My father Grady didn’t really notice my high school graduation. He was on the verge of breaking up with his sweetheart Ovaline.
I knew something was wrong but didn’t ask any questions. One day I saw Dad sitting on the edge of the front porch reading a letter. No one had ever handwritten a letter to him before so I suspected it had to be the girlfriend, either breaking up or pleading with him not to break up. Ovaline could have been described as a golddigger but in our low income neck of the neighborhood she was more of a hamburger digger.
Suddenly I was able to use the car on Saturday night for dating. If I hadn’t been a good Southern Baptist boy I would have broken out in a dance. Grady had finally gotten wise about Ovaline. My joy was tempered a bit because I didn’t want to see him slump back into his old ways of sitting home on weekends staring at the television.
Then along came Hallie.
Actually Hallie had been around for years. (Pay attention because we are entering into the complicated relationship realm of soap opera.) Many years ago when Hallie was a young Catholic woman she caught the eye of my mother’s Uncle Charley who already had a couple of kids with his current wife. This was 1930s Texas where decent people didn’t do things like that. Tongues wagged across town when Charley divorced, married Hallie and started having another brood of children. My mother’s family was horrified that this redneck temptress had stolen their dear sweet innocent Uncle Charley. Needless to say, Hallie was no longer welcome in the Catholic Church so she joined the Baptist church alongside Charley’s other kinfolk.
I had vague memories from the middle 50s that Mom was in a dither because she had to write Uncle Charley’s obituary. He had been her favorite uncle. I had an inkling that she even liked Hallie a lot. Kinda like whoever made Uncle Charley happy was all right with her. That’s why she wanted the obituary to be sympathetic. The last I heard about Hallie was that she was working as a waitress at a local café.
By the early 60s Mom died of cancer. Dad was fifty-two and spent two years just plugging away at his job and not enjoying life at all. Then he met Ovaline who was ten years younger than him and did a good job of making him feel ten years younger too. She worked at the same café, coincidentally, as Hallie.
I was left on the outside looking in so I didn’t know what was going on. It seemed like when the Ovaline Express derailed, Hallie was there to clean up the wreckage. I heard Dad on the phone confiding to someone (I didn’t know who, possibly his sister) that he would like to start seeing Hallie but that she was ten years older than him. What would people think, he asked his confidante. I thought the person on the other end must have told him not to worry about it if Hallie made him happy. It sounded like something my aunt would say.
I liked Hallie because she seemed much more interested in what I was doing than Ovaline ever did. Hallie had a sweet smile but she always said what she thought. Hallie dished the dirt on Ovaline. Before a date with Grady, Ovaline told the other girls at the café that she was going out with the old man to see how much money she could get him to spend. Another time Ovaline laughed about how she just barely got Grady out of the house before her new boyfriend showed up.
“I was so mad at her I could spit.” If thoughts could kill, Hallie would have murdered Ovaline with no regrets.
After they finally decided to be a twosome, Grady started to smile again. Hallie even had Grady bring me along on their dinners out.
“You order anything you want, and Grady and me will split a hamburger.”
I think she offered to split a hamburger as a crack about Ovaline.
Hallie was not there when I graduated from the local junior college, and she was mad at Grady for not inviting her.
“He had better not thought I didn’t want to go because I did. He should know by now I love you boys.”
She was definitely in attendance when I graduated from college two years later. And it was a hour and a half drive from home, definitely a major expedition for Grady.
Through the years she shared some of Grady’s private thoughts about me. He told her that I was the only one of his boys who never asked him for anything. I didn’t tell her, but I didn’t ask him for anything because he wouldn’t give it to me anyway.
They were very good for each other. They played bingo once a week. Sometimes she talked him into driving her to visit her children who lived all the way over in Shreveport. That was a good three hour drive. Mostly she cooked him a meal and they watched television. Then Grady gave her a little kiss and went home to his own bed.
They went to church every Sunday night. One time he had the motor running, ready to go home when Hallie kept talking to friends in the parking lot. She had the car door open ready to get inside but there was so much to gossip about she finally shut the door. Hearing the door shut, Grady thought she had gotten in the car and drove off. When he realized it was awful quiet in the front seat he looked over and saw she wasn’t there. He made a quick u-turn and went back to the parking lot where she was still talking.
They only had a few of differences.
“Grady! Do you have any life insurance? You don’t want Jerry to have to pay to bury you!
“Grady! You know if you don’t stop smoking those cigarettes they’re going to kill you!”
“Grady! You didn’t stop for that red light! Are you out to kill me?”
You’d think that would make him mad. But she had a cute way of being bossy, and it made him laugh.
Her biggest gripe was that he promised her that they would get married after all the boys left the house. The problem with that was my oldest brother had mental problems and couldn’t hold a job so he wasn’t going anywhere. When he finally died, Hallie thought her time had come but not really.
I told her she was better off having him over for supper and television and then sending him home. He did not have the best personal hygiene and I didn’t think she would want to keep cleaning up after him.
They did end up in the same nursing home. He was on one end of the building and Hallie was on the other. A day didn’t pass without her rolling her wheelchair down to his room and saying, “Grady! You better not be in there smoking one of them cigarettes!” Everybody in the home could hear him laughing.
Hallie was the first to pass away. After all she was the older woman. Dad didn’t lasted much longer than that. Grady had spent more time in Hallie’s company than he had with my mother. Most of his marriage he was out working while his retirement was all with Hallie. And she knew how to make him laugh.