I’ve Heard This One Before
It was a shotgun wedding. More so for her than for him. His love for her began in grade school. He didn’t know what it was at the time, but he knew he cared deeply for the girl. Her family moved to Hickory from Oklahoma when her dad took a job with Duke Power. To him she was beautiful, with her brown curly hair and tanned skin. Her green eyes blazed brightly when she looked at him and her smile dazzled him. It was still true on the day they married.
She, on the other hand, took a little longer to get to that point. And it couldn’t even be described as love. She cared for him a lot. She was fond of him. They were good friends; best friends some would say. All through school they spent time together, but no matter how many times he asked she rebuffed his efforts to make their relationship something more. “We don’t want to ruin what we already have,” she would tell him. She thought eventually his infatuation with her would burn itself out, but twelve years later here they stood, together as man and wife.
Of course their senior prom was a big part of the reason. She wanted to go with Bradley Watkins, but when she found out he was taking Laura Winkler she turned to her best friend for comfort. He jumped at the chance to take her, and in the wee hours of the morning at a Holiday Inn near I-40, their friendship culminated with their coupling. A lifelong dream realized by him, a night of consoling needed by her. He couldn’t wipe the smile off his face while, she did her best to hide her embarrassment and humiliation.
She didn’t want to keep the baby. In her mind there were plenty of men and women out in the world who couldn’t have children of their own. Those people would be much better parents than she could ever dream of being. But her parents coerced her to keep it. And then she was pressured on all sides to marry him. To start a family. “You know he’ll be a good dad and husband,” they told her. But that wasn’t the worst part. “He’s so smart and kind, sweetheart,” her mother told her. “You’re probably not going to find a man that will treat you better than he does.” She believed her.
He was smart, but without a college degree the only steady work he could find in Hickory was truck driving. For ten years she put up with it while she stayed home with the children. When he continued to refuse to look for another source of income, something inside her snapped. Never before had her eyes strayed outside their marriage, but she was tired of being alone all the time and she found another man to keep her company. He wasn’t near as smart or compassionate or thoughtful as her husband, but he was there for her while her husband was gone.
Every night he was on the road her husband would call at seven o’clock. He would ask how she was doing, how the kids were and after a few more minutes of small talk the conversation was over. Like clockwork, every evening she would feed the kids, make sure they did their homework, then head out the door once she hung up the phone. The children were old enough to take care of themselves for a few hours while she went to rendezvous with her affair. She told them she was bowling. They found it interesting she never took a bowling ball with her.
He took a few days off the week of their anniversary and came home early to surprise her. The kids’ eyes grew wide when they heard the rumble of the truck as it pulled into the drive. He came in the front door holding a bouquet of fresh flowers and a bottle of wine, then started calling her name when he realized no one was there to greet him. They scrambled into their rooms, awaiting the outburst that would soon follow. They were submitted to the sound of glass breaking, walls being punched and curse words as they quietly went about ways to make themselves look busy. The racket of the front door slamming shut gave way to the growl of the truck being started back up and gears being shifted as he sped through town to look for his wife.
It took him a few hours to find her, and when he did he was none too pleased. Off all the places to stay in Hickory, she chose the same hotel in which they had first been together as something more than friends. A place he held in high regard, built up in his mind as something more than it really was, almost to the point that it was a shrine to that moment in his life. She was there, but she wasn’t alone. He watched through the slit in the curtain that hadn’t been pulled closed quite far enough. Anger and jealousy roared within him as he turned and walked back to his truck.
The aftermath was horrendous, the mess considerable. He was sentenced to life in prison, which was reduced from the death penalty by the judge since they were boyhood friends. The young woman working the front desk that evening provided the final nail in the coffin with her testimony. “He never hit the brakes, and he was shifting gears.”
This was inspired by the Garth Brooks song “Papa Loved Mama”. I’ve always wondered what that story might looked like a little more fleshed out, so here it is.