Family Blessings (53 page)

"I'm afraid it's still winter there. But it's spring down South.

Maybe we could find someplace down there."

"Oh, do you mean it, Christopher? You'll really do it?"

"I have vacation time coming. I can talk to my sergeant and see what they'll give me off. For a reason as good as this they might be willing to rearrange the schedule."

"Oh good. Now could we quit making plans and take this metal vest off you? It's such a nuisance."

While he began loosening his tie and unbuttoning his shirt, she walked on her knees to the far side of the bed and fell to all fours to switch on a bedside lamp. By its light she returned to him, taking over her share of the duties she so relished, ridding him of the vesture that symbolized his profession, which had brought the two of them together.

While they undressed she wondered as she had so often--did Greg know?

Could he smile down from some celestial plane and see how happy the two of them were?

Did he grin and say, "Nice work, Grandpa?" Had he found his little brother somewhere up there, and were the two of them pleased at this mortal bliss their mother and Greg's best friend had found?

As the last pieces of clothing dropped, her wondering ceased and she fell with Christopher, already embraced. And in their reach and flow to one another they became splendid beings celebrating not only their bodies but also their love.

It took them two days to find the proper garden and make arrangements.

On the third, a Thursday, they flew to Mobile, Alabama, where they rented a car and drove straight to the Mobile Infirmary. There they had the required blood tests and walked out four hours later with the results. These they took to the Mobile County Courthouse at the intersection of Government and Royal streets, where they bought their wedding license and made arrangements with one Richard Tarvern Johnson, the administrative assistant to the judge of probate, to meet them the following morning at eleven o'clock at the near end of the bridge spanning Mirror Lake in Bellingrath Gardens.

Lee Reston had never before seen azaleas blooming in their natural habitat. She saw them on her wedding day, more than 250,000 plants, some of them nearly l00 years old, in every conceivable shade of pink, cascading from bushes higher than her head, lining pathways, surrounding the boles of moss-draped water oaks, reflected in the pools, lakes and in the current of the Isle-aux-Oies River, beside which the Bellingrath estate had been built.

The gardens sprawled over an 800-acre setting, boasting latticed bowers, sparkling fountains, bubbling cascades, verdant lawns and flowers . . . everywhere flowers. Christopher had trouble keeping Lee moving while they walked toward their rendezvous with Johnson. She kept gazing overhead at the immense oaks and sighing, "Ohh, look." And at rainbows of tulips and daffodils lining the walkways. "Oh, look at those. I've never seen anything like it in my life." And at the flood of purple hyacinths that turned the air to ambrosia. "Oh, smell them, Christopher! I think I'm getting dizzy, they smell so grand!"

He tugged on her hand. "Come along, sweetheart, we'll tour the gardens later on. We don't want to be late for our own wedding."

The bridge at Mirror Lake was arched, with wooden latticework supporting its railings. It spanned the lake across which could be seen the rockery and the summer house, each surrounded by colorful blooms. At the near end of the bridge, Johnson, the marriage official of Mobile County, was waiting. He was a dyed-in-the-wool southerner with the accent to prove it, a man in his mid-forties, with thinning blond hair, glasses and a smile that said he much preferred the jewelled setting of Bellingrath to the libraryish rooms of the courthouse where he usually performed his nuptial duties.

He had sold them their wedding license the previous day and recognized them as they approached.

"Good mornin', Mister Lallek, Mizz Reston. And a fine one it is for a weddin'."

"Good morning, Mister Johnson," they returned in unison.

"Aren't these azaleas something? I swear."

Christopher said, "Mrs. Reston owns a florist shop. I've had trouble getting her here without dawdling."

Johnson chuckled and said, "A place like this would make anyone dawdle.

Well . . . shall we get started?"

There were only the three of them:Johnson in his business suit, Lee in a taupe organdy dress and high heels, holding a single calla lily, Christopher in a navy blue suit with a fragrant gardenia in his lapel.

Only the three of them and a pair of swans on the lake behind them, and off to one side a wading flock of sunset-colored flamingos going about their business of eating their lunch and standing on one leg while digesting it. Some finches chittered to one another in the low flowers beside the lake, and an occasional sparrow or warbler tattled from the water oak above their head.

No guests to seat.

No caterers bustling in the wings.

No pomp or circumstance.

Only two people in love, relaxed on their wedding day.

"We can do this however you prefer,"Johnson said. "I'm here to make it official. I can read some words from a book or you can say whatever you like."

Christopher and Lee looked at each other. He was holding her Instamatic camera. She was holding her lily. Neither of them had given a thOUght 0 CeremOnY. TNIY, it had been celebrated on the night they'd agreed to do this, with only the two of them present.

Christopher decided. "I'd like to say something myself."

"So would I."

"Very well," Johnson agreed. "Whenever you're ready."

Christopher set the camera on the grass at their feet and held both of Lee's hands.

"Well . .." he said, then halted to do some thinking. He looked into her eyes, then blew out a breath containing a trace of a laugh, because he had no idea what to say. At last he made a good start.

"I love you, Lee. I've loved you for long enough to know that you make a better person of me, and I think that's important. I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I promise to be faithful, and to help you raise Joey, and to take care of both of you the best I can. I promise to be good to you and to take you to as many gardens as we can possibly see in the rest of our life, and to respect you and love you till my dying day, which won't be hard at all." He smiled and she did, too.

"Oh, and one more thing. I promise to respect your family, too, and to show them in every way I know how that this marriage was the right thing for both of us." He paused for thought. "Oh, the ring . .."

He fished it from his pocket, not the immense rock he'd tried to give her earlier, but a plain gold band they'd chosen together, one with no jewels that would have to be left in the dresser drawer, just a sturdy circle that could stand up to the daily beating to which it would be subjected.

"I love you," he said, slipping it on her finger. "And you were right.

This ring is much better because you'll never have to take it off."

He smiled directly into her eyes, then said to Johnson, "I guess that's all."

Johnson nodded and said, "Mizz Reston?"

She looked down at Christopher's hands within her own, then up at his face, wholly happy and at peace.

"You've been such a gift to me, Christopher. You came into my life when I least expected it, at a time when I needed someone so badly.

Little did I know that I'd fall in love with you. How lucky I am that I did. And I'll keep loving you till the end of our days. I'll be there for you when your job gets you down. I know it's not always easy to be a policeman's wife, but who knows better than I what I'm getting into? I promise that I'll support you in all the causes you espouse, especially with kids, because I'm sure that Judd won't be the last one you'll be a stand-in father to. I'll do whatever I can for them, and I'll give you the freedom to do what you must for them. I'll make a home for us, and it will always be open to your friends . . . and your family, if you choose. I'll go to every garden on the face of this earth that you're willing to take me to." She smiled broadly, winning a smile from him. Soon her expression softened. "Somehow the old words are best . . . in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, till death do us part. That's how I'll love you." Gently, she said, "Give me the other ring."

He took it from his pocket and she put it on his finger, then kissed it. Raising her eyes again to his, she whispered, "I love you, Christopher."

"I love you, Lee."

They kissed. Behind them on the water a pair of swans floated toward each other, and for an instant as they passed, their heads and necks formed a heart, as if a blessing were being extended upon the vows just spoken.

Mr. Johnson said, "Let it be known that the state of Alabama recognizes this marriage as true and legal and that a record of it will be kept on file in the Mobile County Courthouse."

The ceremony was over but had been so brief it left a lull of uncertainty, as if the bride and groom were thinking, Shouldn't it have taken longer?Johnson made it official. "Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Lallek."

He shook both their hands and said, "Now if you'll sign the wedding certificate, that'll about do it."

When they'd both signed, he snapped a picture of them with Lee's camera. Then a passing tourist snapped one of all three of them.

"Well, good luck to you both," Johnson bid.

He left them there beside the lake, chuckling into each other's eyes because in some respects the few official words spoken by him seemed like a farce. Vows were, after all, a thing of the heart, not of recorded signatures and dates.

When he'd departed, Christopher captured Lee's hand and swung her against his chest. "Come here, Mrs. Lallek. Let's try that again."

This kiss was overseen only by the swans and the buttermilk clouds that washed the blue sky with an overlay of white. It went on as long as Lee could permit without getting impatient for their tour of the gardens to begin. She pulled away first. Being a creature devoid of coyness, she put it to him honestly, "Kiss me later, Christopher. I'm just too anxious to see all those flowers."

They spent their first three hours as Mr. and Mrs. Lallek strolling the gardens and snapping pictures of each other.

They spent their wedding night at a place called Kerry Cottage, a restored carriage house on the grounds of an antebellum mansion named Sharrow. The owner, one Mrs. Ramsay, a thin, horsey-faced matron with gray hair that waved naturally, tightly against her skull, said she would do some telephoning and put offsome relatives who were driving down for the night from Monroeville.

"They never pay me a red cent and expect breakfast on the table at the stroke of eight. Cousin Grace can just come another time.

Tonight you two newlyweds will have the best room I've got."

She fed them glazed cornish game hens filled with pine-nut stuffing at a table in the garden beneath a hawthorn tree, which she said was planted by her great-great-granddaddy before the Civil War. When dusk fell she lit a hurricane candle and brought them amaretto cream cake poised upon a lake of vanilla cream. On the cream she'd scribed two interlocked hearts of chocolate syrup.

She touched each of her guests on the shoulder and said wistfully, "May your lives together be as happy as mine was with the Colonel."

Choosing not to elaborate on who the Colonel was, she filled their glasses with something she called iced mint malmsey and disappeared into the shadows.

They toasted.

They drank.

They gazed.

They took time to adore each other while the night beckoned them toward the privacy of their garden cottage. Still, they sat on, savoring the anticipation and the resonance of the feelings stirring between them.

The iced mint malmsey was slightly bitter but refreshing. Above their heads the leaves of the hawthorn tree rustled like dry paper in a faint night breeze. Beneath their elbows the pierced metal of the garden tabletop grew cool upon their skin. The light from the candle illuminated their faces to a Rubenesque glow.

Christopher emptied his glass, set it on the tabletop with a soft tink and said, "Mrs. Lallek . . . ," testing it on his tongue before going on. "Would you care to retire now?"

"Mr. Lallek," she replied, smiling into his eyes, "I would like very much to retire now."

He pushed back his chair. It resounded like a muffled bell as it bumped over the cobbles. He pulled hers out and she rose, taking his arm.

"Shall we find Mrs. Ramsay and thank her?"

"By all means."

They ambled toward the house on the uneven bricks with the smell of wisteria in their nostrils.

"I find myself speaking differently here," he said. "Listen to me, at home I'd say talking, here I say speaking. There I say should, here I say shall. What is it?"

"The South definitely casts a spell."

It continued casting its spell as they thanked and bid goodnight to their hostess, sauntered arm in arm neath a spreading live oak, past their own hawthorn, and made their way to the carriage house with its testered, draped bed. There, the coverlet was already turned down and a pair of good-night candies waited on their pillows.

She was naked when he laid her down and stretched out beside her.

"Lee . . . oh Lee," he murmured. "My wife at last."

She spoke his name and drew him in, close to her body, closer still to her soul.

"Christopher . . . my husband."

Wife.

Husband.

Lovers.

In the rich, rife southern night, they wanted no more.

Lloyd got the idea all on his own. He took only Joey into his confidence before sending out the invitations.

To his granddaughter, Janice.

To Sylvia and Barry Eid.

To Orrin and Peg Hillier.

And to Judson Quincy.

You're invited to a wedding supper honoring the marriage of Lee Reston and Christopher Lallek, who were married at Bellingrath Gardens last Friday. Supper will be served at the bridal couple's future home at 1225 Benton Street, on Wednesday evening at 5:00 p.m. Please don't disappoint them or me.

Sincerely, Lloyd Reston They all called immediately upon receipt of their letters, everyone outspoken and miffed, haranguing Lloyd as if he were to blame for Lee's lack of good sense. To each one he'd say, "Just a minute, Joey wants to talk to you." and Joey would spill out his honest enthusiasm. "Hey, Grandma, isn't it great? You're coming, aren't you? Mom called and she's so dang happy!