Page 46 of Baby, It’s You (Clairesville #1)

Hunter

I turn on my camera and pan it around the room I spent so many warm days coloring and reading in as a child. Olive sits next to me in a yellow, cube-shaped chair as I hit record.

“So, Mom, tell me about how you and dad ended up at Whiskey Jane’s.”

My mom pulls her legs up in front of her, sitting in a crisscross position, and holds her ankles with her hands.

“Well, you never knew this, but Grandma Gretta and Grandpa Ed didn’t used to like me very much.

” She laughs as she mentions my dad’s parents.

“I was the crazy, artsy girl with tattoos, and your father was strait-laced, on the track to attend law school. They thought I was corrupting him with my ideals.” She smiles.

“We were madly in love, though; nothing was going to change that.

“We had a whirlwind love and within two months of meeting, we got engaged. Everyone thought we were crazy, and we were—crazy for each other—and we knew it was meant to be. One day we were lying out by a community pool, trying to decide how we would afford a wedding. Frank was still in school, and I was waitressing, so funds were low. His parents already told us they would not contribute to the wedding and if we got married, they would stop paying for his school. My own parents had passed away years before in a car accident,” my mom says solemnly.

I can feel Olive on the edge of her seat as she breathlessly says, “So what did you do?” I know she relates to the lack of support that my mom is talking about.

My mom grins at her. “Well, Frank leaned over to me from his pool chair and said, ‘Let’s elope.’ I was totally on board—I love spontaneous stuff, Hunter can tell you.”

I snort from behind the camera. “Yeah, one time I came home from school and my mom decided we were going to drive to Memphis to get some barbecue, six hours away. We pulled up to the restaurant ten minutes after they closed and ended up eating McDonalds in the car. Another time, she got her motorcycle license on a random Tuesday.” I turn to Olive.

“My mom doesn’t even have a motorcycle.”

At that, Olive laughs. “I’m inspired,” she tells my mom, her eyes sparkling with admiration. “I wish I was that carefree.”

My mom waves her hands. “Oh, sweetie! You can be! Just stop giving a fuck.” She covers her mouth, looking at me and cringes. “Sorry I cursed in your video.”

“It’s fine.” I grin, knowing I can censor it, or edit it, so the video can still be monetized. “Let’s get the story back on track.”

“Okay! So, we decided to tie the knot on our own. That day. We went back to my apartment and showered and then I dug through my closet for something special to wear. I found the purple flowy dress I wore on our first date and slipped it on. Your dad wore a striped shirt from the trunk of his car and his board shorts. He looked so handsome.” She stares off into the distance, deep in thought.

“We found a small chapel near my place and knocked on the door. A younger man came to the door, a napkin hanging from his shirt, and a newspaper under his arm. He was the pastor, and we’d interrupted his sandwich.

Frank told him we wanted to get married right now and the man told us no; we would have to schedule in advance for a wedding.

We begged him and told him our situation.

He must have taken pity on us, seeing the love in our eyes.

Twenty minutes and fifty dollars later, we were married.

Obviously, we had to get a marriage license afterwards.

” Mom laughs. “That was just logistics, though. We figured it out.

“After we were married, we went back to my apartment and put together a picnic to eat on Jewel Mountain to watch the sunset. It was one of our favorite things to do. We watched the sun go down and then made love under the stars when it was finally dark,” she says dreamily.

I try to pretend like I didn’t hear my mom talk about her sex life with my father.

“We drove back down the mountain a little while later and decided we wanted to get a drink somewhere to celebrate. It was our first time going into the world as a married couple and Frank said this deserved a toast. We passed Whiskey Jane’s frequently when we were headed up the mountain, but had never been in.

That night we decided to go. The bar was packed when we pulled up.

We grabbed a table towards the back of the bar, so we had a little privacy.

“After I took a seat, Frank went up to order us some drinks. We had a few beers, and Frank was starting to have a rapport with the bartender after an hour or so. He was very smiley and when he found out that we were just married, he shouted for his wife to come over. She was standing at the other end of the bar, chatting with some customers, and we hadn’t met her yet.

“I remember his wife having a commanding, warm presence.

She had on a deep blue dress, and her hair was thrown up in a messy bun with large sparkly earrings.

I thought the woman was effortlessly gorgeous.

When she found out that we were just married, she walked around the bar and gave me a huge hug.

I was a complete stranger to her, but she treated me like a best friend that night, celebrating our marriage with me.

She asked us if we had a first dance and we both told her no, which she said was unacceptable .

She shouted out to the guests telling everyone to ‘clear the floor, move the tables,’ and that we were going to have our first dance.

“Everyone instantly complied.” Mom chuckles.

“Within a minute, the floor was cleared of all people and tables, and the woman motioned for us to go stand in the circle. She selected a song on the jukebox for us. It was the song ‘Time of the Season’ by The Zombies.” My mouth drops hearing my mother say this.

How many times through the years have I heard about their first dance, never knowing the story behind it?

Never knowing this bar that I have been filming in for months now created a magical moment for my newlywed parents.

My mom continues talking, her voice rising with emotion.

“After the song ended, the man handed us a marker and the woman told us to go write our big day on the wall, since it deserved to be memorialized. There were already multiple areas covered with writing, so we decided to put it on the wall where we first sat, not wanting to forget the table where we had our first toast as a married couple. Your dad sang the song in my ear as I wrote our initials in a heart and the date. I decided to write the name of the song, too.” My mom softly sings the lyrics to herself.

I feel Olive shaking slightly next to me.

I know it’s because my mom is talking about Jane and Seymour, and she doesn’t even realize it.

“And that's our story with the bar.” Mom smiles, clapping her hands together. “The end.” She holds her eyes with the camera, a twinkle in them, as I click the button to stop recording and set the camera on a chair to my left.

“Did you ever go back?” Olive asks her quietly.

“Not together. We had Hunter shortly after and our days of going out at night ended. Not that we were party animals anyway.” Mom laughs.

“But I went back once alone, a month after Hunter’s father passed.

I sat at our table, buried my face in my hands, and cried.

The woman from the night we got married was actually there.

She took a seat next to me and asked me if I was all right.

I’m not sure if she recognized me, but I told her how I had just lost Frank, and she told me how she’d lost her husband, too.

She took my hand in hers, and we sat there in silence together for an hour.

Two widows in our grief.” Mom is quiet then.

Olive breaks the silence. “That was Jane. You must have caught her on a good day, while she was still working in the bar.”

Olive then explains her relationship with Jane to my mother.

My mom reaches out her hand from across the table.

“I have something for you. Sit tight.” She leaves the room.

I have no idea what my mom is going to get, and when she comes back in the room with a large canvas turned away from us, I’m confused.

“I want you to have this,” my mom says to Olive, spinning the canvas. I hear Olive gasp when she sees the painting.

“It’s Jane.” She puts a hand up to her mouth, her shock evident.

The painting is gorgeous, with shades of blues and purples swirling in the background, a portrait of a woman in the center with a blue dress and blonde hair up. I realize that it must be how Jane looked the night my parents were married.

“I painted her when I was pregnant with Hunter. I was unable to do much because I was on bed rest, but I couldn’t get her image out of my head.

She was beautiful to me, ethereal and strong.

Everything I wanted Hunter to see in me as a mother.

I’ve had this sitting in the back of my closet for years, unable to part with it, but also not knowing what to do with it. ”

My mom hands the canvas to Olive, who shakes her head. “I can’t accept this. It’s yours.”

“No, honey. I want you to have it. Fate must have brought us together so I could give this to you.”

Olive holds the painting close. “Thank you.” She looks up at my mother with admiration. “I will treasure this.”

“Alright, enough of the heavy shit,” my mom jokes. “Who wants to smoke some weed?”

That’s my mom.