Missy looked at him. "There has to be a story in this somewhere. One that nobody ever bothered to tell Chip and me."
"I was down in Charleston, then," Wes said. "I'd been working there ever since I graduated from WVU. Chad called me and asked whether, if they came, Lena and I would put them up while they waited out getting the license and all. I told him that I could do better than that. I knew people around the courthouse by then. If they gave me a date, I'd have the judge prepped to waive the waiting period for good cause, so they could get it all done in one day. That's what they did. Drove down Friday, starting the first thing in the morning, the day after Christmas. Got the license. Married in the judge's chambers with Lena and me as attendants. The judge's secretary took the polaroid of the five of us. That was always his present to couples he married."
"They didn't even have the courtesy to call and tell us that they had done it," Gran said. Missy thought that her voice was the embodiment of "miffed."
"I called and told you," Wes pointed out.
"That's not quite the same thing."
"I called and told Willie Ray and Vera. I even called and told Bruce and Lily Jefferson. For that, I should have received a decoration for 'heroism above and beyond the call of duty.' "
Missy had a suspicion that there was more to this story than Uncle Wes was sharing with her.
From the expressions on Lenore and Chandra's faces, they had the same thought.
All three of them looked at their grandmother.
"I'm not going to tell you," she said. "If Wes wants to, he can, as far as I'm concerned. Keeping in mind that it will be from his perspective, of course."
Clara nodded, encouraging him to go on.
"Bruce and Lily, Don Jefferson's parents," Wes said. "Ever since he was killed, they had been trying to suck the life out of Debbie. Acting like vampires, trying to turn her into a white marble statue on his tombstone, labeled 'The Tragic Young Widow.' A perpetual monument to a dead boy. Willie Ray fought them; got her back into school. Backed her on going for a teaching certificate. But they weren't giving up." He frowned. "Vera and Lily were best friends. Vera sort of agreed with her. I'm pretty sure that for eight years, Debbie never went out on a date. It wouldn't have been worth the grief they would have given her."
Wes' frown was suddenly replaced by a wicked grin. "I don't know exactly what Chad did to persuade her that he was worth the grief they were undoubtedly going to give her. He wasn't quite that confiding in his big brother. But I beg leave to doubt the official explanation he made at the time, which was that the big bad spider enticed the dainty little fly into his web by offering to let her look at exploded diagrams of the brand new 1981 model year engines in place of the traditional etchings. They did not have the hypnotic effect of the up-to-date WVU Economics Department bibliography of readings on international trade policy I would have used in the same situation. But . . ."
"Dad!" Lenore said.
Her father wrinkled his nose at her. "Whatever it was, it worked and you now have an Aunt Debbie."
"In any case," Wes went on, "Let me figure. He graduated from WVU in December 1979, a semester early, and came back to Grantville to manage the garage after Dad's stroke. It was just before Labor Day in 1980 that he called to say that Debbie had agreed to marry him. That's the way he put it. Not that they were engaged. You've probably noticed that she doesn't have a traditional engagement ring. Don's parents made it very plain that she would offend them grievously by wearing one and Vera didn't think it would be 'appropriate' when Debbie had removed Don's rings so very recently."
"Look," Missy said. "I've always known that Nani didn't like Dad, but this is simply off the wall. Where did Mom get the ring she wears?"
"Chad got it for their first anniversary," Eleanor said. "Amethyst for her birth stone surrounded with opals for his. A wraparound for the wedding ring. Considering that he was salting away most of his money to be ready to buy the dealership when Lou Prickett got to the point he had to give it up, it was providential that both of them had stones that were reasonably affordable. Chad didn't have a lot of spare cash at the time."
Wes nodded. "The way Bruce and Lily, and Vera for that matter, reacted was more than a little 'off the wall,' to use your phrase. Sure, he was younger than Debbie, but not all that much. Three and a half years. Three years and eight months, to be exact. They went on about it as if it was a lot more. Debbie was a kid the first time she got married.