CHAPTER 6
The Belmont Motel, a cluster of low-slung stucco cottages perched on a hillside on the west side of the Trinity River, was not an elegant establishment, but it had a nice view of the Dallas skyline. Of course, by the time Donny and Mary Dell, still dressed in their wedding finery, checked in at the motel, it was too dark to see it. Even if it had been otherwise, the newlyweds were too weary to appreciate the scenery.
The day had been long and taxing. After the ceremony Donny joined Uncle Dwayne at the bar, matching the old man’s toast to their happiness drink for drink. Mary Dell took the wheel for the drive from Too Much to Dallas and was relieved when, after unloading the suitcases and carrying her over the threshold of the motel room, her groom collapsed on the bed and immediately fell asleep.
Early the next morning, as the first fingers of sunlight slipped through the cracks of the venetian blinds, Mary Dell slipped out of bed and into the bathroom.
A few minutes later the sound of muffled sobbing roused Donny from sleep. He opened his eyes slowly and blinked, confused by the strange surroundings, wondering how he had gotten out of his clothes and who had folded them so neatly on the seat of the orange Naugahyde armchair that sat next to the window.
After a moment, Donny remembered the where and why of his circumstances. He was married now and on his honeymoon; that he understood. What he didn’t understand was why his wife was crying in the bathroom.
Groaning as he lifted his hurting head from the pillow, silently cursing his new uncle-in-law and promising himself that his first taste of bourbon would also be his last, Donny got up and slipped a clean T-shirt over his head. He pressed his ear to the door of the bathroom for a moment before knocking tentatively.
“Mary Dell? Honey? It’s Donny. Your husband?”
He cleared his throat awkwardly, feeling ridiculous. Of course she knew he was her husband. She could hardly have forgotten. If anything, the sound of her distress led him to believe she remembered only too well.
“Mary Dell, are you all right?”
He heard the sound of bathroom tissue being pulled from the roller, a nose being blown, and sniffling.
“Yes. I’m fine.”
Donny didn’t believe her. He tried the door handle, rattling the knob. “Mary Dell? Open up. Please.”
There was no response. He tried another tack.
“Open the door, honey. I need to use the bathroom.”
“All right. Just give me a second.” He heard the sound of movement and more sniffling, the toilet flushing and, finally, a metallic click as she unlocked the door.
“Are you all right?” he asked, taking in her red-rimmed eyes and the gray-black half-moons under them, stains from tear-smeared mascara. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “I just . . . I mean . . . I might need to see a doctor.”
Her composure crumpled like a tossed-away tissue, and her eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, Donny! I think I lost the baby!”
She was weeping again, and loudly, sobs pouring out like water from a bucket. Mary Dell was big and tall, but Donny was bigger and taller, and much stronger. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the orange armchair, kicking aside his carefully folded clothing before sitting down with Mary Dell in his lap, cradling her in his arms, smoothing her blond hair with his hand, murmuring soothing sounds into her ear, using the same tone and vocabulary he used when calming a nervous colt—“hush now” and “all right then”—adding a few endearments to the mix.
Mary Dell leaned close, wrapped her arms around his neck, buried her tear-streaked face into his muscular chest. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“For what, darlin’?”
“For getting you into this mess. For making it so you had to marry me. And all for no reason!”
Donny frowned and pressed on Mary Dell’s shoulders, pushing her face away from his chest so he could see her eyes.
“For no reason? Is that why you think I married you? Just because of the baby?”
Mary Dell sniffled and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her nightgown.
“Isn’t it?”
“I married you because I love you. The minute I laid eyes on you, walking across that stage in the beautiful red dress, I said to myself, ‘Donny Bebee, you’re either going to get that girl to marry you or die trying.’ Of course, I got kind of carried away on that first date. I’m sorry about that. That wasn’t fair to you.”
Donny smiled and looked her straight in the eye.
“I promised myself I wouldn’t let it happen again, not until the wedding. My plan was to marry you by November, December at the latest, so Graydon could be best man before he shipped out. And when you wouldn’t go out with me again or even speak to me, it just about broke my heart.”
“Really?” Mary Dell asked, blinking away her tears.
“Ask Graydon, if you don’t believe me. He’ll tell you.” Donny shook his head sorrowfully. “Yes, ma’am. I thought I’d blown my chance with you. Happiest day of my life—well, up until yesterday—was when Graydon told me you were pregnant. Boy, I couldn’t get myself to that jewelry counter fast enough! Almost drove the truck into a ditch, I was going so fast.
“I knew it wasn’t right, what I’d let happen on our date. But I figured that maybe you having a baby was God’s way of giving me another chance.”
Mary Dell sighed and dropped her head onto his shoulder, as if the weight of keeping it upright took more energy than she could muster.
“Except now there is no baby,” she said quietly.
He kissed the top of her head. “But there will be. We’re going to have lots of babies, Mary Dell. You’ll see.”
“Do you think so?”
“Sure do.” He kissed her again, squeezing his arm tight around her shoulders. “I think we ought to take you to a doctor, just to make sure you’re fine. Then I think we ought to spend some time making plans, thinking about where we’re going to live after we go back to Too Much . . .”
Mary Dell’s eyes went wide. “But . . . aren’t we going to live on the ranch?”
“Of course we are,” Donny assured her. “It’s nice of your folks to let us live with them, but I’d like us to have a place of our own as soon as we can afford it. What if we got a trailer, a double-wide? It’d be the quickest way to get a house of our own. There’s some nice ones out now, and those double-wides are roomier than they look.”
“I don’t care where we live as long as it’s on the ranch and we’re together.”
“That’s what I thought too,” Donny said. “We don’t need anything fancy. Just someplace close to the big house, but not too close, where we can have some privacy but still be close to the barns.”
He stroked her hair with his big, broad hand and said wistfully, “The F-Bar-T might not be the biggest spread in Texas, but I never saw such good grazing land. I think we can really make something of it, honey. I’ve got some ideas.”
“You do?”
He looked at her and nodded, coming back to himself. “All kinds of ideas. And you’re part of them all. And you know something else? After we see that doctor and whenever he says it’s all right, whether that’s today or tomorrow or next month, I think we ought to spend a whole lot of time trying to make a whole lot of babies. What would you say to that, Mrs. Bebee?”
Mary Dell turned her face toward his shoulder so he wouldn’t see her embarrassing eagerness and smiled. “I’d say that sounds like a real good plan. And I’d say I love you, Donny. I’d say I love you something terrible.”