At four o’clock in the afternoon, thirty-five people were drinking sangria under the eucalyptus trees, waiting for Sally’s father, Judge Ross Tharpe, to begin the ceremony. Mrs. Tharpe, Sally’s mother, was a formidable figure in her bright-yellow dress. As Randy walked down the aisle with a new haircut in an embroidered white wedding shirt, wearing a big grin, Robin, Dorrie, Mom, Dad, and I were nothing short of amazed. I’d never seen Randy look like that; he’d literally been transformed by the occasion. When the “Wedding March” began to play, Sally, in a Mexican-themed white brocaded dress, with her strawberry-blond hair tied back, seemed to float toward her destiny, looking attractive, and strong. She had a bold presence.
Judge Tharpe wore the traditional black robe, with prayer book in hand. As Sally and Randy vowed to stick it out “through sickness and health…till death do us part,” Randy placed the ring on Sally’s finger. Mother’s eyes, even Dad’s, welled up in tears. It was hard to grapple with the fact that my brother, of all people, had pledged eternal love while also taking on the responsibility of raising Sally’s hyperkinetic seven-year-old son, Johnny.
The Tharpe family was educated; Grammie Hall nailed them as “upper-crust types.” While waiters passed out drinks, she quietly sat next to George. After a few glasses of wine, Grammie Keaton, quite giddy, roamed around congratulating everyone. The food, prepared by Phillip, a caterer from San Diego, was delicious. The whole Tharpe family, including Sally’s sisters, Robin and DeDe, and even her brother, Robert, changed into more casual clothes after the ceremony. It seemed sort of weird to us common folk, but we didn’t care. We were having a great time.
Randy couldn’t have been in better spirits. I mingled, checking out the cabin, looking for Sally’s touches. The weather was perfect.
The guests were continuing to share laughs while taking in the lovely atmosphere when Grammie Hall suddenly fell on the cobblestone steps leading to the patio.
George bent down and tried to help her up as Dad rushed over. “Mom, don’t worry, you’re all right. You’re all right. Let her go, George. It’s okay.”
Grammie, flat on her back, kept repeating, “I’ve broken my hip. Is my arm broken too? I think I’ve broken my hip. I didn’t see the steps. Why did you let me go, George?”
George, breathless and shaking, whispered, “I couldn’t hold you, Mary. You’re gonna be all right. I’m sorry.”
It was heartbreaking to see Grammie crying on the ground in her Ivers royal-blue pantsuit. After making sure she didn’t have a broken bone, Dad helped her get into my car. Once the three of us were inside, she turned toward me with that infamous hawklike gaze. “Have your fun while you’re young, Diane,” she said.
Once we arrived at Grammie’s duplex, I went downstairs to get some ice cubes. On the way back, I saw Gram sitting on a chair while George gently tried to unbutton her blouse. She seemed to look at him with affection. I realized it was the only time I had witnessed any kind of intimacy, perhaps even love, between the two.
Before I left, George handed me a couple of bucks to buy some gas. I kissed him, kissed Gram, and walked out of the kitchen, wondering if Randy would be a “till death do us part” kind of guy like George.
Glued into one of Mom’s scrapbooks, a creamy-looking photograph documenting Randy’s marriage to Sally fills the last page. In the center of the frame, two families are united. Dorrie, Robin, and I stand next to Judge Tharpe and his wife. The seated guests in front include little Johnny, Grandmother Tharpe, Grammie Keaton, and Grammie Hall. Everyone appears lost within a soft-focus blur—everyone with the exception of middle-aged Jack Hall, standing in the shadow of a low-hanging tree with his left arm wrapped around Dorothy’s waist. Mom looks at Randy, whose arm, like Dad’s, is wrapped around the waist of his new wife. Sally’s hand reassuringly clasps his as they smile into the future. In that moment, at least to me, both men unabashedly shared the same feeling of love.
To me this photograph captures the power a woman can have over a man. Even though Mom and Dad’s journey became more challenging with time, it was always defined by an undying, if sometimes fractured commitment. Jack and Dorothy were sharing one of life’s great moments of hope. Their son had married a substantial young woman who loved him. In a way, they were “living truthfully,” as Sandy Meisner would have said, “in a moment of fiction.”
Six months after Randy’s wedding, it was George’s turn to fall. He landed on Grammie’s linoleum floor in the room he’d rented for thirty years and began hemorrhaging. As he clutched his stomach in a fetal position, I wonder, did he think of all the pigeons he’d fed out of his hand? Dear George. Life moves on. Love is transient. Men need women, even tough-as-nails women like Mary Hall, or complex romantics like Mom. As for George, he passed on without so much as a wave goodbye to his longtime companion, Mary Hall. The grown-up Hall kids missed out on the opportunity to see George perform one last card trick in Grammie’s living room.
Grammie’s response to George’s all-too-soon, permanent departure from the bedroom off the narrow hallway was summed up in one sentence: “He never gave me a nickel.” When asked about her own death, she said, “I’m not afraid of dying. There ain’t much to it. You can go crazy thinking about it. I say don’t be overactive in thinking because you can overact so much you’ll get the mind going haywire.” At least, that’s what Mom wrote down in one of her journals. Grammie lived to be ninety-four.
Years later, I found a short poem Randy wrote about her. If she’d had the opportunity to read it, would she have understood, as Mom did, that he saw the world through the eyes of a dreamer?
Her long hands stay with me in the dying days of summer.
I see them in the dried out gardens of abandoned homes,
I see them when I close my eyes to forget.
The thin light of their touch slides through me like narrow branches.
What is this gift the dying give?
* * *
—
Life went on. Robin and Dorrie kept me abreast of everything. Dad confessed to them he could only get near one person in his whole life: “Your Mud.” Robin mentioned that Sally took Mom aside, wanting to know if she would approve of her and Randy having a baby—she was feeling “motherish.” Mom, of course, was overjoyed. She described how Randy’d come home, take his shoes and socks off, pull his shirt out, look at Sally, and say, “Hi, Dumbkus. Got any beer?” When Johnny asked him if he could stay up until ten-thirty to watch TV, Randy responded with “I’m pretty sure you’re smart enough to have figured that out by now.” Sally joined in, “No use pouting, Johnny, you know when bedtime is.” It was almost like he’d become a junior version of Dad.