1966

As I lifted the lid of Mother's lovely teak wood jewelry box, I could not have known it would forever change my perception of her.  Piece by piece, I took the sleeping items from their resting place and turned them over in my hands.  This was not the first time I had wandered through the unique gold and silver flowers, scrolls, ribbons, bows and crosses that had been placed in the box over twenty years before.

Aunt Rene had been married to a man named Hoyle, a jeweler who had designed and sold his creations in the 1930's and 1940's.  Since gold was so rare during the war, most of the jewelry was fashioned from gold filled or vemeil silver.  Rene had given Mother most of the necklaces, brooches, pins and bracelets during the  years she was Hoyle's wife.  He and Rene had never had children, so they doted on Florene, the youngest sister.  It was Hoyle who introduced Rene's little sister to Mac.

Aunt Rene married again after her first husband died, and she and Uncle Buster had a daughter, Beverly, who was about ten years older than I, and the epitome of "cool" to my young mind.  Many a summer afternoon was spent in Beverly's bedroom ogling her big girl stuff and generally annoying her.  My cousin's hair was dark and thick and her teeth glistened silver with the bands and wires that promised a smile with straight even rows of pearly whites.  Completing her perfection was a pair of cat-eye glasses edged in rhinestones perched upon her face.  In her closet hung collared sweater sets in every imaginable color, and she had , in her top dresser drawer, the sweater guards to match each one.  I do not think she necessarily wanted me under her wing, but I flew there anyway, hoping "hipness" was genetic or, at least, transferable.

My first trip to a drive-in burger joint was with Beverly.  I suddenly became less of a nuisance and more of an excuse when she got her driver's license.  Of course, I was oblivious to the fact that I was merely a decoy so she could meet up with high school boys, but I doubt I would have cared.  Sitting beside Beverly, absorbing her "older woman" essence, made me feel like a bit actress in GREASE must have felt when the car hops on roller skates brought the burgers to the car windows and then everybody danced.

The little I knew about blue eye shadow and mascara at the time must be attributed to rifling through my cousin's seeming endless supply of make-up.  Mother wore very little and Daddy did not want us to look like hussies; so, the world of blush and eyeliner was foreign territory I knew needed exploring if I was ever going to get a date. No natural beauty, I.

It was because of my preteen obsession with my cousin that Mother had failed to tell me about her previous life.  Why I had never noticed the locket before, I cannot say; for, it had always been in her jewelry box, stored with the other pieces.  Maybe it was that I had never opened the little gold heart; did not realize it was a locket. On the afternoon in late August when I was off-handedly playing with her jewelry as Mother and I talked together in her bedroom, I picked up the necklace and began toying with the latch. The conversation was about my going off to the University of Texas in a few days and all we needed to accomplish to be ready.  Mundane. Mother-daughter talk.  "Oh, I didn't know this opened, Mother."

Mother was hem-stitching a skirt of mine and looked up to see what I was talking about.

"Who is this?"  The heart opened up to the face of a stranger.  He was very handsome, with a massive amount of black hair.  Somewhat disheveled, he looked as though he had been tossing a football with his friends and had stopped just long enough to allow himself to be captured in that manly moment.  His jaw was square and strong and there was not even the hint of a smile on his face.

"That is Mac, my first husband."  It was matter-of-fact.  Clearly I was supposed to know there was a first husband, but I did not.  My mind swirled as if I had just stepped, dizzy, from a Tilt-A-Whirl at the amusement park.

"What did you say?"  There is a woman I do not know who took a picture of her husband and wore it around her neck.

"Mac," she repeated.  "My first husband."

As I stared at Mac, my head began slowly to nod up and down, answering my own question.  Mother was married before Daddy? The thought created this empty space in my stomach, like an arbitrary punch to my abdomen had knocked the wind out of me.  "You were married before Daddy?"

Mother's hands rested atop the sewing in her lap as she met my gaze. "Yes."

"Why did you never tell me?"

"I thought Beverly told you a long time ago." Mother was stunned by my surprised reaction.

"Beverly?"

"Yes.  Irene introduced me to Mac, so I assumed Beverly knew the story and told it to you."

"There is a story?"  I wanted to cry, but I could not say why.

"Well, yes, there is."  Mother reached for the locket and looked at the man, her husband, the stranger.

"Do my sisters know about this?"

"I told them."  She told them but not me.  I do not understand.

"Oh."  I alone have yet to meet the woman who became my mother.  "What happened?"

Though I often wondered as I was growing up why my mother married my father, that day I understood who she thought she was.  The drama behind the tiny photo of the attractive man who had abused, beaten and left her revealed a woman I had seen glimpses of but never fully understood.  Daddy may not have wanted her, but he did not beat her.  Mac was hidden in her jewelry box, asleep behind a heart that had once gleamed bright upon her chest.