A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [181]
“You can stop praying now, Granma,” she said. “Everything’s all right. He went out for ice cream, see?”
“Glory be to the father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost,” praised Mary Rommely.
* * *
In Sissy’s name, Steve wrote to her second husband at his last-known address and put “Please Forward” on the envelope. Sissy asked him to consent to a divorce so that she might remarry. A week later, a fat letter came from Wisconsin. Sissy’s second husband informed her that he was well, had obtained a Wisconsin divorce seven years ago, had promptly remarried, settled down in Wisconsin where he had a good job and was the father of three children. He was very happy, he wrote and in belligerently underlined words threatened that he intended to stay that way. He enclosed an old press clipping to prove that she had been legally informed of the divorce action by publication. He enclosed a photostatic copy of the decree (grounds, desertion), and a snapshot of three bouncing children.
Sissy was so happy at being divorced so quickly that she sent him a silver-plated pickle dish as a belated wedding present. She felt that she had to send a letter of congratulation also. Steve refused to write it for her so she asked Francie to do it.
“Write that I hope he’ll be very happy,” dictated Sissy.
“But Aunt Sissy, he’s been married seven years and it’s settled by now—whether he’s happy or not.”
“When you first hear that someone’s married, it’s polite to wish them happiness. Write it down.”
“All right.” She wrote it down. “What else?”
“Write something about his children…how cute they are…something like…” The words stuck in her throat. She knew he had sent the picture to prove that Sissy’s stillborn children had not been his fault. That hurt Sissy. “Write that I’m the mother of a beautiful healthy baby girl and put a line under healthy.”
“But Steve’s letter said you were only planning to get married. This man might think it funny that you got a baby so soon.”
“Write it like I said,” ordered Sissy, “and write that I expect another baby to be born next week.”
“Sissy! You don’t, really!”
“Of course not. But write it down anyhow.”
Francie wrote that down. “Anything else?”
“Say thanks for the divorce paper. Then say I got my own divorce a year before he got it. Only I forgot,” she concluded lamely.
“But that’s a lie.”
“I did get the divorce before he did. I got it in my mind.”
“All right. All right,” surrendered Francie.
“Write that I’m very happy and intend to stay that way and put a line under those words like he did.”
“Gosh, Sissy. Must you have the last word?”
“Yes. Just like your mother has to have it, and Evy and you, too.”
Francie made no more objections.
Steve got a license and married Sissy all over again. This time a Methodist minister performed the ceremony. It was Sissy’s first marriage by the Church and at last she believed that she was truly married until death did the parting. Steve was very happy. He loved Sissy and had always been afraid of losing her. She had left her other husbands, casually and with no regrets. He had been afraid that she’d leave him, too, and take with her the baby whom he had grown to love dearly. He knew that Sissy believed in the Church…any Church, Catholic, or Protestant; that she’d never walk out on a church marriage. For the first time in their relationship, he felt happy, secure, and masterful. And Sissy discovered that she was madly in love with him.
Sissy came over one evening after Katie had gone to bed. She told her not to get up; that she’d sit in the bedroom and talk to her. Francie was sitting at the kitchen table pasting poems in old notebooks. She kept a razor blade at the office and cut out poems and stories she liked for her scrapbooks. She had a series of them. One was labeled The Nolan Book of Classical Poems. Another, The Nolan Volume of Contemporary Poetry. A third was The Book of Annie Laurie, in which Francie was collecting nursery