A Fighting Chance

First Comes Marriage

College was a whole new world for me. I had never been north or east of Pryor, Oklahoma. I had never seen a ballet, never been to a museum, and never ridden in a taxi. I’d never had a debate partner who was black, never known anyone from Asia, and never had a roommate of any kind. But the most remarkable part was that in college I wasn’t poor. I had sold my parents on the idea of college being free, and although it turned out I was a little too optimistic, I had my loans and a part-time job, and I worked all summer. I still kept cash in a white sock tucked in the back of a drawer, but now I knew I had enough to get me through each term. I had a taste of security, and it felt like heaven.

Two years into college, Jim Warren popped back into my life. He was the first boy I’d ever dated—and the first to dump me. He was seventeen and I was thirteen when we began dating; he was a high school junior on the advanced debate team and I was a freshman just beginning debate. Now he had graduated from college. He had landed a good job with IBM in Houston and was ready to get married. He told me I was cute and fun. Best of all, the guy who had dumped me said he wanted to marry me. He seemed so sure of himself, so confident about what life should look like.

I was amazed—amazed and grateful—that he had chosen me. I said yes in a nanosecond.

Less than eight weeks after Jim proposed, I gave up my scholarship, dropped out of college, sewed a wedding gown, and walked down the aisle of Oklahoma City’s May Avenue United Methodist Church on Daddy’s arm. It was the fall of 1968. I was nineteen.

Jim and I packed up his little sky-blue Mustang and moved into a small apartment in Houston. I got a temp job the first week. The money was good, but I wanted to go back to school. I still dreamed of being a teacher, and that meant I needed a college degree.

I now had what Jim jokingly called a “reverse dowry”—I owed money on my student loans from GW, even though I hadn’t gotten a diploma. But I had a plan. If I could finish college and get a teaching job, I could make a steady salary and the government would forgive some of those loans every year. The University of Houston was about forty minutes away, and tuition was only $50 a semester. I persuaded Jim that it would make sense for me to go back to school.

In 1970, just after I finished college in Houston, Jim was transferred to IBM’s office in New Jersey. Soon after we moved, I got my first real job, as a speech therapist for special-needs kids at a nearby public school. I was twenty-one, but I looked about fourteen. By the end of the school year, I was pretty obviously pregnant. The principal did what I think a lot of principals did back then—wished me good luck, didn’t ask me back for the next school year, and hired someone else for the job.

We had a beautiful baby girl and named her Amelia Louise, after Aunt Bee (Bessie Amelia) and my mother (Pauline Louise).

Jim thought life was just fine. He could support us, and we both assumed I would stay home.

I tried. I really tried.

For a while, I dedicated myself to making a home. We bought a converted summer house, slightly damp in the summer and freezing cold in the winter (my first lesson in the importance of insulation). But it was in our price range, and it had a magnificent rhododendron bush that made spring feel like a celebration. I bought a home-repair book, and with Amelia safely deposited nearby in her playpen, I set about changing my little corner of the world. I rebuilt bookshelves and taught myself how to refinish the floors and lay bathroom tile (only a little crookedly). At one point, I decided I could cover up the cracks in the bathroom ceiling by wallpapering over them. I learned the hard way that wallpapering a ceiling is entirely different from doing the walls; days later, I was still washing wallpaper paste out of my hair.

I sewed, and I tried to cook. In high school, I’d won the Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow Award, but the prize was based on a written test, not a taste test. (Ask me the butterfat content of heavy cream or how to tie off a lazy daisy stitch and I was golden.) For a wedding present, my mother had bought me a Betty Crocker cookbook, but cooking up those recipes day after day made me feel numb, and my attention often wandered. I gave us all food poisoning twice and set the kitchen on fire maybe four or five times. My daddy bought me a fire extinguisher for Christmas.

Amelia and I went everywhere together. She was an adventuresome baby—willing to eat anything, willing to nap anywhere. I loved her until my chest hurt and my eyes filled with tears. I wanted everything for her. But no matter how hard I tried, I felt I was failing her.