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Jori (IV)


The sun was shining, the sky was clear blue, and a warm spring breeze billowed through the open windows of AJ’s car as he sped down Interstate 74. Jori sat beside him in the passenger seat, playing with her cell phone, while Lucy drowsed in the back seat.

“Whatcha doing?” AJ asked. Out of the corner of her eye, Jori saw him shift in his seat to look over at her.

“Texting my mom an ETA,” she replied. The last road sign they’d passed had read Crawfordsville 31, so she typed a text message that said, “Just got thru Indy, be there in half an hour,” and sent it.

A few minutes later, she got a reply: Oh wonderful! We’ll be waiting!

Jori smiled, in spite of herself.

They’d already been on the road almost two and a half hours, heading west toward her hometown in Indiana, where her parents still lived. The trip had been AJ’s idea. Since he hadn’t asked their permission before proposing to Jori, he seemed to think that bringing baby Lucy for a visit would soften them up before he and Jori announced their engagement. Jori knew her parents would be thrilled to see their granddaughter, but she worried about their reaction to the news that she was marrying AJ. They still saw him as the older man, seven years Jori’s senior, who had stolen their teenage daughter away. In their eyes, he was the alcoholic tattoo artist who had stained Jori’s skin with permanent ink, the bad influence who had inspired her to drop out of college and chase his dream instead, and the irresponsible loser who had gotten her pregnant when he could barely afford to keep a roof over her head. Her parents were always polite to his face, but behind his back, they whispered that Jori could do better. She knew they didn’t approve of AJ, and she doubted they would accept her marriage to him.

They’ll just have to deal with it, though, if they want to have a relationship with their granddaughter, she reminded herself with bitter satisfaction. She wasn’t above using Lucy as a bartering chip, if it meant bringing her fractured family back together.

AJ broke into her thoughts. “Think we’ll need to make another pit stop, or are we good until we get there?” he wanted to know.

Jori glanced back at Lucy, who was still sound asleep in her car seat, her head lolled to one side. “I think we’re good to go. I don’t wanna wake her up if we can avoid it. I’ll just change her diaper at my parents’ place.”

By some miracle, the baby had managed to sleep through most of the drive. This had been a huge relief to Jori, who was used to Lucy crying in the car. She took it as another sign of life looking up.

When they pulled into her parents’ driveway, Larry and Pam Wilder came bustling out to meet them. “Hello!” trilled Jori’s mother, as Jori climbed out of the car. She hurried forward to embrace her daughter. “How was your trip?”

“Fine,” said Jori, as she was released from the rib-crunching hug. “Lucy slept the whole way.”

“Where is my little grandbaby?” cooed Pam, prancing around Jori to press her face against the back window. “Grandma wants to give her a smooch!”

Before Jori could respond, her mother took it upon herself to open the car door and unbuckle Lucy from her seat. “Mom, we usually just-” The words “take the whole seat out” died on her tongue as she watched her mother scoop Lucy up onto her shoulder. Jori knew what was going to happen, but could only look on helplessly as her three-month-old startled awake, screwed up her face, and started to cry.

“Shh…” whispered Pam, patting Lucy’s back as she paced the driveway. “Shh, it’s alright…”

She didn’t seem to be in any rush to pass Lucy off to Jori, so Jori turned her attention to her father. He was shaking AJ’s hand, which was more of a greeting than her mother had given him. “What’s this?” he asked suddenly, rotating AJ’s wrist. “Black nail polish?”

Jori groaned inwardly, wishing AJ had thought to remove the nail polish before they’d left Ohio. Her parents were traditional, and she knew her father would never understand why a man would want to paint his fingernails. “Hey, they don’t call it a man-icure for nothing, Dad!” she piped up, sparing AJ the task of trying to explain.

Larry looked up and grinned as he set eyes on his daughter. “Hi, sweetheart!” He dropped AJ’s hand and opened his arms wide, pulling her in for a big bear hug. “It’s so good to see you.”

“You too,” said Jori – a half-truth. It was good to see them, but the good feeling was being swallowed by a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as she imagined the moment when her parents found out she was marrying AJ. She held her left hand out of sight, hiding the engagement ring she hadn’t taken off in the two weeks since she’d picked it up from the jeweler’s. She knew her mother’s sharp eyes would spot it soon enough, but she wanted to wait until they’d at least made it into the house.

“Need help bringing your bags in?” her father offered, so Jori popped open the trunk for him. While he and AJ hauled their luggage into the house, she got the diaper bag out of the back seat and caught up with her mother, who was still doing laps around the driveway with Lucy screaming on her shoulder.

“Ready to be relieved?” she asked, extending her arms, but the ever proud Pam shook her head.

“Not just yet. I’ll walk her in. She’ll probably calm right down as soon as she’s out of the sun.”

Jori turned toward the house before her mother could see her roll her eyes.

***

Even when she was crying, Lucy seemed to charm her grandparents so much that neither of them noticed their daughter’s engagement ring until dinner.

After Lucy had been fed and put to bed, the four adults sat down around the dining room table, which was crowded with home-cooked dishes. All of Jori’s favorites were there: fettuccini alfredo, garlic bread, green salad, and peas. She filled her plate, adding a splash of lemon juice to her pasta before reaching for the bottle of ranch dressing. She squirted a liberal puddle, in which to dip her bread, on the side of her plate, then proceeded to drown her salad in the dressing as well.

“You want a little lettuce with your ranch, Jor?” AJ teased, as she set the bottle back in the middle of the table.

She returned his smirk with a sweet smile and said, “I notice you don’t have any peas on your plate, dear. Would you like me to pass them to you?”

“No thanks,” said AJ cordially, shaking his head. Jori knew he hated peas, her favorite vegetable.

“Aw, c’mon, babe, give peas a chance!” Her parents chuckled at what had become a running joke between Jori and AJ.

It was as she was reaching across the table for the dish of peas that Jori heard her mother suddenly gasp. She looked up, startled, and saw her mother staring at her left hand, which was curved around the side of the bowl. “What is that?” asked Pam, pointing to her ring.

Jori smiled and glanced at AJ, who was wearing a goofy grin that seemed to be suppressing his urge to vomit. She cleared her throat. “It’s an engagement ring. AJ asked me to marry him, and I said yes.”

Pam covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes shifting toward her husband. Jori’s father coughed, cleared his throat, and finally croaked, “Well, congratulations!”

The words sounded forced, and his smile seemed false, but Jori smiled back, as if he were being sincere, and said, “Thank you. We’ve been so excited to share the news with you! So what do you think, Mom?”

She looked at her mother, who still seemed stunned. “Well, I… I’m a little… surprised… but… I’m happy for you, honey.” Once she’d said it, she seemed to relax a little, as if the effort had exhausted her, and she reached for Jori’s hand. “Let me see your ring!”

Jori stretched her hand across the table to show her the white gold band, set with an oval-shaped, white stone. Pam squinted at it and asked, “Is that an opal?”

“Uh-huh.” Jori could see the judgment in her eyes as she scrutinized the ring, probably assuming AJ hadn’t been able to afford a diamond. “I didn’t want a diamond; I wanted something different,” she added quickly, before her mother could make a comment that might hurt AJ’s feelings. “An opal is more unique, more me.”

Pam tilted Jori’s hand this way and that, causing the iridescent opal to gleam with a rainbow of colors as it caught the light. Finally, she said, “It’s beautiful.”

“Thanks.” Jori smiled. “I have to show you the best part!” For the first time since AJ had slid the ring onto her finger in the jeweler’s shop, she slipped it off and turned it to show her mother the inscription engraved on the inside. In flowery script, it said, All you need is love.

“Beautiful,” repeated Pam and passed the ring to Jori’s father, who echoed her sentiments.

Once she put the ring back on her finger, Jori was finally able to relax, feeling that her parents had reacted better than she’d anticipated. Her father wanted to know when they planned to marry, and when Jori told him they hadn’t decided on a date, her mother chimed in with her thoughts. “You should expect to wait at least a year; you know, planning a wedding takes time. Next spring would be lovely…”

“I don’t think I want a spring wedding,” said Jori. “What if it rains?”

“Well, that won’t matter. That’s what bridesmaids are there for – to hold your umbrella and your train while you run from the church to the car!” Her mother laughed.

Jori felt the tension returning as she realized how many details on which she and her mother were going to disagree. “I don’t to get married in a church,” she said. “Neither AJ or I are religious. We’re more… spiritual. We want an outdoor wedding. Right, babe?” She looked to AJ, who swallowed and cleared his throat before nodding.

“That’s right.”

Pam frowned, but before she could protest, Jori forged ahead, “We were thinking fall would be nice. This fall.”

“What? But… this fall… that’s only a few months away!” sputtered Pam. “That’s not nearly enough time to plan a whole wedding! You need to reserve a venue, find a dress, order a cake, hire a caterer, book a DJ, choose the music, create the centerpieces, send the invitations…”

She was on such a roll, it seemed she’d have been able to ramble on forever, if Jori hadn’t stopped her. “Mom. Please. We don’t care about all that. We don’t want a big, fancy, traditional wedding; we want to do something small and simple and ‘us.’ A marriage isn’t about the wedding; it’s about what happens afterwards, and we want to get on with that part. We’ve been together four years. We have a child together. We’re committed to each other. Why wait another year to make it official?”

Pam shook her head, and for the first time since they’d sat down to dinner, Jori saw disappointment in her mother’s eyes. She should have known it was inevitable. With a sigh, she stood up from the table and shoved in her chair. “I’m sorry if that upsets you, Mother, but it’s my wedding, my marriage, and my life, so that’s how it’s going to be. Take it or leave it.”

Tossing her hair over her shoulder, Jori stalked off to the spare bedroom and slammed the door shut. A second later, she heard Lucy start to cry again. Heaving another sigh of frustration, she flopped facedown on the bed and buried her head in the pillows to block out the sound.

***

The pillows muffled the sound of a knock on the bedroom door, but Jori heard it nonetheless. She sat up, sweeping the hair out of her eyes, and uttered a single word: “What?”

She had expected it to be her fiancée waiting on the other side of the door and was disappointed to hear her mother’s voice ask, “May I come in?”

Jori sighed and said nothing. Pam, mistaking her silence for approval, came in anyway, just as Jori had known she would. She sat down on the edge of the bed and reached for Jori, who stubbornly scooted away.

“Sweetie, please, talk to me,” pleaded Pam. “Don’t shut me out.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” retorted Jori without looking at her. “Why shouldn’t I, when every time I let you in, you try to take over my life?”

“What do you mean by that?”

Jori spoke to the wall. “I mean, whenever I do something that disappoints you, you let me know it. Whenever I make a decision that takes me down a different path than the one you planned for me, you try to set me straight. It’s like you can never just sit back and shut up; you always have to be in the driver’s seat, even when it’s my life you’re trying to steer.”

There was a long pause. When Pam finally spoke again, Jori could hear the pain in her voice and hated herself for putting it there. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said quietly. “I wish you could see that all I want is for you to have the best life possible. When you were a little girl, you had so much potential. You were bright… creative… funny. You wanted to be an artist or a veterinarian, and you would have been great at either one. I always hoped you’d choose veterinary school, of course – much better job security. But as long as you got an education, as long as you had a degree to fall back on, as long as you did something that made you happy, I would be happy.”

“I don’t need a degree to make me happy,” muttered Jori, still staring at a spot on the wall where someone had left a smudge.

“Then what do you need? Because I don’t think you’re happy now.”

Finally, Jori twisted to look at her through narrowed eyes. “Why would you say that?”

With a raise of her brows, Pam returned Jori’s scowl with a shrewd look. “Because I’m your mother, and I know you better than anyone. I know you’re not happy; you haven’t been happy in a long time. You just hide it better now.”

“I am happy,” Jori insisted. “Marrying the man I love will only make me happier. I know you think AJ’s not good enough for me, but the truth is, the life he’s given me is very good. A hell of a lot better than my life was here! He’s running a successful store… helping me raise our beautiful baby…” But the further she stretched the truth, the more her voice started to shake.

“Yes, he is good with Lucy,” noted Pam. “He’s the one who went to comfort her when we heard her crying – in case you were wondering.” In case you cared enough to wonder, her tone seemed to suggest.

It stung Jori, who had been struggling with her feelings toward her daughter for three months. She had thought it was a secret struggle, shared only with her new therapist, who assured her that postpartum depression was common among mothers of colicky babies, especially mothers with a history of mental illness. The realization that there might be signs of that struggle showing on the outside rattled her. She tipped her head to the side as she stared at her mother, wondering, How did you know?

Pam smiled grimly. “Like I said, I still know you better than anyone. I’ve seen how you are around the baby. You just seem… disconnected, somehow. Disengaged. You say that you’re happy, Jori, but I think that’s just how the cycle goes. One day you’re manic; the next, you’re depressed again.”

“I’ve been seeing someone,” Jori said, before her mother could suggest it. “A therapist who specializes in postpartum depression. Talking to her has helped. It’s getting better.”

“Really?” Pam’s face relaxed into an expression of relief. “Good. That’s wonderful, sweetheart; I’m so glad to hear it. Are you back on medication?”

Jori shook her head. “I don’t want to go back on meds. They didn’t help before; if anything, they just made me more depressed.”

“They stabilized your mood. They kept you from being so impulsive.”

Jori frowned. “Is that what you think I’m being now, impulsive?”

“Well, fall is a little soon for this wedding. I do wish you’d wait. But before you go getting all upset with me again, just remember that I love you, Jori no matter what, and I’ll be there to watch you walk down the aisle whenever, wherever. Alright?” She reached out and took Jori’s chin between her thumb and forefinger, tilting Jori’s face up to meet hers. “I love you.”

Jori swallowed the lump that had risen her throat and nodded. “I love you, too.”

***

When they emerged from the guest room, Jori and her mother found their two men seated on the living room floor, where they’d spread out a large blanket. Lucy was lying on her tummy, surrounded with toys. She had stopped crying.

“Everything alright?” Larry asked.

Pam said simply, “Everything’s fine.”

AJ raised an eyebrow at Jori, which she returned with a smile to assure him of the same. “Tummy time, I see,” she said, pointing to Lucy.

He nodded. “She calmed right down when she saw all the toys.”

“Oh! Speaking of toys!” Everyone looked at Pam, whose whole face had lit up. “I have a little gift for Lucy back in the craft room. Let me go and get it.” She scurried off and returned with a stuffed animal, which she handed to Jori. “I saw this and thought it was just too cute!”

Jori held up the plush toy. It was a smiley-faced octopus with a pale blue head and eight legs in a rainbow of pastel colors. “I love it!” she told her mother. Looking at AJ, she added, “It’ll look great in the nursery… like an ‘Octopus’s Garden’.”

He nodded. “I don’t think we have any other Ringo songs represented in the nursery yet, do we?”

Jori’s heart swelled with love for her soon-to-be husband and his solid background in Beatles trivia. “Not yet!” she sang. “Let’s see if Lucy likes it.” She plopped down onto the blanket next to Lucy and held the octopus out in front of her, shaking it to make the legs wiggle. Lucy gurgled and reached for it, her chubby fist latching on to one of the legs. When Jori let her have it, she promptly put the leg in her mouth and started drooling.

AJ laughed. “I think she likes it. Thanks, Pam.”

Pam smiled at him. “My pleasure! You know I love nothing more than to spoil my granddaughter!”

Watching the exchange between them, Jori felt her worries fading away. She could see that her parents were trying. Maybe AJ wasn’t the man they would have chosen for her, but out of love for her and for their granddaughter, they would accept him into their family anyway.

Later that night, once the dinner table was clear and the baby back in bed, they sat around looking at an album of old photos from her parents’ wedding and discussing the finer details of AJ and Jori’s upcoming nuptials.

“I don’t think I want to wear a veil over my face; that’s so old-fashioned,” said Jori, frowning at a picture of her mother walking down the aisle, her face obscured by layers of white tulle. “I’d rather just wear a wreath of flowers in my hair.”

“That would be pretty,” replied Pam, nodding. She seemed determined to prove to Jori that she’d meant what she had promised. Jori appreciated the effort to be supportive, but it was unnerving to hear her mother agreeing to everything she suggested without sharing her own opinions.

“And for my bridesmaids’ gowns…” Jori watched her mother’s face carefully. “I’m thinking orange…”

She was rewarded when Pam’s pleasant smile melted into a gaping grimace. “Orange?!” she squawked.

Jori smirked. Many a therapist had listened to her lament her parents’ disapproval over the years, but even Jori had to admit… sometimes, she brought it on herself.

***

All in all, their visit to her parents’ house had been a far better experience than Jori had anticipated. A trip worth taking, she decided, as she slammed AJ’s trunk lid over the last of their luggage. AJ was already strapping Lucy into her car seat, so Jori went to tell her parents goodbye.

“I’m so glad you came to tell us your big news in person,” her mother said, as she hugged her tightly. “Promise you’ll keep me posted on your wedding plans.”

“I will… as long as you promise not to insult my color scheme. I’m serious about the orange, you know.”

Pam sighed as Jori pulled away. “Even if it will clash with your hair?” she asked, fingering Jori’s cinnamon-colored split ends.

Jori grinned. “So I’ll dye it a different color for the wedding. Black, maybe. It’ll be perfect if we get married around Halloween!” She laughed at the look on her mother’s face.

“You kids should probably get on the road soon. Looks like it’s going to rain,” said her father, glancing at the dark clouds overhead. He pulled Jori into his arms for a quick hug. “Tell that fiancée of yours to drive safely. And that if his fingernails are still black at your wedding, there’s no way in hell I’m giving him my daughter’s hand.”

She laughed. “I’ll tell him. ‘Bye, Dad.”

The first low rumble of thunder sounded as they pulled out of the driveway, and no sooner had they merged onto the interstate than the skies opened and the storm clouds cut loose. They drove down the highway in a downpour. Even at full speed, the windshield wipers could barely cut through the sheets of torrential rain sliding down the glass, and the headlights cast blurry halos around everything. Lucy screamed in the back, terrified by the thunder, and Jori sat bolt upright in the front, afraid the rain would wash them right off the road.

AJ cranked up the music, claiming it helped him to concentrate, but not even Jori’s Beatles playlist could comfort her, not with the rain beating relentlessly on the roof of the car and her baby crying in the back seat.

“The long and winding road…” Paul McCartney’s voice rose above the roar of the storm.

As the endless miles of rain-soaked interstate stretched before her, Jori sighed. It was going to be a long ride home.

***