girls became women at twelve. We know in Cain that, just as children are full of so much wisdom and perspective, adults can be childish and immature. It’s a continuum, and especially considering Vern’s spiritual nature, she is older than her years and I think quite ready.”
Vern’s mother didn’t have a ready response. The things Sherman said were so wrong sometimes that one didn’t know where to start with a retort. Or everything he said was right, but still a lie.
“I promise I won’t do it again,” said Vern, standing up.
“I know you won’t do it again, because you are a smart woman,” Sherman said. “This is not a punishment.”
Vern could tell by the lightness of his voice and from context that he was smiling widely, but he looked little more than a blur through the suddenly gathering tears in her spasmodic eyes.
The wedding was held at night under a full moon so the sun posed no hindrance to Vern with her melaninless skin and light-averse eyes. There were fireworks for days. A haze of color that made Vern think of getting raptured. Sometimes, at temple, when the congregation sang after one of Sherman’s rousing sermons, Vern could forget she was alive, so taken by the beauty of the music. She wondered if that was what it felt like for everyone else all the time. Not alone. Though a wedding joined people together, Vern had felt none of the sense of communion on that night like she had felt during those temple gospel renditions. On the converse, she could swear everybody was singing on the other side of a glass wall, a soundproof glass wall. They were all making music, and she could not hear.
Not that Sherman Fields was the worst husband. He didn’t force her into marriage and all that entails. She took care of that all her own. After a few months of endless sadness, she began to want him. To want someone. She craved the hot closeness of coupling, the gutting, vibrant squalor of that time with the cop. The fear. The pain. She wanted it all back. She wanted Lucy. When you can’t fill a hole with goodness, fill it with filth. Paint it over.
There. Just like new.
“You could’ve done more to stop it,” Vern said into the receiver now, concealing the notes of bewildered and disappointed sadness in her voice with those of anger. She had asked Ruthanne to fight against the wedding, but her mam had said, No one said it’s easy being a woman, did they? I know you never caught me saying that.
Ruthanne sighed on the other end of the line. “What do you want me to say? Sorry? Sorry life’s absolute shit? Of course I am. I am. You want me to say you didn’t deserve it? No one does.”
Vern was shaking now, every bit as hotheaded as she’d always been accused of being. “You haven’t changed. You thought Reverend Sherman actually had killed me, and you’re still on his compound playing secretary? What’s wrong with you, Mam?”