Thanksgiving 1980 was relatively quiet. Wrestling season had just kicked off, so Kyle was unable to make the trip home from Indiana Tech, where he’d just begun in his second year on scholarship. It was mostly a family affair at the farm, the lone exception being that Anne had brought her new boyfriend, Rich Tolbert, home to meet the parents. He was the first mate she’d brought home since Royce Holiday had disappeared into the night some seven years earlier. There had been a handful of other relationships, but none of them enduring. Someone named Chet, who only lasted three or four months. Another guy named Dave, whom Anne had met at a friend’s barbecue the summer she’d first moved to the city from Bellingham. As recently as the previous year, Anne had been seeing an older gentleman named Seth, a pilot for Continental Airlines, a relationship that was on again, off again for a year. But Ruth never met one of them. Anne must have really liked this Rich Tolbert if she was bringing him home.
“Make a good impression,” Ruth said to Abe as she readied the dinner table an hour in advance of their arrival. “Don’t start in with the politics.”
“Another hippie?” said Abe.
“I don’t think so,” said Ruth. “He’s some kind of investment banker.”
“That sounds promising.”
Upon first meeting, Rich Tolbert struck Ruth as morbidly awkward, though sufficiently polite. He seemed like a sensible enough fellow, very professional, and owned a house in Redmond. Though Abe eventually took a shine to him as the afternoon progressed, Ruth couldn’t quite understand the attraction. Rich Tolbert was nothing if not unremarkable. He was vaguely handsome but not virile. What was Anne thinking? At least Gonzo, for all his defects, had possessed a little pluck, a certain rakish charm, a cow-eyed mystique that lurked beneath the brim of his dirty hat. Rich Tolbert was all pointed eyes and elbows. His observations were pedestrian. His opinions were safe. Even his wardrobe was lackluster: pleated khakis and a white button-up shirt. At least he wasn’t wearing a bow tie. But in Abe’s mind, Rich Tolbert had one admirable quality that trumped practically all others: He was a Republican.
As dinner progressed, Abe, to his own satisfaction, methodically managed to lure Rich out of his shell and elicit his political sympathies.
“What do you think about all this economic policy talk, Rich?”
“Well, if you want to stimulate the economy,” said Rich, “you’ve got to offer people incentives. They can’t spend money if they don’t have it.”
“Exactly,” said Abe.
“It’s just common sense,” Rich said.
“You’re darn right,” said Abe. “And common sense is at an all-time low in the Oval Office, if you ask me.”
“Nobody’s accountable,” Rich said. “They just make excuses.”
“You’ve got that right,” said Abe. “That’s what America’s been missing the past twenty years, accountability, and fiscal responsibility, the kind of leadership that inspires confidence as a nation. No more kowtowing to Iranians, or communists, or anyone else. We need real leadership, someone to jump-start this economy, someone who believes in free enterprise and America putting their best foot forward. I’m tired of conceding on every front. Ruth’s man, the peanut farmer, he just hasn’t got enough backbone.”
“Baloney,” said Ruth. “You talk about fiscal responsibility and free enterprise, when really you mean cutting social programs.”
“There you go again,” said Abe.
“Now you’re just parroting the old boob,” said Ruth.
“C’mon, Ruthie,” pleaded Abe. “We’re talking about cutting bureaucratic fat here, not social programs. Am I right, Rich?”
Rich nodded his assent matter-of-factly, though also, Ruth noticed, somewhat apologetically. He seemed to know his audience, and he was losing Ruth.
“Oh, let’s not talk about politics,” Ruth said.
Rich was more than happy to concur and ate the remainder of his dinner in silence.
After the meal, Anne took her mother’s cue to join her in clearing the dishes and hauling them to the kitchen.
“He’s so quiet,” said Ruth, wiping a dish dry.
“He’s just shy,” said Anne. “Once he opens up, he has a lot to say.”
“Mm,” said Ruth.
“Dad likes him,” said Anne.
“Yes, he does,” said Ruth. “And I like him, too.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, of course.” But really, Ruth had to think hard of something nice to say about Rich. “He’s nice.”
When the dishes were racked and drying, Ruth and Anne joined Abe and Rich in the living room, where they were watching the news in silent tandem rather than conversing. Anne proceeded straight to the television and turned it off.
“Hey, what’s the big idea?” said Abe.
“Dad, Mom, me and Rich have an announcement. Rich, you want to tell them?”
Rich seemed mortified by the prospect. “You go ahead and tell them,” he said.
Ruth’s first thought was: Please don’t let her be pregnant with this guy.
“Mom, Dad,” said Anne, “Rich and I are engaged! We’re getting married in the spring.”
Though she was sure her disappointment was palpable, Ruth manufactured a smile. “That’s wonderful, honey,” she said.
“Congratulations, you two!” said Abe.
For all the worrying Ruth and Abe had done about Anne finding love after the unmitigated disaster of Royce Holiday, her last serious boyfriend, the news should have come as a relief. But it didn’t, not for Ruth, anyway. Something felt off, though Ruth was powerless to share these feelings with Anne.
In bed that night, after Anne and Rich had returned to the city, Ruth lay shoulder to shoulder with Abe as he skimmed the obituaries in the murky light of the bedside lamp.
“Well, that was quick, don’t you think?” said Ruth.
“When you know, you know,” said Abe. “I was half-convinced I wanted to marry you the night you humiliated me at the bowling alley.”
“Doesn’t he strike you as a little…conservative?” said Ruth.
“What’s wrong with that?” said Abe.
“I mean, for Anne,” Ruth said. “He just doesn’t seem like her type. He’s so…buttoned up.”
“Well, he’s no Royce Holiday, that’s for damn sure. I think we can both be thankful for that.”
“I suppose,” said Ruth.
“I don’t get it,” said Abe. “You don’t like this guy. What’s not to like? He’s polite. He’s responsible. He doesn’t bring a guitar to the dinner table.”
“He’s just a little…”
“A little what…?”
“Reserved, I guess.”
“So, what’s wrong with exercising a little restraint? Does everybody gotta yammer every time a thought takes shape in their head?”
“Maybe dull is the word I was looking for,” said Ruth.
“You said the same thing about me—to your friends, anyway.”
“Touché,” said Ruth.
“Look, Ruthie, maybe he’s not a poet. But he seems like good husband material to me, dependable, not full of surprises. He’s not the type that’s gonna run around on her.”
“I suppose you’re right about all of that,” said Ruth. “I just have a bad intuition about it.”
“Let it go,” said Abe. “She’s a big girl, she knows what she’s doing.”
By acknowledging her reservations about Rich Tolbert as a suitable mate for her eldest child, wasn’t Ruth essentially saying she’d made a mistake herself and didn’t want Anne to make the same one? The revelation stung. How could Ruth even entertain such a thought after twenty-six years of marriage? Abe deserved better than that. They’d both had their misgivings over the years, and yes, the long road of their marriage had been largely unpaved and full of potholes, but they’d made it this far, hadn’t they? Who was Ruth to want more for her daughter? Anne would be lucky to partner with someone as steadfast as her father. Maybe Rich Tolbert was Abe’s equal, and Ruth just couldn’t see it.
The wedding planning fell almost entirely on Ruth’s shoulders, and despite her reservations, she put her heart and soul into making Anne’s big day perfect. The ceremony and the reception were to be held on the farm, this being the one facet of the master plan that Abe approved of wholeheartedly, for even accounting for the Porta Potties, and the tables, and the chairs, and the tents, and the caterer, and the band, it was still considerably cheaper than renting Kiana Lodge.
Ruth held Anne’s hand through the entire sometimes overwhelming ordeal, helping Anne select the votives, and the floral arrangements, and the dresses for the bridesmaids, and the caterer, and the cake. Abe, meanwhile, wrote the checks, often begrudgingly.
“Why do we need a dance floor? The reception’s outside. What’s wrong with the lawn?”
“Sign the check, Abe.”
Abe’s protestations extended to the invitations, as well.
“The Duncans and the Jacobsons, sure, of course. But the Dolingers?” said Abe. “Why do the Dolingers have to come? I’ve never even met them.”
“Kenny Dolinger is Anne’s friend from high school,” Ruth explained.
“The smoker from the bowling alley parking lot, yeah, I remember. That was over ten years ago,” he said.
“Abe, stop it,” she scolded.
“Okay, fine, invite Kenny Dolinger. But why the parents?”
“Abe,” said Ruth.
“Fine,” he said, waving it off. “But don’t complain to me when our nest egg has dwindled to nothing and we’re living out of the station wagon.”
This exaggeration was, of course, patently absurd. The Winters were more than set for the future, from college, to weddings, to retirement and beyond. Abe had tucked 10 percent of their income aside from the start and invested wisely all along. The farm was nearly paid off and was now valued at four times what they’d paid for it in 1959. Abe was simply getting stingy in middle age. To his credit, though, he was willing in the end to loosen the purse strings, if only reluctantly, and get out of Ruth’s way.
Anne’s wedding was a late May affair, and the farm had never looked more beautiful or inviting, the cherry trees in blossom, the sprawling lawn still green from the rain, the flower beds brimming purple and pink and yellow. Miraculously, even the weather cooperated. They couldn’t have asked for more glorious conditions: sixty-five degrees and sunny, the kind of burgeoning spring magnificence that Californians took for granted, the promise of summer whispering upon its gentle breeze, the kind of rare and unseasonable occasion that never failed to inspire false hope in Western Washingtonians, who would have to wait until August for its actual arrival.
A hundred and fifty people attended the ceremony, the numbers skewing decidedly toward the bride’s side of the aisle, with the Tolbert contingent accounting for less than forty friends and family members situated on the groom’s side. The Dolingers were in attendance.
The altar stood at the foot of the orchard, where white cherry blossoms rained down like confetti, several collecting upon the shoulders of Pastor Dearsley’s stole as he awaited the bride and groom. Above him the sky was blue; beyond him, the pond, sheltered beneath the cedars, glistened with a glassy green sheen of algae.
From Ruth’s seat in the front row, Abe looked totally unprepared for the flood of emotions that overwhelmed him as he escorted his eldest daughter down the aisle, through the colonnade of fruit trees toward the altar, his face red, cheeks shiny with tears.
And when Anne and Rich took their vows, almost shyly, their sun-kissed faces radiating optimism, Ruth set aside her reservations in that moment and believed in them. In the light of all that beauty, their differences seemed trivial.
Ah, such a lovely day it had been: blue skies and blossoms, birdsong and boundless green grass! And that elusive grace; Ruth, too, had felt it in the air. Then came the reception, the dining, and dancing, and laughter, all the joyous harbingers of the wonderful days that lay ahead, the magnificent promise of a stable future spread out before them. Love had been indomitable that afternoon. And when the stars fell upon the merriment, the music echoing in the treetops, the children, up way past their bedtimes, hopped up on root beer and wedding cake, darting between revelers on the dance floor, harmony was all but assured.
A marriage is not built in a day to last. Rather, it is shaped gradually and methodically to withstand the ruinous effects of time and outside forces beyond the control of its principal players. Like all institutions, a marriage requires maintaining, and amending, for it is more than a binding commitment, it is a process, one that demands participation, a willingness to absorb, to accept, to reassess. Ruth didn’t need a marriage counselor to tell her any of that, she’d learned it in the trenches, and was still learning after twenty-six years. After the vows, and the bouquets, and the trip to Honolulu, marriage was mostly work.
Within nine months of Anne and Rich’s wedding, it seemed clear that they were headed for trouble, and barring any seismic shifts in their relationship, likely toward a divorce. While this situation elicited Ruth’s sympathy, it also provoked a significant degree of annoyance and antipathy. More than the dissolution of their association, it was the principles at stake that bothered Ruth: unconditional loyalty, devotion, responsibility, all those qualities comprising the covenant of marriage. Surely, Ruth and Abe had provided their daughter a sufficient example, hadn’t they? Or was it possible that Anne’s thoughts were informed by the enduring dissent that had marked Ruth’s marriage to Abe? Had Anne, in essence, having borne witness to this uneasy union her entire life, glimpsed the future in the form of her parents’ marriage and decided that wedlock was akin to a padlock? Had Anne resolved that the notion of growing old together wasn’t worth all the quibbling and ideological schisms that attended such an abiding obligation? Or was the decision simply a generational default? Had the American age of prosperity overindulged Anne’s generation? Had their “laissez-faire” attitude—as Abe liked to put it—toward everything from sexual mores to economics to religion spelled the end of traditionalism?
Anne’s disillusionment with Rich marked a turn in her relationship with Ruth, with whom she came to share her misgivings about her husband with increasing candor.
“He’s like one of those zombies,” Anne complained. “Four months of therapy, and we’re still going round and round in circles. What do I do?”
This represented the first time that any of her children had solicited Ruth’s input on a romantic matter. Certainly, Anne had never sought her guidance over the course of a half dozen boyfriends dating all the way back to the eighth grade. Though Ruth had never cared for Rich Tolbert in the first place, and the preceding months had done little to change her opinion, she felt nonetheless morally compelled to encourage her daughter to save the marriage.
“Revisit your vows,” said Ruth.
“We’ve done that already, Mom,” she said. “The contract is void.”
“Redraft it, then.”
“It’s hopeless, I’m telling you. He’s an immovable object and an irresistible force,” Anne said. “He won’t try anything new, not even in a restaurant. He orders the same thing from the menu every time.”
“He knows what he likes,” observed Ruth. “Like your father.”
“Does he, though?” said Anne. “How can he know what he likes when he won’t try anything? I swear, it’s like he was born fifty years old. He literally drives me insane. The way he chews ice, the way he sleeps with four pillows, the way he never talks about his job. I can’t take it anymore.”
“So, that’s it? You’re just gonna give up?” Ruth said. “A few bumps in the road and you’re ready to call the whole marriage quits?”
“Well?” said Anne. “What can I do? We’re incompatible.”
Ruth might have told her so, but she held her tongue. Instead, she could only offer Anne a different sort of tough love, which was to hold her responsible for her own part in the collapse of her marriage.
“I guess I thought he would change,” pursued Anne.
“You thought you could change him?”
“No,” said Anne. “I just thought he’d evolve.”
“Have you?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Sometimes marriage is a compromise,” said Ruth.
“Spare me the clichés, Mom, will you?”
Cliché or not, as far as Ruth was concerned, that marriage was a compromise cut about as close to the bone of matrimony as you possibly could. After a quarter of a century, Ruth knew this all too well, and she supposed Abe knew it, too. Where exactly was the crime in compromising? Was this who we’d become? A nation of self-serving egocentrics, our only allegiance to our inflexible ideals?
No, Ruth could not accept as much. If there was one thing that she and Abe could agree on, that had helped account for their longevity, it was this: Sometimes it was necessary to acquiesce, to tolerate and accept the beliefs or needs of others to achieve harmony. If everybody refused to concede the gratification of their will at every juncture, where would we find ourselves in twenty, forty, fifty years? Somebody had to build bridges across the divide.
Despite Ruth’s encouragement, Anne and Rich filed for divorce at the end of ’81, but it was already a foregone conclusion by then. The primary consolation of their bifurcation was that there were no children to muddy the waters, their split was not acrimonious, the property was distributed evenly, and all in all, it might have been much worse. Anne went her way, and Rich went his. Still, Ruth could not shake the feeling that on some larger scale the concession of their vows, like so many things at the dawn of that shiny new decade, was a small step backward for the institution of marriage.