(Continued)
We made it to Denver just in time, and wonder of wonders, the flight wasn’t canceled the next day. At the baggage terminal in the Norfolk airport, Bob held my purse and pointed out our luggage and ski gear as it plopped onto the carousel, piece by piece, and I scrambled to grab them.
“There’s another one, Honey . . . That looks like my ski poles . . . I think that tan suitcase is ours, too . . .”
One of the suitcases weighed about 50 pounds because it was full of Coors beer. Way back in ‘80s, Coors wasn’t available east of the Mississippi, so Bob had taken an extra suitcase to fill up with beer to bring home. That shopping was done before the collarbone broke, so not only was I saddled with all the regular luggage and ski equipment for two, but also a mini brewery. Why I hadn’t thrown it out of the car, along with my new husband, I can’t tell you.
We were quite the spectacle to the four uniformed sailors who snickered and pointed as I tried to grab and single-handedly load all of our paraphernalia onto a cart and steer it out the door. The load was so high that I couldn’t see or around it, so it wasn’t until I rammed into the door jam because the skis were crosswise that I realized I would have to unload the cart and re-stack it to get out of the building. After a second try, we breezed through the door, and Bob turned to the sailors and said, “Got her trained right, don’t I?”
Now, one might think that to be the low point of the honeymoon, but no. The low point of the honeymoon, if you consider “the honeymoon phase” to be part of the honeymoon, was yet to come. The low point had a name, and its name was Hilda. Hilda, my mother-in-law, who awaited us back at my new home. The woman whose son I had stolen, even though he was 39 (soon to be 40), and who had already been married once before. The woman who would later bring out the wedding pictures from Bob’s first marriage so that she could show me how cute his first wife was and to tell me how much she liked her, which was news to Bob. The woman who, after I had just given birth to her grandson, would tell Bob that I was too fat and that he needed to get me out and “run me around the block.” The woman who, when she died, would leave the silver to us, but also include a note that said, “To remain in the Kent family in case of divorce.”
Yes, that would be the low point. And I was clueless.
(Stay tuned for the final installment tomorrow....)
