When we are children we welcome thinking of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind. Patrick Rothfuss
Nope, No Wedding Yet
The rocky ground at the bottom of the street of my grade school home became my mini-mountain, perfect for climbing. It was hidden behind enough trees to be its own paradise, a place for a kid to climb and become king of the world. When I was nine years old I saw nothing peculiar about a strawberry-blond girl king.
The great play arena eventually disappeared as developers plowed through. But in the mid 1950’s Joe and I claimed the world. He was my self-proclaimed boyfriend. In fourth grade I hadn’t graduated from paper dolls and mud pies, so the notion of a white veil followed by a life in the kitchen sounded as appealing as living with a perpetual mop. I was allergic to homework, much less life responsibilities. Imagination was more appealing.
Joe wasn’t like the other guys in my class. We played as equals. I knew his family wasn’t tidy. I didn’t care. Joe didn’t need the meaner boys around him to be okay. He wasn’t the tallest and certainly not the most popular kid. Mom had never met him. That alone was good enough for me. Outside, Joe and I could always be free. From homework or chores. From real life. We challenged an open space where the air moved freely around our imaginations. And the blue sky was on our side.
“Hey,” he said one day. I saw a kind of shy smile in his brown eyes that didn’t match the same dirty blue jeans he wore all the time, and he planted a kiss right smack on my lips.
I thought, oh yuck, but didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Joe wore a kindness that transcended grime. You had to face foreign lands on a fun rock to see past the classroom to understand Joe. We never talked about school stuff. Only the next jaunt into places we created.
“I’ve got a special surprise for you since your birthday is coming up,” he said. “Come to my house.”
We cut through two yards and landed on his street in something like three eyeblinks.
“Hey, Mom!” he called. “Where’s the engagement ring I found? I am going to give it to Mary Therese.”
Mary Therese! My at-school name. I groaned. Oh no. Formal talk. Sounded like a nun. Not me. I’d never hit anyone with a ruler in my life. And I would be off balance with a rosary that big at my waist. A wedding would spoil that lifestyle but neither wife nor sisterhood sounded appealing. And call me Terry, my at-home name.
How could I say something about how I thought girls had to at least have boobs before marriage without sounding personal? Joe’s mom wasn’t mine. The question would need to wait.
“Oh Joe, I’m sorry,” his mother said, not sounding sorry at all. “That ring got accidentally flushed down the toilet.”
Joe groaned. Now that I didn’t need to worry about a commitment, gratitude filled every cell of my tiny being. Who needs a ten-year engagement? Or worse, a lost recess for a wedding ceremony? Yet somehow Joe quickly recovered.
Our relationship ended long before puberty. As time passed, I hoped Joe found someone. Later. Much later. Long after the septic system absorbed my first engagement ring. I always wondered whether it had been born in a box of Cracker Jacks or found on a west-side sidewalk.
At least now if someone asks if I ever broke someone’s heart I can say, “No. The ordinary toilet took care of that for me.”
childlike drawing made from public domain photo
terrypetersen 