Memories Monday -- Allison Makes a Suggestion

Ed’s sister Allison flew out here with our niece Courtney to pick out a bridesmaid’s dress.  All she’d had to do for Courtney’s brother Dylan was to send us his size for his tux.  She wasn’t pleased about the purple vest and asked if it had been “Pastor Parker’s” idea.

Cilla piped up, “She’s not a pastor; she’s a priest.  You can call her Mother Parker or Mother Kate or just Kate.  We call her Aunt Kate.”

I wasn’t sure if Cilla had been fresh or was just trying to be helpful.  Betsey’s opinion of Allison is “She’s such a big moron, Mother,” and Cilla has never disagreed with her.  I’d spent fifteen minutes talking to the kids about being respectful and gracious to guests and having good manners.  I would have said more, but their eyes had started to glaze over.

Then Cilla got an idea.  “Can we call Aunt Kate ‘Grandma’ after she gets married?  Please!  Please!  Please!”  (When Cilla asks if she can have another cookie, she says “Please!  Please!  Please!”)

“You’ll have to ask her, but I think she’d like that.”

Allison looked like she wanted to say something like her children had three grandmothers already (Janet, Allison’s husband Tony’s mother, and her father’s second wife, Missy), thank you very much, but Cilla started asking if she could please, please, please call Aunt Kate and ask her right away. 

 I said “Sure,” to her and to Allison, “Cilla is so intense.  It’s rather sweet, really.”  I don’t know if she believed me.  I’m sure she didn’t agree. 

After her interchange with Cilla, Allison stopped referring to Kate as Pastor Parker.  Now, when she talks to Janet, she calls her “your fiancée.”  That’s the good news.

The bad news is that when I had everyone over for dinner, Allison suggested that we invite Doug, her father, to the wedding.   “It would be healing.”

Ed snorted.  “I think we’re all pretty much healed.”

Janet didn’t say anything.

 I was afraid that Kate was about to say something therapisty, so I said, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”  But I was too late.

But Kate surprised me.  She talked like a regular person, albeit one who didn’t understand the situation or was just clueless.  “I think it would be very nice.  We’ll all share grandchildren.  It would be nice if we could all be friends.”

“What about Missy?”  Ed asked.  Missy is Ed’s stepmother.  She had been Janet’s best friend.  Janet once said that what she really missed after the divorce was Doug’s paycheck and Missy.

Janet shrugged.  “Why not?  We might as well be modern.  And it’s not like I care about him.  And we might as well ask your dad, too, Charlie, so all the grandparents can see the kids in their outfits.”  I wondered if she thought this up because she knows Doug can’t stand my father.  Not that she can either.

Later she told me that she really didn’t care, but she mainly agreed because she didn’t want to argue with Allison and, anyway, she didn’t think “the SOB would have the nerve to accept.”

But for some reason, probably because Allison got to him, he did. 

And because Cilla asked my father to please, please, please come, he accepted, too.