What Were They Thinking?
31 Handfasting
I STIFFENED. And not in a sexual manner. My daughters were too young to be preparing for marriage. I was going to sit them both down…
“They’ve both taken home economics in school to learn to sew and cook. That nice Mrs. Abernathy actually teaches a little about managing a household. You should be proud that our girls are preparing for a future husband and home.”
“I thought you meant…”
“Oh, I’m sure Lexi is pure as the driven snow. Our little puttana, though… I’m sure she is sexing that boy, Brian. You weren’t concerned so I just let it go.”
“Lily, are you trying to aggravate me? Do not call my daughter a whore! Even if she were not ‘as pure as the driven snow,’ as you say Alexandra is, I am certain Samantha is saving herself for her intended.”
“They all broke up in October and Samantha was impossible to live with. Then suddenly, at the end of the month they are all happy and back together again. What do you think that means? I’ll tell you. Makeup sex.”
“They have an agreement. Boyfriends and girlfriends breakup and reconcile all the time. It does not mean sex.”
“Brian is seventeen.”
“So?”
“I discovered that seventeen is when the agreement removes the ‘no penetration’ clause. They are fucking.”
“Samantha is not seventeen. And if she made that decision at that age, I would defend it. Reserve your judgment, Liliana.”
She turned away from me and went to sleep.
And Brian became a television star.
Samantha was his first guest ‘girlfriend of the day.’ I didn’t see the finished segment until it aired a little more than a week before Christmas. They’d shown me an unedited version when I went in to sign a release for her so that I knew she’d done nothing embarrassing. Fifty dollars would give Sam some spending money for Christmas presents.
She went home with Brian. I followed. I knew enough not to just enter the Frosts’ driveway. It was potentially hostile territory. I knew how to move through this kind of environment whether it was an Asian jungle or an urban jungle. I moved silently through the fields without being observed. I used my binoculars trained on the house from behind a neighbor’s shed and soon enough, I saw them leave the house and go to the barn. She was certainly not in riding clothes but I knew she loved the horses and I was thankful the Frosts had a couple so I didn’t have to worry about finding and boarding horses for my daughters. As soon as they entered the barn, I moved quietly around the field to quietly enter the barn by a back doorway. If my daughter was fucking this boy, I would find out and bring it to a fast end. It made me more angry that she would break her agreement than that she might be sexually active.
A large horse turned his head and snorted at me. Then he went back to munching his hay. I thought at first I’d missed them and they left the barn already. Then I heard a sound from above and crept to the ladder up to the hay mow. I had one foot on a rung when I heard them.
“Brian?” Her voice was tiny and seemed far away.
“What is it, Cutie?”
“Why won’t Hannah answer my calls or letters? I miss her.” She is with her boyfriend and talking about missing her girlfriend?
“I don’t think her parents will let her. Honey, I miss her, too. I miss her more every day.”
“I think… I fell in love with her and I can’t stop.” My heart stopped. My daughter was confessing to her boyfriend that she’d fallen in love with a girl and was now brokenhearted. The statement was apparently news to Brian as well.
“My precious, precious girlfriend, I didn’t know. Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”
“I know you love her as much as I do. Probably even more. How do you stand it, Brian? How do you keep going on? I heard what you really said at the end of the tape this morning. It wasn’t a message to me or to the rest of us or to all the single and married young women watching the show. You told Hannah you still loved her, no matter what. I’m so proud of you. I love you.”
“I’m going to end every episode with those words, love. Maybe someday she’ll see one and know. But it goes for you, too. I still love you and I love you more every day. Please don’t doubt my love for you.”
That last bit I heard just before I left the barn and walked away, no longer concerned whether I was seen. I had a lot to think about. Yes, I was certain Sam was in love with Brian and he with her. With that kind of statement, I was no longer concerned about them making love. But that both were even more in love with Hannah… I didn’t know what that meant. Did they believe they could have a relationship like Hayden, Marilyn, and Anna? What about Anna’s daughter and friend in Kokomo? Or the other signers of the agreement? Parents had been kept abreast of the membership and there were nearly thirty of them now. Did they all share together? And then I wondered about Lexi and her little group. There were a dozen signers of their agreement and they had all agreed to abide by the same terms the older group had established as freshmen. Lexi and several of her friends were younger siblings of the older group.
I was uncertain what to do and found a tree in the woods that I could climb. I had city shoes on and they slid on the limbs. There was a slight frost but snow had not penetrated the canopy of this part of the woods. I climbed about twenty feet and settled onto a branch. Lily would be upset about the tear in my tweed jacket. I reflexively touched my shoulder holster to be sure my gun hadn’t slipped out. Nearly twenty years out of the army and I still never left the house without my pistol.
The army. In basic training we’d been sorted into barracks alphabetically. I doubted Joe’s and my buddy enlistment would have stood up if our names hadn’t been sequential in the alphabet. Five more recruits in this class and we’d have been split into different barracks. We listened to the talk, occasionally whispering to each other. Even in basic, we kept our voices low.
“Andy, what you gonna do in da jungle with Charlie chasin’ you?” There were several Andersons at the head of this class and most of them were black.
“Andy,” said his bunkmate, “I gonna close my eyes and shut my mouth. Charlie won’t see me nohow.” Nearly a third of the kids in that barracks never made it out of Vietnam. Joe and I were lucky.
I closed my eyes and shut my mouth as I sat up there in that old oak tree. I listened. Not just to the forest, but to my heart.
It was dark when I opened my eyes and tried to loosen my stiff joints. Everything was cold. The temperature had dropped significantly with the setting sun. I cautiously made my way down from my perch, managing to rip my slacks as well as scuff up my polished shoes. I looked like I’d… been on a sniper patrol.
But I’d made up my mind. Whatever was necessary, I’d protect, defend, and support my daughters.
“Happy birthday, my good little witch,” I said to my daughter. I promised Lily and Lexi that we would be back in time for birthday dinner. We got in the car and I turned it east on 30 toward Fort Wayne.
“Oh! We’re not taking the train to Chicago?” she asked.
“I promised we’d be back in time for your birthday celebration at home tonight. I didn’t want to rush your shopping trip.”
“Shopping? I’m going shopping?”
“Glenbrook Center seems to have everything anyone could want. Maybe we can have lunch at the L.S. Ayres Tea Room.”
“Papa! You would take me to the Tea Room? Isn’t that awfully girlie-girlie for a big macho Spaniard like you?” she teased. I’d seldom seen my daughter as happy as she appeared today.
“I’ll have you know that I have completely mastered the art of using a knife and fork,” I growled. “When did I become Papa instead of Daddy?”
“Oh. Um… Well, we kind of adopted it as the way we address all the parents in the dating group. Those we see most often at least. Of course, the first were Papa Hayden, Mama Marilyn, and Mama Anna. But, you know… All the parents have been so good to us in the dating group that we can’t help but feel like they are all our parents. Some more than others, of course, but our own parents especially.”
“What other Mamas and Papas are rocking your world? ‘And nobody’s gettin’ fat except Mama Cass.’” I sang.
“Papa! Cassie is not fat. And she’s not a Mama.” I think she was being deliberately obtuse. But The Mamas and The Papas hadn’t released an album in nearly twenty years. Maybe not. “There’s Papa Paul and Mama Amanda, Brenda’s parents. They’ve been like mama and papa since we were in grade school. And Papa Rex and Mama Maria are always helping out at the lake or at school events. We all talk about Papa John and Mama Bea, but none of us are brave enough to call them that to their faces. But really, they’re nice people. I heard Brian call Mommy Mama Lil when he came to our house for the premiere of Young Cooking.”
“Hmm. Mama Lil. I might try that on her as well.”
The shopping date with my eldest went well and she was a bit more extravagant in her purchases than Lexi had been at thirteen, but as she explained to me, “I’m not growing any longer. This is pretty much the shape I plan to be for the next twenty or thirty years.” If she managed that, she’d be as stunning at forty as her mother was. Eventually, we found our way to the Tea Room and talked. I managed to bring up the conversation I wanted to have with her.
“So, you’re all grown up now. I suppose you’ll be getting married soon.” She glared at me.
“Papa, you know that’s not going to happen. I’m in love with a boy who has seven other girlfriends, and I’m just as in love with all seven of them.”
“Plus Hannah,” I said softly. Her lip quivered.
“She’ll come back to me. I know she will.”
“And Brian?”
“She’ll come back to both of us.”
“You are seventeen now. I know what your agreement says. I want you to know…”
“Papa!” she said sharply. “Just like when I was fourteen, the agreement has always said what we could do, not what we have to do.”
“I understand but you are so close to Brian. How often do you spend the night there… with your other girlfriends?”
“Hmm. Not often enough. Thanks for reminding me,” she giggled. “Daddy, um… Brian says we should never be embarrassed to talk about anything with our parents and if we are, it means we must have done something wrong. I haven’t done anything wrong and I don’t plan to. It’s still a little uncomfortable talking to my father about girl things, but that’s your problem, not mine.” She took a deep breath. “No matter what Mom thinks, I’m a virgin. I plan to stay that way until the day I give myself to Brian. No, Daddy. There is no doubt in my mind that Brian is my true love—as far as boys are concerned. He’s a virgin, too, you know? There is also no doubt that I love Hannah… and probably Jennifer and Courtney. I know it’s not the way you were raised, but we will all be lovers. I know it.”
“I just don’t want you to be hurt.”
“Any one of them would die before they hurt me. Do you understand? They’d die for me.”
I got it. It wasn’t just that they considered Brian to be their hero for whatever reason, I didn’t know. They considered each other to be their heroes. I just nodded.
“Just because I’m seventeen, doesn’t mean I’m going to jump into bed and make love to Brian. Whitney won’t be seventeen until May and no one is going to jump in line ahead of her.”
“You mean you’ll let Whitney claim your lover?”
“She gets to be first. This summer, all bets are off. Only…” She looked down at her nearly untouched salad. I thought I saw the sparkle of a tear in her eye.
“What is it, my little witch?” I asked. I lifted her chin with my finger and saw her lip quiver.
“I won’t ever get married in a church like you and Mom did or like Uncle Joe and Aunt Isabella. The girls have been talking a lot about what it means to be a part of what we are. Oh, Nicolette and Cassie haven’t decided if they are or they aren’t. But Jennifer, Courtney, Rose, Whitney, Liz, and me. And one day Hannah. We will be part of a plural marriage. Each of us will celebrate their union in their own way. Whitney has been planning hers for two years. We’ll all be part of one family and we’re going to go wherever we go together. I just want… I’ve always dreamed of having you and Mama and Lex with me when I make my commitment public. I just hope you’ll be willing to stand with me and give me your blessing when the time comes.”
The time came all too quickly but was still much longer than I expected. Samantha and Brian made their intention known in September. They were going to have a ‘handfasting’ as they called it, and asked us to be present with their clan.
Hayden’s prediction was coming true. The kids were creating their own society and structure. They made certain that everyone knew that in their culture a handfasting meant the couple—or more—had made a long-term intimate commitment to each other.
I spent a good bit of time in the library and when I didn’t find what I wanted, I went to Chicago and spent time in the library there. The tradition of handfasting went back to the twelfth century in England and was a public declaration of marriage without having a priest present. More recently in both the United Kingdom and America, the neo-pagans had adopted the term for their marriage celebrations. It was not considered a legal marriage in most states unless common law marriage was accepted. Only eleven states recognized common law marriage in 1989. Indiana had banned common law marriage in 1958. Illinois all the way back in 1905.
So, whatever they called it, they weren’t going to be married. They weren’t going to use the terms husband and wife, either. Polygamy in any of its forms was outlawed in the United States by the Edmonds Act in 1882. All fifty states had laws against it, but all the laws relate to multiple legal marriages.
I went to see a couple of experts.
“They don’t present themselves as married. If they did, it would be fraud,” Rex Davis said. He was one of the two lawyers in the room. The other was Jean Duval. His daughter was the most mentally unstable girl I’d ever met, but she seemed to be at home with the ‘clan’ as they were calling themselves.
“We’re working on a legal definition that will protect them,” Jean said. “There’s no question in my mind that they are forming something that they consider permanent. The problem is most of them are under eighteen, so they can’t sign a contract or legally binding agreement. But even my daughter talks like she plans to be with them for a long time.”
“This is all based on that agreement they wrote, isn’t it?” I asked. “I wonder if I’d been so accepting of it if I’d realized it then.”
“We all are asking ourselves that question. Brian has entered into this relationship with my daughter and four others girls. And two of the girls have entered it with each other. They aren’t the only ones, though. Carl, Brenda, and Louise have committed to each other. The ones I don’t quite understand are Doug, Rhiannon and Doreen. Doreen is Doug’s sister. I talked to them directly. A brother and sister in this kind of relationship is illegal everywhere under terms of incest. That’s a level five felony. I talked to them and they profess that their intimacy is not sexual with each other, but that Doreen and Rhiannon are sexually intimate. That’s been legal since 1977 in this state. Even if Doreen and Doug were sexually intimate, it would require an irrefutable witness to testify against them. Unless there is a public act or a child with the same DNA, it would be almost impossible to prove,” Rex explained. “The kids aren’t legal experts, but they’ve done a lot of research. I believe most of the research and organization has been done by the girls involved. The boys—wisely, I might add—let the girls decide what the rules are.”
“What we are trying to do is protect them all. It’s tricky,” Jean added.
“They call themselves cónyuge,” I said. “That’s Spanish for ‘spouse’. Are they at risk from that?”
“There is no legal definition of cónyuge in the United States.”
I went home to ponder the issue and suggest that Samantha invite her novio to dinner. It irritated me no end that they used only the female form of the term, ‘novia,’ regardless of the gender.
It also irritated Lil. For very different reasons. She held very narrow definitions of relationships. She could not call her daughter a whore, puttana, but was still convinced this made Samantha a sgualdrina, or slut. I needed to put an end to this and rein in my wife.
“So, Brian,” I began as we sat in the family room after dinner. “Are you prepared to care for my daughter and keep her in the manner to which she is accustomed? How do you plan to support your family?” I needed to press him on this and find out if he was serious.
“Well, Mr. Cortales…”
“I understand there is a terminology that is in use. Since I’m to be your new father-in-law, you can call me Papa Sly.”
“Papa Sly. I’m going to be blunt. The only thing that is changing in my relationship with your daughter is that we are going to have sex.” Lily practically fainted and Lexi was giggling. “In your family, I understand that might imply marriage and a financial contract to support her for the rest of her life. In our clan, every individual is responsible for him or herself. We enter into a loving contract to physically and emotionally support each other, but there is no legal or financial obligation between the partners. For example, I do not and will never have any claim against the trust you set up for Samantha when her grandfather died.” He had the details wrong. It was Little Joe who set up trusts for both Samantha and Alexandra when they were born. The trusts were very generous. I was surprised that he even knew about it.
“Well, the terms of that trust are very clear…”
“I don’t want to know about the terms of her trust,” he broke in. “They are of no interest to me. I have no claim against it, no matter what Samantha and I do together. Unless you intend to disassociate yourself from your daughter and cut her loose, Samantha will continue to live the life she has become accustomed to for as long as her relationship with you remains that of a loving daughter to her parents.”
I looked at him hard and he didn’t flinch. It was too much and I burst out laughing. I laughed hard and Lexi started giggling.
“Sylvester!” Lily cried out. “It’s not funny!”
“Yes. Yes, it is, my loving wife. Our daughter. Our virgin daughter has allowed us to be part of her new family. In spite of all the ways we have—you have—accused her of wantonness and sexual promiscuity, she has given us the opportunity to witness her handfasting to the boy she loves and to make us a part of her new family. My conscience screams at me to make this occasion one of joy for my daughter. We are done questioning her decision. From now on we will pray for her continued happiness with her cónyuge.” I held out my arms to Samantha and she rushed to me to hug me.
“Daddy, thank you!” Samantha said.
“Brian, my son-in-law to be, you are right that you have no fiduciary responsibility for my daughter. But you have something much more important. You hold her heart in your hands. If ever that heart is broken, I will call on you and our conversation will not be so genial.”
I had a little relationship repair with Liliana that night but I was convinced. My daughter loved this boy and I knew that he had been and was an honorable man. I would consent to their handfasting and present her to her intended on their special night.
It was a special night, celebrated at a bonfire in the Frosts’ back yard. Lily and I attended and gave the couple—the whole clan, I suppose—our consent and support.
Red-robed girls processed from the barn. Samantha, dressed in green, rode side-saddle on a beautiful horse that Lexi led.
Brian went to her side and lifted her down. They kissed and everyone gathered—their clan and their parents—could see this was serious.
“Dearly beloved,” Rose began. Lily lost it and began to sob. I admit to tears flowing from my eyes. “This isn’t a wedding in the traditional sense,” Rose said when the rest of the group recovered from her joking statement. “I am honored to represent Brian’s cónyuge and compañera, the hearthmates of Casa del Fuego, to welcome Samantha and Brian as cónyuge. We’ve decided to call this ceremony a handfasting. Each of us dressed in red have had our own private version of this ritual, but this is the first that is witnessed by our whole clan and by Brian’s and Samantha’s families. We also welcome the younger clan to our midst.”
I realized that not only Lexi but all the members of her agreement group were also present.
“We are here with all the members of our clan as well. We’ve been discovering what this is all about for three years now and this is the first time we’ve done something like this with all of us together. It’s like being formal about it. So what is a handfasting? Well, simply put, I’m taking Samantha’s hand and putting it in Brian’s.” She followed words with action. “Samantha and Brian, like the others of us dressed in red, are committing to a long-term, intimate relationship with each other. We don’t bind each other together ‘until death do us part,’ even if that is the hope we have in our hearts. We just say long-term. We don’t say sexual, because we’ve come to find out there is a whole range of intimacy that people have. Though rumor has it that Samantha will no longer be a virgin in the morning.”
That got to everyone, but the younger clan members seemed to think it was extremely funny.
“Brian and Samantha, your casa—your hearthmates—love you. Your clan—your cousins—love you. Your families—your parents—our tribe—love you. And you love each other. The thread I tie around your joined hands can’t hold you together.” Rose tied a red thread around their grasped hands. “In fact, there will be times when having your hands together like this would be awkward at best. As soon as you release your hands, the thread will break. But that doesn’t mean that your relationship breaks. What holds you together is your love and your desire for one another. I’m not asking you questions or vows. You wouldn’t be standing here if you hadn’t already made your commitment to each other.” They broke the thread and Samantha caught it to tie around her wrist. “There is no pronouncement. As you can tell, even ‘kiss the bride’ would be a little late. We do have one symbol, though, that is special to us girls.”
The girls we’d come to know as ‘the Kokomo girls’ untied Samantha’s robe and pulled it off. Under it, my daughter was wearing a red robe.
“Now we can all celebrate the joining of hands of Samantha and Brian with food and drink and dancing,” Rose announced. “And kissing. Lots of kissing.” Brian and Samantha kissed. Lily was sobbing beside me and I pulled her into my arms and kissed her with more passion than I intended.
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