A Kick-Ass Fairy: A Memoir by Linda Zercoe Read Free Book Online Page A

eyes. He brought flowers, teddy bears, candy, and a different card each time he came. I wondered if he was he afraid he was going to lose me. Mom said nothing. I expected nothing good from her anyway. I had Dave.
    Dave was my best friend, funny and easygoing. He was the knight who rescued me every weekend in his shiny muscle car. He loved me. The summer before I graduated from nursing school, he proposed, and we made our plans to be married in a year. We smooched like crazy but never went all the way, saving ourselves. I knew God was watching and I didn’t want to deal with an accidental pregnancy—and worse than that, Mom.
    On the night before our wedding, Dad knocked at my bedroom door. He kissed me goodnight and said “I love you” for the first time. The little girl in me cried all night thinking, I don’t need to get married—Daddy loves me. The next day Dad walked me down the aisle of the Church of Christ the King in a pure white gown. There I met Dave standing tall in his powder blue tuxedo, so handsome with his dark hair now cut in a sexy style and his incredible blue eyes. So at age 20 we were married. The reception was at a mansion. Nancy, who I had remained friends with, was a bridesmaid, as were my sisters. I was truly happy. The wedding night was worth waiting for. And after four years of waiting, we could have sex anytime, and it was free, especially free of head garbage.
    The next day we left for Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard in our 1973 Firebird Formula 400. When we weren’t coupling, seeing the sights, or listening to the nonstop radio and television reporting on the death of “the King”—Elvis—I was battling a raging urinary tract infection, the notorious “bride’s cystitis.” It involved spending excessive amounts of time in the bathroom and trying to get an antibiotic prescription from another state over the telephone.
    We rented from Dave’s parents an old farmhouse, in Harding Township, that had been in his family since the 1800s, and furnished it from top to bottom like a doll house. I started working as a registered nurse. I started as a general medical/surgical nurse but soon progressed to neonatal intensive care, the newborn nursery, and postpartum. I really enjoyed the challenge of being a nurse, the problem solving, prioritizing, constant learning, and connecting with my patients. But my favorite part of the experience was being part of the patient care team and the camaraderie of that.
    Dave was a professional landscaper, welder, and heavy machinery operator. Our life was simple, very provincial. For me contentment came from cooking, doing laundry, the silkiness of my legs after shaving them, tending the vegetable garden, sewing, doing crafts, Wilton cake decorating for every occasion, going for walks or bike rides. After work, Dave was on call as a volunteer fireman in our little unincorporated village. For him, there was also hunting season—shotgun, doe season and bow season, fishing season, motorcycles, snowmobiles, trucks, reloading shotgun shells, painting cars. Typically, on Friday nights we went out for pizza or McDonald’s, picking up this or that at Bradlees or the mall after driving to the bank to deposit our paychecks using the pneumatic tube at the drive-up window. Saturday, I wrote checks to pay our bills. We had no credit cards.

    In the late summer of 1980, after three years of marriage, we went to have a Sunday barbeque at my parents’ house. Dad and Mom were having their usual pre-dinner cocktails out on the second-floor back deck off the kitchen. Dad fired up the barbeque, and as we were waiting for the grill to heat up I announced, “We are going to have a baby!”
    Mom choked on her cocktail. After catching her breath she shrieked, “I’m too young to be a grandmother! You have ruined your life—it will never be the same!”
    Dave and I held hands, taking turns staring off into the yard while I tried to bite back the tears that brimmed if our eyes