So Much Over the Years - Val's Story, Chap 11

The years blurred together.

Val met her husband-to-be just before that trip to Kenya in 2013, I believe, and they moved in together when she got home. Two years later, she bought a house, and a year after that, she married him.

Her husband was a nice guy, but just like Val, he was a hard worker and a hard drinker.

          They legally married at the courthouse before their hillbilly-themed reception the following weekend. Val’s biological father and a friend were their witnesses, and it hurt my feelings that I wasn’t included. In the big scheme of things, though, I knew she loved her momma with all her heart and hadn’t meant to leave me out. That's just how things turned out.

          The reception was held in the yard of a resort where her fiancé occasionally worked. The weather was beautiful, warm and sunny, with feathery clouds wafting through the blue sky. On the invitations, she asked guests to dress in their finest hillbilly attire, so everyone arrived in good spirits, sporting gingham skirts, cut-off jeans, and straw hats.

          But as the day wore on, different spirits took over. Beer and every other variety of alcohol flowed down everyone’s throats. Everyone, that is, except for me, my husband, and a few others. 

          I can’t remember what time we left for the hotel, but the party was just getting started.

          The next morning, when I drove back to the resort to help clean up, Val was in a miserable mood and declared it the worst wedding ever. Not only was she massively hungover, but she had fallen at some point and blew out her knee. The cabins they had rented for anyone who wanted to crash in them had been trashed.

          I sighed and got to work cleaning. I told myself she would figure it out one day.       

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Before that wedding, Val had adopted an adorable puppy, a Labrador /Rottweiler mix. Buddy was the sweetest, smartest, most chill dog I had known. He was around six months old at the wedding, but he curled up in a ball and slept or played fetch in the lake. Nick’s Lab mix Wesley was there, along with the elderly Lab belonging to one of the groomsmen, so Buddy wasn’t alone.

          A few years later, Val took in a Lab/Husky puppy. Bleu’s personality was the polar opposite of Buddy’s. He wasn’t a bad dog; he just had too much Husky in him. He got into everything, including the freezer drawer at the bottom of the refrigerator, helping himself to frozen steaks. He would climb on top of the kitchen cupboard to see what he could destroy there or tip over the garbage can.

          Poor Buddy would lie on the couch wondering what his younger brother was getting into now.

          Two years later, in 2019, Val and her husband bought a larger house with a larger yard. It needed as much work as the first house Val had bought, but they plowed into remodeling - when they weren’t at the bar drinking, that is.

          There were a lot of disagreements, which often led to all-out fights. Being the judgmental, know-it-all mother, I blamed all of their problems on their drinking. Once in a while, Val would agree with me and say that they had cut back on their drinking, but it never lasted. I had learned in Al-Anon that “cutting back” doesn’t work.