So we were even a bit early for weightlifting. Kelly came in and joined us as we did it, and we kept going until about the time we usually stopped, so it was a little better workout. When we ran, I found that my concerns had been justified. Either Kelly had pushed herself while I was away, or I'd slacked off a little. Well, Ellen and I had lost a few days early on in the break, too. At any rate, I was having to work to keep up with Kelly. She started to slow down for me, but I told her not to. "It will do me good to push myself," I told her. "You have no idea how much I've missed you, how hard it's been for me to keep going in the face of boredom, round and round, round and round on a small track. Other things, too, but as a running partner, definitely."
We talked about how things had gone. Kelly had been feeling lonely, staying on the mostly deserted campus. Elise had gone away at the beginning of the break but come back, so they had kind of hung out together after running. They went to one of their places for a light breakfast, nothing fancy or big, or went out once or twice, just to sit and talk together. I knew that they hadn't even known each other before Ellen and I had arrived, but they got on well.
And indeed, when we stopped, Ellen and Elise said we were all invited to Elise's for breakfast after we'd been home and showered. I thought about warning her that it would take us longer than it had way back on Labor Day, because of showering separately—and then I realized that it might actually take us a bit less time. Showering together almost always meant some extra time in washing, plus other activities. I could see that Ellen was thinking the same thing, but we behaved ourselves when the time came.
Elise didn't do anything as elaborate as she had on earlier occasions. But once again it was a good time to relax and talk with all four of us.
In the late morning, we called the church to see if Pastor Mac was there, just to let him know we were back in town. He suggested that we come in that afternoon, and have our regular meeting two days late—since we didn't have our usual classes. I thought perhaps he was also a little less busy that week, though the church was mostly not people who went away, despite a sizable group of students.
So after lunch we met with him. When we first arrived, we checked in at the office, as usual, to make sure the pastor wasn't busy. We showed Mrs. White the ring. All these people seemed unreasonably excited for us! We were excited, of course, but we were the ones getting married! And she had known things were really pretty definite, too. At any rate, she sent us on to Pastor Mac, but asked us to stop back in if we had time at the end.
The pastor began by asking us about our break, especially about meeting each other's families. I let Ellen begin. I thought I would need to say something about our initial reception, and I wasn't sure just what to say. Ellen didn't hesitate to start right in on that, though.
"We started off on the wrong foot with my parents, from the very beginning. My mother showed us to the room we were to stay in—my room—but she was very stiff and formal, making it clear that Phil was there only at my insistence and not really welcome. I could see how much he was hurt, so I excused myself and my mother as soon as I could. I took her to my father, so that we would only have to go through this once.
"You understand, respect for parents is very important to my parents, and they brought us up to this as well. But I had to tell my parents very plainly that my mother's behavior was not acceptable, that she was shaming me as her daughter by treating my guest that way, the more so as she knew he is my intended husband. I should have been a lot more respectful—I spoke to her as if I were the mother correcting a small child who had been rude. I let my anger and shame rule me, and later I had to take them aside and apologize for that. But they both granted the truth of what I said, even if the way I said it hurt them. They came back to my room—our room—with me, and Mother apologized to Phil.
"I should say that one thing that had bothered her was our living together before we were married. Not only the living together, but our being sexually active—living together seemed to her to be flaunting our lack of shame in this. So I told her that you had asked us to remain celibate until the wedding, and that even though we were still sharing a bed we were doing so, and that Phil was the one who had agreed without raising questions. She found all that very hard to believe, but she knew that I wouldn't lie to her about anything like that." Ellen looked at me. "I told her that if it became too difficult, you had said you would move out of the bed, and that you insisted that you, not I, would do that. I think that really helped her. She found that very hard to believe, too, and felt that if you would do that for me then you could be trusted to do almost anything for me. Well, I knew that! But if I had simply said that, she would have thought it was just wishful thinking.
"But it seems that we got that out of the way, and that this allowed them to take an honest look at Phil. They were gracious, but things about him surprised them, always pleasantly. From there on, things went very well."
I reminded Pastor Mac that we had told him we probably wouldn't attend church that Sunday morning, since Ellen's family would be doing Christmas. "But there was a nearby church with a Christmas Eve service, and we attended that," I went on. "It was a service of Lessons and Carols, just a stanza or two of each carol, sung by the congregation, not a choir. Very moving, and a very good, short sermon on the place of the incarnation in redemption."
The pastor was pleased that we'd done this. He asked whether there was anything more from our time with Ellen's family.
"Really, I think only one thing, and I already knew it from phone calls. I'm an only child, and I always kind of wished for a big brother. Ellen's brother, Steve, treats me that way. He has almost from the very start, and he really feels like the big brother I've always wanted. Beyond that, what Ellen said. They initially disapproved of me, but by the end they were cautiously pleased. Some of that is what she said, some of it that they really hoped she would marry some nice Chinese man with a family in business, and I think some of it is just that they're reflexively conservative. I was an unknown, and they're slow to accept unknowns." Ellen nodded, looking a little surprised.
I continued. "My parents, well, there were some surprises. Some of them really big ones. They had had some reservations, but talking to Ellen every time we called them had laid the worst of those to rest. Dad did mention that they were concerned at first that Ellen had somehow trapped me into offering to marry her, to avoid having to establish herself, and they'd figured out pretty quickly that it wasn't like that at all. Or that we were just, um, infatuated with each other, sexually and otherwise. Mom said that they were concerned about how young we are, which I can understand. But they both have accepted her, enthusiastically almost right off, not grudgingly. We just plain didn't have the kind of problem we started off with, with Ellen's mother.
"But as I said, there were big surprises. For me, really, because Ellen only knew about these things so far as I'd talked about them to her. The first one is just, well, neither of my parents is normally very demonstrative. I think Mom gave me more hugs in a week than she normally ever did in a couple of years—I mean, even before I went away to school. And she, they both in fact, talked about their feelings toward me and now toward Ellen. Honestly, this really was almost a 'who are you and what have you done with my mother?' kind of thing. I know it sounds like a little thing, but it really was a huge change." I looked at Ellen. "Mom's never been the way Barbara used to be, not holding people at arm's length that way. But she never was one to reach out to anyone that much, either."
I went on, "Second, I told Mom that I wanted to get to meet my aunts and uncles. My dad has always been so very outspokenly hostile to any expressions of religion—way, way past the point of rudeness. To the point where, a couple of hundred years ago, he would have been fighting a lot of duels, and I mean that seriously. Sam's uncle remembered him very distinctly, and by name, too—they were both at some event—because he jumped all over some woman who said, 'God bless you!' to him when he sneezed. Anyway, my grandparents were believers, and all of my aunts and uncles are as well. I don't know who actually broke off contact, but I had been introduced to them when they came by on occasion to talk to Granddad—but I was never present at those talks, and never spoke to them besides being introduced and then saying hello to them when they came by other times. Meeting Sam's aunt and uncle had made me really feel grief at what I was missing there.
"And it turned out that Mom had been seated with two of my aunts at some event—someone assumed they knew each other well, she thought—and they invited her when they went out for coffee afterward. And they kept in touch, when Dad wasn't around. She actually called Aunt Betty for me, to ask if I could come and meet them, and then Aunt Betty got pretty much all of them together for it. But I never would have thought Mom would do something like that. She believes, as much as they do and I do, that a husband and wife need to stand together.
"The third thing is a lot bigger. I told Mom that we're planning to be married in church, and she agreed that I was probably wise not to bring it up with Dad at that point. But I became—how can I say this?—I was less and less comfortable leaving it that way. Mom had said that when the time came, she would tell Dad that she wouldn't let him spoil my wedding by being rude, and that if he wouldn't promise to behave she would go by herself—she wasn't willing to miss this occasion to suit him.
"Anyway, my conscience was bothering me, so I took Ellen aside and warned her, then brought the matter up one night at the end of dinner. I was gearing myself up to dig in my heels and be stubborn. I was—and am—determined about this—about protecting Ellen from the kind of verbal attack I've often heard from him. And I just about had a heart attack! Dad said Mom had spoken to him about it already. He said that she had spoken to him many times over the years, always after the fact, and that she was right, his behavior had been intolerable, and he promised to stop that kind of thing. I really just about could not believe my ears! He admitted that habits are hard to break, so he probably will slip up sometimes, but he really means to change. I kidded him, suggesting 'Basingstoke!' and he said that might help! He did tell me that I was absolutely not to interrupt our wedding to say it to him, but he said Mom should feel free.
"I'm sorry, Pastor, you probably don't know Gilbert and Sullivan. I'll try to remember to find that section of Ruddigore and send it to you." I actually brought it the next time we met, told him just enough of the context to explain Margaret and Despard, and read that conversation including the part after Robin joins them and it goes topsy-turvy. I let him read for himself the words of the patter trio which follows. Pastor Mac had an ironic sense of humor, and he plainly enjoyed it.
"And to cap that off, we had told them how much fun we had had contradancing, this past semester—you know about one of the two times, at least. Mom—or one of them but I expect it was Mom—searched and found a nearby New Year's Eve contradance, and they took us to that. But it was held in the social hall of a church, and I pointed this out to Dad ahead of time. And he said that, unless they actually used the dance as an excuse for some kind of evangelistic activity, he would keep quiet about any visible religious messages—wall hangings or posters, things like that. And there were a few scripture posters, and he did ignore them.
"This wasn't quite up there with Sam's repentance, but I still have to say it's a miracle. One more thing to make it harder for me to question whether God really exists and is in control."
We talked a bit more about all this. Pastor Mac said, "You know, I need to urge you to be careful about reading messages into things that happen, even fairly dramatic ones such as you've seen. I've known many people who go overboard on that. I'm very glad for this news about your father. If all this makes you think about where you stand, that's good, of course. And I'm not really much worried, in your case.
"Thank you for asking Miss Bruja to come and see me, by the way. She is a delightful young woman, and I took more of her time than I probably should have, just because I enjoyed talking to her so much. We talked about her, but she also had interesting insights into you two. Nothing negative or excessively personal, I don't mean that, just her view of things you had already told me about. It was an interesting and enjoyable conversation, as well as helpful to me."
