Gerry's description of what he would be expected to do didn't seem too bad. A little tedious maybe, but not bad. Chip listened for a while; then started to retaliate with an equal amount of sententious advice for Gerry.
"You really ought to take at least a few law courses," he said. "Lutheran pastors have to sit on consistorial courts, sometimes. I expect that will keep on happening as long as any of the territories in the USE continue to have state churches. You might as well resign yourself to learning this sort of stuff as well as theology."
Gerry groaned dramatically.
"I mean it," Chip said. He waved his hand toward the sidewalk. "Look there. When Uncle Wes married Clara over in Fulda, I looked up some of the background, and it can get really complicated. Up-time, one day you weren't married; then you got married; the next day you were married all the way, so to speak. Here, there are centuries of accumulated laws, some of them civil, some of them canon, some of them customary. And at least a half-dozen different stages of being married, depending on the jurisdiction. When couples start fighting, the marriage courts—and there are pastors serving on those, too—have to sort the tangles out."
"So that's where the negotiations stand on the marriage contract right now," Chad was saying to his mother. "Dieter von Thierbach has brought up a lot of issues I never would have thought of. Sometimes I long for the 'good old days' when two people just went out and got married."
His wife Debbie shook her head. "They didn't, quite. There was 'going steady.' Letter jackets. Class rings. 'Engaged to be engaged.' There was a song my father used to play. 'Me and my girl are goin' steady, We're not married, but we're gettin' ready.' Maybe we didn't notice it, didn't think of them as 'betrothal rituals,' because we were used to it all."
She turned, hearing a sound at the door. Katerina, the other half of Chip's future marriage contract in person, coming down late. "Why don't you go on into the kitchen," she suggested. "It will be more fun for you with the younger women."
"Hey, Katerina, come in," Missy called from her perch among the pie crusts. "I can use some company. This is our cousin Chandra. Lenore is over at Bryant's sister's." Missy proceeded with the pie crusts.
About fifteen minutes later, Debbie shooed Katerina outside to join Chip. "Go out with the guys," she said. "This kitchen isn't all that big to start with, and it's getting crowded. They're around in the side yard."
"Poor kid," Missy said. "I sort of like her, but talk about a fish out of water."
"They're not likely to settle in Grantville. The kind of career that Chip's aiming at, she'll be in her normal habitat ninety percent of the time, at least. And, as your dad says, a real asset to him."
"Hey, Katerina, come on," Chip called. "I've got more family for you. Meet my uncle, Wes Jenkins, and his new wife, Clara. And Mikey, he's Chandra's oldest. She managed to get the other three down for naps right after she got here, or they would all be out here running us ragged. Plus Ron and Gerry Stone. Ron's sort of informally attached to Missy and Gerry is his brother. Uncle Wes, this is my just-about-to-be-a-fiancée Katerina."
Wes smiled. "I would offer to shake hands," he said, "except that I am carrying two dozen eggs."
Chip turned to the older woman. "I guess you're my Aunt Clara now, aren't you."
She smiled. "Oh, yes. Though I have been someone's Aunt Clara for many years, already." Clara stood on her tiptoes, kissed Wes on the cheek, took the eggs from his hands, and said, "Have fun with Mikey. I'm going to run in and help Debbie and the girls."
Chandra looked out the window, noticed that Mikey had diverted Grandpa and Clara as well as the boys for a visit to the swing set and that Katerina had found them. Then she sighed.
"Aunt Debbie?"
"Yes."
"Have you noticed anything different about Lenore, lately?"
"Like what?"
"Lenore's quite a bit like Mom, you know. She's never been right up front when it comes to expressing her own opinion about anything."
"Yes." Debbie sighed. "Every Thanksgiving, when we were deciding who would bring what, Lena would always say, 'everybody else pick and I'll bring whatever is left on the list.' "
"That was Mom. Sometimes, at dinner, Dad would ask her questions for fifteen or twenty minutes trying to find out if she actually had a preference about where we were going on vacation or what color car they should buy. He was always awfully patient about it. More than I was, once I got into my teens," Chandra admitted.