The most difficult year of marriage is the one you’re in.
- Franklin P. Jones
I
t’s raining. Of course. Why would it do anything else on the worst day of my life?
Eighteen-year-old Libby Dalton stared out the window, her elbows propped on the table, her chin buried in her fists. Stacks of boxes cast sporadic ghostly patterns on the wall as the lighting flickered through the rain beating incessantly on the windowpanes.
Within the hour, they’d be leaving home and family to live in some godforsaken place called Levittown, New York.
Was it only a month ago that Johnny burst into the apartment with his great news... the job offer, the chance to get out of Milford and into something he really wanted? How could she tell him she could not leave her family – her home – her life?
They - the blond, blue-eyed cheerleader and the handsome football player, had been sweethearts all through high school: elected homecoming royalty their senior year and labeled in the yearbook as Milford High School’s Cutest Couple.
It was the fifties, and life was sweet in small-town America. Elvis Presley was king, and his hit, “Love Me Tender,” had just hit the airwaves. At the senior prom, Milford’s cutest couple slow danced, lost in each other’s arms as the band played “their song.” Johnny’s soft voice crooned the lyrics in her ear, and Libby’s heart melted.
“Be careful,” her mother warned. “You know what happens to girls who don’t behave themselves.”
Libby had no intention of being one of the girls talked about in the locker rooms. They would wait.
But on graduation night, without a word to anyone, they ran across the state line and stood before a justice of the peace. They could wait no longer.
On the arm of her new husband, Libby proudly displayed her wedding ring to dismayed parents who saw their dreams - the football scholarship, the college diploma, the long, white dress and veil, vanish like bubbles in the air.
“Are you pregnant?” her mother asked when she got Libby off to one side.
“No,” Libby assured her, hurt at the suggestion.
It was fun at first, playing house in the tiny apartment where they never seemed to get enough of each other. Johnny worked full-time as a mechanic at Buckner’s garage and attended vo-tech at night, training to be an electrician. Libby waited tables at the local diner. The newness soon wore off, and as they stumbled over each other in the close confines of two rooms, they dreamed and saved for a house of their own.
Now, a year later, Libby was five months pregnant, sick every day and had to give up her job. High school friends quit calling the couple, who no longer had money for dancing and movies. Frequent arguments replaced words of love, as hopes and plans for the future dissolved into the empty frustration of barely getting by. Libby spent her days, and lately her nights, alone in the tiny apartment, suspecting that Johnny might be “fooling around.” Nobody works every night.
As she returned from another bout of morning sickness, Libby glanced in the mirror at the swollen body and unkempt hair.
Who could blame Johnny for looking around? What is there for him here? A baby coming, a fat, ugly wife and never any money.
Her mother fussed about the pale face and circles under her eyes. “You must take care of yourself, Libby,” her mother told her. “Think of your husband, think of the baby.”
That’s all Libby did think about - the baby... that impersonal lump inside, ruining her figure and making her constantly sick.
Then came the day Johnny told her about the new job in Levittown.
“We’ll be moving into a company house,” he said, his eyes shining. “It’s small, but it’s better than this dump.”
She nodded and blinked rapidly so he wouldn’t see the tears. She couldn’t leave Milford.
No one would be coming to say good-bye today.... It had been done last night at the farewell party. As Johnny hauled out the last box, she took a final walk through their first home, her footsteps echoing on bare wooden floors. The odor of furniture polish and wax still hung in the air. Faint voices filled the rooms as she remembered the night they waxed those floors, giggling and pushing each other, pausing in the middle to love each other. Two cluttered rooms, now cold and empty. Funny how quickly they became impersonal cubes as though no one had ever lived, or loved, there. She closed the door behind her for the last time and hurried out to the truck.
The weather worsened as they drove, along with her mood.
“It’s a big company,” Johnny said. “Levitton Manufacturing...electronic parts...a chance to get ahead....”
She nodded briefly, then returned to staring out the window. He finally gave up his attempts at small talk, and they drove on in silence, broken only by the squeaky thumps of windshield wipers.
As they reached the outskirts of Levittown, the rain stopped and the sun shone the warm light.
“A good sign,” Johnny said, looking up at the sky.
She nodded silently.
After a few wrong turns, they found their new home, and Libby stared solemnly at the tiny box in the middle of identical boxes, like Monopoly houses lined up on Oriental Avenue.
“Are you ever going to smile again, Lib?”
She climbed out of the cab and scolded herself. Grow up, Libby. Do you think this is any easier for him?
She wanted to say she was sorry, but the ever ready tears welled up and she turned away. Without a word, they carried boxes into the house, setting them down wherever they could find room.
“Sit down and rest, Lib,” Johnny said. “I’ll finish unloading.” She sat on a box and stared out the window. At least it stopped raining.
A knock interrupted her thoughts, and she opened the door to a girl about her own age, obviously pregnant, holding a small plate of cookies. “Welcome to the neighborhood,” she said. “I’m Susan, but everybody calls me Souie.”
They sat on boxes, eating cookies and comparing pregnancies, morning sickness and backaches. Souie was due in two months. Libby in four.
“I can come over tomorrow and help you settle in if you like,” Souie said. “It’s so good to have someone to talk to.”
Amen, thought Libby.
After Souie left, Libby glanced around the room with a new eye. I may need some blue curtains in the kitchen...
The door suddenly sprang open and Johnny ran in, hurriedly digging through the boxes. He pulled out a small radio, plugged it into the wall socket, and suddenly “their song” and the voice of Elvis singing drifted into the kitchen.
They heard the disc jockey’s voice over the music, “...and this request comes from a pair of newcomers in town. Congratulations to John and Libby Dalton on their wedding anniversary.”
Johnny had remembered their anniversary. She had forgotten. Tears streamed down her face, and the wall of silence and self-pity she had built around herself crumbled.
He pulled her up to him, and she heard his voice singing soft and sweet in her ear.
Together they danced in between the packing cartons, clinging to each other as if discovering love for the first time. Sunlight filtered through the window in the new house, and as she felt the first kicks of the new life inside her, Libby Dalton learned the meaning of love.
- Jacklyn Lee Lindstrom