Suburban Renewal (4 page)

“Anyway, it's happened and I'm happy about it,” I lied. “I want you to be happy about it, too.”

I glanced over at Lauren, who had finished smashing her crackers into crumbs and was now joyously sweeping them off the table in wide, enthusiastic strokes.

“How can I be happy when you're losing your life?” Mom asked.

I didn't know what she was talking about. “The doctor didn't indicate that there was any danger associated with this pregnancy,” I assured her. “I didn't have any problems when I had Lauren.”

“That's not what I meant,” Mom told me. “It's not about dying, it's about not living. A woman with one child, that's a burden. A woman with two children…” She shook her head sadly. “That's the end of it. Any life that was your own is over.”

On some level, I agreed with her. But I railed against it.

“Mom, that's ridiculous,” I said. “I'll still have my own life.”

“No, you won't,” she said. “You'll be too busy. From here on out for the next twenty years you are somebody's mother and nothing more.”

“That was your generation, Mom,” I told her. “Women today, we can have it all. Husband, children, career and social life. We're not limited by yesterday's gender roles.”

She was shaking her head. “Two children under age five is as limited as it gets in this world and that's the truth,” she insisted. “I blame Sam Braydon for it. You're smart and pretty and you could have had a great life full of opportunity and possibility. He's stolen all that from you. He's low class, with a bad back
ground. Good Lord, his own father is a murderer. He'll never make anything of his life and now he's dragging you down to his level.”

I bristled immediately. “He's my husband, Mother,” I told her sternly. “And the father of my children. If you are going to talk about him with disrespect, my daughter and I will leave.”

It was no empty threat. Mom knew better than to bad-mouth Sam to me, though I was certain her bridge club was well versed in his shortcomings.

She didn't apologize, but she did acknowledge my words with a nod and a moment of silence. If we were to keep a relationship, she knew she had to keep her opinion to herself.

“What are you going to do?” she asked me finally.

“What am I going to do?” I repeated her question, puzzled. “Mom, I'm going to have a baby.”

1980

I
t's interesting that with all the up and downs, changes good and bad in the decade of the eighties, what stands out most for me are the two important men who walked into my life. Well, I suppose I couldn't say that Nate Braydon
walked
into my life. He sort of slithered in covered with blood and yuck.

“It's a boy!” Dr. Kotsopoulos announced.

“It's a boy,” Corrie repeated with an exhausted sigh.

She had wanted a boy.

“One of each,” she'd said. And, “Every man wants a son.”

Every man but me.

All the people that I cared about in the world, all the people that I'd loved and who had loved me…all of them had been women. I liked women. I understood women. Lauren's birth had been one of the sweetest moments of my life. And she continued to make even my worst day seem more bearable. With her little baby smile and the way she said, “Daddy,” she made me feel as if I were some uniquely special being, a father. I couldn't have loved her more.

But a son. How did a man love a son? What was that all about?

“It's a boy!”

The doctor laid the little slimy guy on Corrie's tummy. I kissed her on the temple, careful not to block her view.

“He's perfect,” I assured her.

“Perfect,” she agreed.

I didn't share any of my worry, my concern, with Corrie. And I completely hid my anxiety from her parents out in the waiting room. But when I called Gram, it just came out.

“I don't know anything about raising a boy,” I told her. “I don't remember anything about my own dad. I always considered that a blessing. But how will I raise a son? I don't have any idea.”

Gram giggled, as if I'd said something funny. “You'll do fine,” she assured me. “Just follow the example of your Heavenly Father, that's much better than anything you could have learned from Floyd Braydon.”

It occurred to me to point out that
my Heavenly Father
had allowed his son to be crucified for the wrongs of other people. Of course I didn't. I would never have the faith that Gram had, the certainty of her convictions, but I couldn't help but respect her beliefs.

“God will guide you,” she said. “Trust in him, do what you know is right. Things will always work out exactly as they are supposed to.”

I tried to take comfort in Gram's confidence.

Two days later, we brought Nate home to our little garage apartment behind Mrs. Neider's house. Corrie's parents were waiting in the driveway. They snapped photos of us driving up, getting out, climbing the stairs. It was like having our own personal paparazzi.

By the time we got into the apartment I was wishing they were gone.

“I'm so sorry that Michael isn't here to see him come home,” Corrie's mother said.

“He came to see us in the hospital,” Corrie told her. “Babies aren't really on the top of the interest list for good-looking bachelors.”

“Somebody's got to run the store, Edna,” Corrie's dad pointed out.

“Here, have a seat, Doc,” I said, offering him my worn easy chair with the hand towels pinned atop the threadbare arms.

Even after being married to their daughter for two and a half years, I still called Corrie's parents Doc and Mrs. Maynard. I was hoping to someday work my way to George and Edna, but I knew they would never be Mom and Dad.

The mother and grandmother were seated together on the couch, cooing over the little fellow's wide-eyed look at the world. I stood leaning against the doorjamb of my own house and feeling like the outsider.

Corrie's mom was chattering to Nate in the most nauseating baby talk possible. It was all oogy-boogy-ba-ba. It was all I could do not to roll my eyes. I caught Doc's glance. I was pretty sure he wanted to roll his eyes as well, but we both had the good sense to refrain.

Lauren, in pink shorts and a T-shirt decorated in butterflies, was going nuts, of course. Behaving as if she'd suddenly become hyper. She was talking too loud, banging her toys, demanding attention that she wasn't getting. My heart went out to her. I'd never had a little brother, but I could imagine that it might not seem like that much fun at first. She was so used to the care, the love, the admiration of everyone in the family. Nobody
was looking at her today and that was infuriating. She was getting more noisy and boisterous.

Wordlessly, I held out my arms to her and she jumped at the opportunity to climb into them. I sat her upon my hip as she wrapped her arms tightly around me. Her stringy blond hair smelled like strawberries.

“Your baby brother is brand-new,” I explained to her. “That's why everyone is looking at him. They've never seen him before.”

She leaned close and whispered in my ear.

“He's ugly.”

“I know,” I admitted. “But don't tell Mom or Grandma. It might hurt their feelings.”

She nodded solemnly, agreeing to keep our secret.

“Oh, dear,” Edna complained as she glanced up and noticed us. “Look, Corrie, your husband and daughter don't even have a place to sit down. George, we'd better leave. There's just not room for everyone in this tiny place. I can't imagine how either of you can think that you'll be able to raise two children here.”

The words stung, and even though they were typical, I couldn't help but resent them.

“People all over the world raise children in places smaller than this,” Corrie defended. “I love keeping my children close.”

Mrs. Maynard sighed in exasperation as she rose to her feet.

I said nothing.

In a way, it was a good thing that Corrie's mother was such a complainer. As long as she kept up her litany of my failings as a provider, Corrie would staunchly defend me. And if she was defending me, she couldn't reasonably be discontented as well.

The truth was, of course, that her mother was right.
The place was way too small for a family of four, but every penny I made was tied up in company expenses and equipment. Personal sacrifices were a necessity when trying to get a business off the ground. Corrie understood that. Unfortunately, her mother did not.

It was going to take a lot of long hours, hard work and thrifty living to turn Braydon Oil Field Service into a profitable company. But business was great.

With OPEC crunching the price of oil up to thirty-four dollars a barrel, producers were looking at secondary recovery as more cost effective than new development. I hadn't got my start on the ground floor, of course. But there was still a lot of money to be made, even by a small independent company like mine.

In truth, making money wasn't that tough. As the Midnight Mechanic I'd already established myself as reliable and dependable. I had a long list of clients who called me first when they had a well down. I actually had more jobs than I could reasonably take on. And I couldn't accept any more, because I didn't have the crews to do them.

The biggest challenge of my company was not making money, it was keeping up with the progress in technology and hiring good workers.

The boom was on in the oil fields, there was full employment. The statistics said there were three percent out of work. From my perspective, that three percent didn't particularly want to work. I was hiring guys straight out of high school, giving them top pay after a couple of weeks' training, and then watching them leave me for Big Four jobs with better benefits. It was frustrating. The ones that stayed on were usually too lazy to work or had trouble getting along. It wasn't the best of circumstances. And it kept me doing six twelve
hour days a week. I was paying down debt and growing my business, but I missed my family.

With a flurry of more picture-taking and lots of hugs and kisses all around, my in-laws finally left us alone. But I wasn't free to lounge around in domestic bliss. I'd already taken off the whole morning.

I kissed my wife and kids goodbye and went back to work.

When I said, “I missed my family,” I guess I should explain that I didn't simply mean that I thought about them all day and wished that I was home. That was true, of course. But what I really meant was that in those early years of our marriage, my family was growing, changing, doing exciting, memorable things every day. And I was missing all that.

Most nights I'd come home very late. Lauren would already be sleeping. The baby would sometimes be awake, but he was growing so fast he looked like a different kid every time I saw him. Corrie would be exhausted, walking around like a zombie in a bathrobe. She kept her hair cut close to her head, like a boy's. And there was never so much as a smear of makeup. She bore little resemblance to the sexy college girl that I'd married. I suppose that was all right, though. We never got to have sex anymore, so if she'd looked good, I guess I would have
really
missed it.

When I did get a rare evening to be home, it wasn't like things went perfect. They had their routine and my presence was like a disruption.

“Let's go, Lauren, it's time for your bath.”

“No! Daddy's home. I doan wanna baff.”

“You have to have a bath.”

“I doan wanna!”

Lauren would curl her little lip and stamp her foot.
She had the exact same expression on her face that Corrie got when she stood up to her mother.

“Why don't I give her a bath?” I suggested.

Lauren immediately complied.

Problem.

Routine bath with Mommy takes fifteen minutes, then ten minutes more to get into pajamas and into bed.

Bath with Daddy takes an hour of laughing and splashing. Ten minutes to get into pajamas and then two hours' worth of song, stories and threats to counter overstimulation before finally succumbing to sleep.

Corrie never complained of my intrusion or the fact that my help cost her more time. Not that she was a saint. She could be as cranky or whiney as anyone, but maybe she was too tired to complain. She'd just snuggle up against my chest and listen to me voice my dreams.

“What I really need is a frac truck,” I told her one night.

“What's a frac truck?” she asked.

“It's a truck you use for fracing.”

She giggled like a little girl. “Tell me what
fratching
is and maybe the truck will make more sense.”

“Fracing, it rhymes with
cracking.
It's making fractures in the rock with high-pressure pumps. You inject those fractures with sand that holds the cracks open so that the trapped oil can work its way through to the main zone. It increases recovery to thirty, sometimes thirty-five percent.”

She nodded thoughtfully.

“How much does a frac truck cost?”

I shook my head. “A half million bucks.”

A sigh of exclamation escaped from her lips in one little puff.

“I know,” I agreed. “That's a lot of mac and cheese. This is not a poor boy's business.”

“Will the bank loan you that much?”

I nodded. “They are handing out checks down there like you wouldn't believe,” I told her. “It's almost crazy.”

“So would the oil companies pay you more for fracing their wells?”

“Fracing is very expensive,” I said. “But if you're going to make these secondary recovery fields pay off, it's what you're going to have to do.”

“Then go talk to the banker,” she said. “If he thinks we can eventually pay all this off, then we should surely believe it.”

“What about your house?” I asked.

“My house?”

“Our house,” I corrected. “I know we've got to buy a house. We can't raise these kids cramped in this little place forever.”

She shrugged. “We can last a little bit longer,” she told me. Then glancing around at the toy-strewn main room, with Lauren's little screened-off bedroom/corner on one end, she added, “It will be less for the kids to mess up.”