Bodark Creek - 18. Chapter 18

Rosalind met Dock at the mill. Dock’s real name was Dillard, and his nickname had nothing to do with going to college or studying medicine. He’d been called that since he was eight. One day, his father came out to the barn and found five or six smaller kids sitting on the ground in front of his youngest son. Dock was drawing on the wall with coal and lecturing them on how baby pigs got born.

Dock was smart, and friendly enough for me to see why Rosalind liked him. But he wasn’t the smartest boyfriend she ever had, or the best-looking. “Why Dock?” I asked, when she told me she was getting married.

“Are you jealous?” she wanted to know.

“No,” I said. “I haven’t even thought about that.”

She seemed disappointed. “Well, you could be.”

“Why?” I hugged her. “I think he’s fine.”

“Fine?”

“Yes.”

“That’s it?”

“No,” I told her. “But what’s wrong with ‘fine?’”

“Nothing. I was just hoping for more.”

Actually, I wasn’t even thinking about Dock. I was wondering if Rosalind was getting married so we wouldn’t lose the house.

“Do you love him?” I asked instead. I could ask her that, where I could never ask Mama.

“Yes,” she told me. But maybe so fast that she didn’t have to think about it.

“Why?” I asked again.

That caught her by surprise. Then she got angry. “You try answering that,” she said. “It’s impossible.”

I knew that. But maybe it’s why I asked.

“Have you kissed him?” I asked next.

“Now there’s a stupid question, Addy. You’ve seen us.”

“No, I mean really kissed him. Not what you do in front of other people.”

Rosalind just laughed at that. “You know I have. I’ve told you. So don’t go being a moron.”

It’s never a good sign when someone attacks you instead of telling the truth.

But I couldn’t very well tell my sister that I didn’t think she loved the man she was going to marry. And it’s not that I didn’t think Dock was a decent choice. Or even that Rosalind and I hadn’t spent hours at a time talking about the kind of boys we were going to marry. And maybe that was it -- Dock wasn’t a boy. He was only a year-and-a-half older than Rosalind, but he’d been on his own since almost the same age as Daddy. He was raised in town, but he’d worked all over Texas, which gave him a lot of experience. In arguments with Sonny, who was practically twice his age and the smartest man I knew, he could hold even. Walter would quit, and Dougie would start telling jokes. But Dock would just settle in.

He also knew how to treat girls. You could tell just by watching. Other boys didn’t know any more than we did, but not Dock. I’d see older boys asking him questions, and they’d come away laughing. Rosalind wouldn’t talk about that part, although I asked. And she wouldn’t talk about love. I think both scared her.

“What do you think?” I asked Sonny, when we were talking.

“I think that’s between him and Rosalind.”

“But do you really want him in our family?”

“He keeps me sharp. You got to admit that.”

“Do other people like him?”

“I never heard anything against him at the mill.”

“What about in town?”

“Nothing there, either.”

“And church?”

“Addy...”

“Is there something you’re not saying, Sonny?”

“No,” he insisted. “If my son Lyle turns out half as smart as Dock and marries someone nearly as sensible as Rosalind, Ruth and I will be very happy.”

“That’s still not saying you like him.”

“Addy, if you don’t like the man, just come out and say it. But don’t try getting me to say it for you.”

“I do like Dock,” I said.

“Then everything will be fine.”

I just wasn’t sure I liked Dock with Rosalind.

“Why not?” Charley asked.

“Do you like him?”

“You’re not gonna trap me any more than you tried trapping Sonny.”

“Why are you all sticking together?”

“We’re not. You can probably ask any twenty people at church, and they’ll tell you the same thing. You’re the only one having doubts.”

“I’m not having doubts...”

“Well, you’re sure asking a lot of questions.”

No one had told me that for the longest time, and it was something I thought I’d outgrown. “But do you like him?” I asked Charley anyway.

“Yes. Yes! Jeez, you can be a pain in the neck.”

I suppose. But what did I really know about getting married? Mostly what I’d read, or seen in the pictures we went to every week. And people in pictures and books never had lives like ours. Though they lived more like Rosalind and me than like Mama and Daddy.

For one thing, we got to go to the pictures, and we read, just for the fun of it. I don’t think I ever saw Daddy with anything more than a newspaper – or the Bible, and that was only in church. And I never saw Mama with even a newspaper. She mostly listened to what other people told her. But once you had time to read, you also had time to think about things like love.

I’d had more boyfriends than Rosalind, because – not to lie – I was prettier. I didn’t have to work as hard in school, either, and sometimes I wondered if I really should be working at the mill. My teachers told me I was smart. They said I could be a teacher or a nurse or a secretary, and any one of those things seemed more exciting than being a weaver. That was hot and uncomfortable, and we did the same thing over and over.

“How can you say that?” Rosalind asked when I told her. “Did Mama or Daddy ever say anything like that?”

“No,” I had to admit.

“The mill’s taken care of our family for as long as you or I can remember.”

“I know that. But they still won’t let us keep our house.”

“They’ll let Dock keep it. Then you and I can stay.”

Since she brought it up, I felt safe to ask, “Is that why you’re doing it?”

“No! Of course not!” she yelled, really angry this time. “It’s not the only reason! I like Dock, or I’d never think about this. And maybe it’s time for me to get married,” she went on, softer. “Maybe it’s time for me to start having babies.”

Now that was something I could get excited about. I was close to my brothers, and I certainly missed Mama and Daddy. But I was closer to Rosalind than anyone. Her having a baby was the next best thing to my having one.

“Will Dock mind my living with you?” I asked. “With a baby?”

“It’s not like it’s costing him anything,” she said, smiling. “You’ll just be one more person helping out.”

“What about Charley?”

Rosalind was quiet about that. “Charley might have to live with Sonny,” she finally told me. “It might be too much for me to work, and take care of him and Dock and you, and have a baby.”

“I’ll take care of Charley,” I said. “And I’ll take care of myself. I just can’t imagine living without him.”

Rosalind smiled again. “Sonny’s house is a two-minute walk.”

“I’ll even sleep in the front room,” I promised. “If that’s the problem.”

She laughed. “If anyone stays on the daybed, it’ll be Charley. He’s been sleeping there since he was ten.”

That’s when Rosalind and I got Mama to move him out of our room. He didn’t understand why, but she did.

“I’m just not sure I can help Charley,” Rosalind went on. “And Sonny might. Charley’s not finishing school. And he didn’t like sweeping at the mill. And now he doesn’t like working at the Vogler’s.”

Most of the boys we knew quit school by sixteen, so Charley wasn’t different. He left as soon as Daddy wasn’t there to stop him. And any normal person would hate sweeping floors, or cleaning up after cows and pigs and chickens, which was what Charley was doing on the farm. “I don’t blame him for that,” I said.

“You never did,” Rosalind teased, though she was no better. “But he needs to find out what he wants to do. Or he won’t give any girl a reason to get married.”

She was wrong there. Charley would never have any trouble finding girlfriends. But Rosalind was right about Sonny. Maybe he could help Charley find a job he liked.

“All right,” I told her. “You’re getting married, and Charley might have to go live with Sonny. All right.”

“You really understand?” she asked.

“It’s for the best,” I agreed. “And I’m really excited about your marrying Dock. Honest.”

“Me, too.”

She smiled again, and I hugged her. And she hugged me back. Then, for the next couple of weeks, we worried about how it was going to be.