eight: family dinners and spoken secrets

"My parents..."

Jeb bit his lip. "Wait. First, I should tell you that my brother googled you."

"What?"

"Is your father George St Georges?"

I nodded, slowly.

"He's a producer or director or something, right? That superhero movie with Chris Pratt?"

I nodded again. "Among others. I mean, he has an Oscar."

"OK, well, I saw the Wikipedia page."

"Well, I saw the Wikipedia page for your brother-in-law," I confessed.

"Guess we're even."

"But - just so you know? He's not me. I'm not secretly rich or anything."

"Ditto here," Jeb's voice was soft. "So what are you on the run from, Alice?"

I reached down to my phone and opened the browser. I scrunched my eyes closed before the bookmark could load and took in a couple of deep breaths. Then I handed it over to Jeb.

He was quiet for a long time. I forced myself to stay quiet even though every instinct was to rip the damn thing out of his hand and run, run, run...

"This is you," he pointed.

"Mmmm."

"But you're not actually...."

I shook my head.

"And they know that?"

I slapped my hands over my eyes so he wouldn't see me cry. "They know. They do. When my mom married Garth, I didn't even know about Biblical patriarchy or complementarianism, or evangelical vs charismatic, or prosperity gospel..."

Jeb glanced at his house and back at me. "You're talking Martian to me and we got maybe 5 minutes."

"Right. So after my parents divorced, my mom moved me back here - this is where she was from. She started working at that megachurch over in Kirby. Garth's a senior pastor - he and two other guys started the whole thing from a little one-room church. Anyway, when I was 10, mom and Garth got married." I paused, remembering the insanity of the day.

"Sounds like a trip."

"A really strange one. Garth had 3 older sons from his first marriage - she died. When I was like 14, Garth and mom told me about my future with the church and how Alonzo - Lonnie, the oldest one - had been given a vision that he was going to marry me."

"14? And he was...?"

"21. They said it would happen after I finished high school. I thought it was a joke. But it wasn't. Suddenly, Lonnie was everywhere I was..."

"You OK?" Jeb patted my arm, awkwardly. "Did he...I mean..."

"It was supposed to be "courting", which is what they do instead of date. But he was always there. He was always finding a reason to be touching me. I just avoided him as much as I could and kept myself busy outside the house."

"Jesus."

"The day I finally graduated, there was a massive argument. They expected me to set the wedding date and when I balked, Mom said it was immoral for me to live in a co-ed dorm and I was going to commute. She'd cancelled my housing contract. She said she would cancel my enrollment, too, because letting me go to a secular university had been a mistake. Unless I got married and Lonnie agreed to it. I was still 17 and, well, I pretty much burned the world down because I was so pissed off."

"Sounds like a reasonable reaction."

"Dad had given me a credit card for emergencies. I ran off to the airport and flew out to California. He helped me straighten out stuff with the university. Well, his manager Ari did. I don't know how, but my housing and enrollment were fixed and Mom never said a peep." I sighed. "He even arranged for Katie to fly out and spend the summer with us."

He glanced at the house and back to me. "And? Last Christmas?"

"I was supposed to spend Christmas with mom and Garth. It took mom and I years to get back to the point where I would even consider it. But it was Lonnie who came to get me. He told me he wanted to elope that night. Get 'physically married'. Matthew 19:5." I was shaking at the memory. It was still surreal.

"I'm sorry, I don't have all of the Bible memorized."

"Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. For some people, this defines marriage as the moment of...um...intercourse."

"Intercourse?" Jeb coughed.

"Yeah. This passage appears 3 times in the Bible - it is the only thing that really states what makes a marriage specifically happen. The next part of Matthew talks about what makes divorce. So..."

"So, bottom line, this Lonnie guy wanted to have sex."

I nodded. "He'd given me a ring when I graduated high school and he told me to put it on and come with him. That we would do the civil paperwork later."

"And I'm assuming you kicked him in the nuts?"

"Well, I ran into the dorm and refused to come out. Garth called me and I told him to get Lonnie away from me. But he didn't. Lonnie stayed out in the lobby for hours before giving up. For weeks after that, I looked over my shoulder. Stayed in public. I began spending a lot of time in busy places like the media center and Starbucks. Then, one day, Finn was getting off shift and offered to walk me to my car. You know the rest."

"Whoa. But Lonnie never actually..."

I shook my head. "No. But that's when I realized that I could absolutely not go home to Mom's house after graduation. So I began looking for jobs - but school art positions are few and hard to find. I had already quit the craft store for my internship. I was just...scrambling."

"Did you see Lonnie after that?"

"A couple of times, outside the dorm. He walked next to me and talked about our future like he could't hear me saying 'No. Go away'. It gave me the creeps. I stayed in the dorms over Easter and didn't go anywhere for Spring Break."

The door to Jeb's house flew open and some people headed towards us. Jeb sighed, "we'll talk more, later."

I nodded.

It turned out to be just Marco and Maggie and the twins, Peter and Mateo. Marco helped bring in the groceries and Maggie helped me navigate the driveway without smashing a toddler with my crutches.

Maggie unpacked the groceries with Jeb and then made dinner herself. I got the feeling that she kind of just did everything.

No one gave me the third degree over dinner. One of the twins sat in Levi's new high chair and the other sat in Maggie's lap. The boys had already eaten at the airport but they did decent damage to their second dinner. By the time the dinner was cleaned up, they were half asleep on the couch.

Maggie then turned and gave me a gentle smile. She was as gorgeous as I'd feared. And she oozed kindness. But she was direct. "Your father is a multi-billionaire producer in Hollywood and your mother is married to a famous Megachurch pastor, yes?"

I nodded.

"You knew?" Jeb's head turned to look at Maggie. "I just found out."

"My assistant can find out everything," Marco shrugged. "Alice, what worries me is that you were supposed to marry someone else yesterday, you're engaged to a pastor, and you're planning a wedding with Jeb for tomorrow. There's no logical explanation for that."

"I never agreed to marry Alonzo. Never. My relationship with Finn was a mistake from start to finish. I was in a bad place and I just grabbed him like a lifeline. I was stupid."

"You were weak," Marco argued.

"Dude," Jeb shot him a look.

"He's right," I put a hand on Jeb's arm. "I was. I don't know why. I'm not usually..."

"Can you go back to your mom if you don't marry Alonzo?" Maggie asked, her eyes locking with mine.

I thought about it. Then I slowly shook my head. "I don't think so. I mean, not if..."

"I get it," Maggie smiled gently. "If you were swept off your feet by some guy and married him then maybe your mom would still be OK with it?"

I pressed my lips together so I wouldn't give in to the feeling that I was about to cry. But my heart was singing. It was exactly like that. I hadn't even realized. If I just said no to Alonzo then maybe I would never get to be with Mom again. But if I said that God urgently called me to marry someone else...

"Do you plan to run out on Jeb and Levi?"

"No! No, of course not!"

"That's not the point, Maggie," Marco cut in. "The point is that she just wants to get married and she doesn't care to who."

"Excuse me? Maybe it was a lie but I thought I loved him!'

"You didn't, though," Marco crossed his arms. A general in search of a war, yep.

"Maybe not."

"Then that girl did you a favor," Jeb nodded.

"Let's not go that far," Maggie interjected.

"No. Let's not." I agreed readily.

"Jeb, we can delay London. Maybe re-schedule the dynamite and coordinate with a different contractor to manage the build site. Hire more security guards. Levi is more important than the schedule," Marco stated flatly.

Jeb boggled. I guessed it was an unusual thing for Marco to say.

"Jeb, you don't need to live a lie..." Maggie added.

"I won't be. We won't be. The state needs a marriage certificate for Alice to be the caretaker. Just a checkmark on a list. They straight up don't care about the reality as long as we have the paper and follow the rules until adoption. Alice is willing to be Levi's night nanny while I am commuting for the build. Plus she needs work and a place to stay while she gets her life together. You know me, Maggie. You pretty much raised me. I don't bullshit."

"No, you don't," her eyes were affectionate. "But then what happens? What if you don't get along?"

"I will only be here 2-3 days a week and frankly, Levi will be my priority. As long as Alice is good to Levi, we will get along fine."

"What if you get along TOO well and don't want to split up?"

"Maggie, it's all about Levi. I'm too young to..."

Marco coughed, loudly.

"Fine, maybe you two were ready at a young age. I'm saying that my life right now is about Levi. I can't see anything happening with Alice but if we developed feelings, I think we're both mature enough to know our priorities. Anything else, we'll address in real time. You good with that, Alice?"

I nodded.

"So you're doing this, huh?" Maggie sighed.

"Yes. But, seriously, you don't have to watch. It's just formalities."

She stepped back, startled. "Jeb! Even if it's just paperwork, it's a big deal. For as long as it lasts, you will be each other's person. Legally and practically. That deserves a picture of the occasion and a piece of cake at the very least."

Jeb groaned but his expression was good-natured. He'd known how it would turn out.

"Then we better get the boys over to the farmhouse and get some sleep. We've got a big day tomorrow," Marco stated, grabbing up shoes and slipping them on little, sleeping feet.

"We really do," Jeb agreed, shooting me an encouraging smile.

I nodded and tried to seem excited.

We were getting married.