CHAPTER 2

Marriage

Like my mother said, Dr. Glendenning, who delivered Brendan three years earlier, was experienced, skilled, dependable, everything an obstetrician should be. A kind of “Father Knows Best”obstetrician, after the television show that aired in the 1950s when women didn’t need to worry their silly little heads about anything because the all-knowing male, portrayed by the actor Robert Young, would take care of them. Not that Dr. Glendenning was a male chauvinist. No, he was terrific in every way.

As for Stan, let’s just say that he and I were raised in families that had differing attitudes in regard to the role of women. Stan’s father, the unquestioned patriarch, threw a fit when Stan’s mother applied for her own credit card. Stan’s two older married brothers, following the mold, had wives who raised children, end of sentence. His parents and I were also on opposite ends of the political spectrum. When we were newly-married, they mailed newspaper and magazine clippings espousing right-wing views, especially in regard to abortion. In response, I sent them a newspaper cartoon that featured a drawing of an acorn. The caption read, “What is this? If you’re a Right-to-Lifer, it’s a tree.”

In my family, I was the oldest child, a girl in the 1950s when girls were not worth as much as boys. In the backyard as a small, babbling child, my father was not listening as he pushed me on the swing, but one day on a windy street corner, when I deciphered the words on a sign, I came into his view.

“Margaret, that’s right, that’s what those words mean. You read that?” His hands were in his pants pockets. The breeze nudged his tie. I strutted across the street, queen for the day, the object of his total attention. I subsequently became the vessel for his unrealized ambition of becoming a college history professor instead of a physician. Accomplishments, good grades, honors, won my daddy’s heart.

After college, I racked up the accomplishments, but it was after graduate school at a conference awards dinner that the ground beneath me shifted. For the occasion, I dressed in a black suit that resembled a tuxedo. There was no one sitting to my right or left whom I knew very well. The applause swelled as the winner of the award approached the microphone, haloed by a spotlight. Her husband, seated in front of me, clapped the loudest. I considered my framed diplomas, hanging on the wall, and the accumulating accolades, tallied on my resume, stashed in a drawer. After the dinner, in my hotel room, I stepped out of my heels, and sat on the bed facing a blank television screen. I was approaching my late twenties, and did not want to be alone forever.

So why was I single if I wanted to be coupled, and why did I marry Stan, who turned out to be a somewhat disastrous choice? Several years before, cross-legged on the floor by the light of a candle, I shuffled my tarot cards and laid them out in a spread. Although I was on the precipice of my professional career without any job offers, that was not why I was reading the cards. I sought predictions about love.

The final outcome card jumped out at me, the Nine of Swords. A woman sat upright in bed under a colorful quilt, her face buried in her hands. It is a terrible card, one of the worst in the deck, because it foretells suffering, desolation, loss and deep emotional despair. During my twenties, it all came true, as one failed relationship after another resulted in heartbreak. The girl who appeared in my mirror was attractive and intelligent enough. This same girl received rave reviews for a leading glamorous role in a local theatrical production, with the aplomb extending to strangers who stopped me in the street.

“Weren’t you in Vanities?” asked the bundled-up man at the pedestrian light in driving snow, or the waitress in the restaurant, or the clerk who sold me a baking pan. What they didn’t know is that this leading lady returned to an empty apartment after the theatre was dark, and that as she drifted off to sleep she reassured herself that she felt the pulse of a true blue heart coursing through her veins.

“Someday, someone will realize that I’m a great find. Somebody will love me, somebody will love me,” I chanted like a mantra. I really believed it. It had to be true.

So I dated widely. Predictably, some of those love affairs became serious, and we danced through the evening as though the music would never stop, but it always did. Usually the reasons were beyond my control. One prospective husband ultimately decided that his wife should be Jewish. Another fell in love with somebody else. The third wasn’t ready to commit. They were all dashing, and eminently eligible, and told me that they loved me, but I always ended up in the back bedroom of my basement apartment, sitting on the floor in the grey, filtered light with my arms wrapped around my knees, sobbing my heart out.

Also in my late twenties, I landed a job as a civil rights investigator for a state agency that investigates discrimination complaints. I dressed in suits and heels, had secretaries who screened my calls and did my typing, and traveled through the state on a mission of justice and equality. Some of the men I encountered, such as attorneys for the Complainant or Respondent had potential, but because we investigated sexual harassment, being on the prowl for romantic entanglements was, at best, viewed as unethical, and at worst, illegal. More importantly, I never came across a man who was worth the risk. The interesting challenges I encountered made the day fly by, but at night I faced the same four walls. So, I spent the evenings being cast in one play and then another, constantly either in rehearsal or in production.

Yet underneath the veneer of my professional successes, I struggled with the blackness of abject loneliness and despair. Nobody loved me, and perhaps nobody ever would. I grew to hate going out, but got dressed up, put on my makeup, frequented bars, and started inane conversations with strangers. I signed up for various classes and activities, but if I didn’t see anyone even remotely interesting during the first meeting, I would abandon the venture. Online dating sites were still in the future, and the anonymous person behind the newspaper personal ad who enjoyed moonlight walks and candlelight dinners could be a serial killer. Adrift yet determined, I enrolled in law school, which could take my career to new heights and would place me back in a pool of eligible young men.

Actually, the law school party where I met Spenser's father was an act of rebellion. I had been dating Robbie, whose younger brother had been killed in an automobile accident. His parents had received the call, gone to the emergency room, and identified the body of his brother only a few months earlier.

Early one morning in his maroon bathrobe, Robbie sat motionless at his desk, contemplating his brother’s picture which rested in his right hand. I sat up in bed, enveloped by the warmth of the blanket and detergent aroma of the clean sheets. The glare of the desk lamp fell on the pages of an opened law book, and Robbie held the picture aloft over the black-and-white print. He said nothing, but continued gazing at the picture. Maybe through this behavior Robbie was signaling to me the depth of his grief, or maybe he longed for his brother and could care less whether I was in the room. I knew nothing of dead children--would not understand until years later when Spenser died, so could not bring the silence to full circle. I only stood in the wings, a helpless bystander.

A few days later in the law school library, Robbie told me he was going home to Milwaukee because his parents were on the verge of a divorce. I didn't receive a letter from him during the Christmas holidays, nor did he contact me during January. I spent most of my college years pining over a boy who didn't write because he didn't love me. I was not going to let that happen again.

So, at a law school party on Valentine’s Day, immersed in the noisy hubbub of law students conversing in groups while sipping their beers, I scanned the crowd and threaded my way to someone I recognized, Carter Canby, a red-headed friend whose affect could lean toward the grandiose.

“Well, hello, Margaret, are you enjoying yourself?” Carter gestured to his right. “Do you know Stan Gardner?” Stan emerged from the sea of bodies and stood opposite me.

Why had I never seen him before in the classroom, or among the throngs of students circulating throughout the hallways? He had an interesting face, and eyes that were almost pretty. Clad in a plaid shirt, he clutched a beer can in one hand and cigarette in the other. Something about his countenance, in stark relief from the shadowy backdrop of the others assembled, hinted at unforeseen possibilities. I switched on my animated persona and bragged about being a leading actress.

"I was Joanne in Vanities at Warehouse Stage on the Levee just a few years ago. It was sold out for the entire run and got rave reviews.”

"Warehouse Stage on the Levee. Yes, I've been to several performances." He shifted his weight to the other foot.

"Where are you from?" I needed an anchor.

"Springfield."

“Springfield. Now where is that?” I asked. There was something about his eyes, and he increasingly impressed me as vaguely attractive and somewhat charming.

“Central Missouri. My parents have a ranch that I grew up on. Well, my father works as a physician, but they have cattle and horses.”

"You live out in the...