Crude Awakening

By Christine Holly

Christine Holly is a small-town girl from Maryland’s Eastern Shore, raised in a conservative home in a family deeply affected by the death of her sister at a young age. She meets and falls in love with a younger man, an Oklahoma farm boy whose prominent family owns substantial land and oil wells.

She marries, CJ, her “Prince Farming,” and moves to the Plains to become a devoted farm wife. Her fantasies of an all-American agrarian life soon become nightmares when she discovers her new relatives are not the wholesome crowd she perceived. She finds herself thrust into a twisted drama of dysfunction, aberration, and shocking revelations that make her question her future—and her own sanity.

In Crude Awakening, Holly narrates a fictionalized account of her experiences as she’s extracted from her staid and stable environs and moves into a crazy and chaotic environment with her new family. She tells of mustering the courage to leave her marriage and her dreams behind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Dec 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781480895553

Christine Holly

Christine Holly now lives along the Chesapeake bay, where she is building her career in the beauty industry.

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Copyright © 2020 Christine Holly.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9553-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9554-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9555-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020917110

Archway Publishing rev. date: 12/08/2020

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 An Engagement

Chapter 2 Making Plans

Chapter 3 Wedding in Jamaica

Chapter 4 The Move West

Chapter 5 Jack’s Wedding

Chapter 6 A Meaty Situation

Chapter 7 Family Drama

Chapter 8 Christmas on the Chesapeake

Chapter 9 Shower Scene

Chapter 10 Losing my Friend

Chapter 11 Stretched to the Limit

Chapter 12 They’re Swingers?

Chapter 13 Crazy Erin

Chapter 14 Below the Belt

Chapter 15 Losing my Pets

Chapter 16 Dirty Jack

Chapter 17 Where’s Oliver?

Chapter 18 Moving On

Afterword

About the Author

Dedication

To all those who have been betrayed,

and survived to write about it…

CHAPTER

1

AN ENGAGEMENT

S eagulls cried out overhead as they floated on the soft, May breeze. White clouds moved out toward the Atlantic as the sun beat down on the pavement. My boyfriend, CJ was on bended knee, looking up at me as the marquise-cut diamond glittered in his hand. We had come to the very spot where we had met a year and a half before: a quiet street in an upscale, shoreline neighborhood in Baltimore. I had been walking a client’s dog when I first spied the twenty-two-year-old, swarthy landscaper.

Christine, will you marry me? he said.

I looked in his hazel eyes as joy swept over me. I was crazy about this tall, handsome young man from Oklahoma, nearly eight years my junior.

Yes, I said, my face feeling like it would break from smiling.

I was thirty years old, and my life was off and running, running down that neatly trimmed boulevard and out toward the Great Plains, for I knew I would be moving to CJ’s home state. As he stood and took me in his arms, I looked to the west, where wide open spaces and clean, country air could only promise freedom and everlasting happiness. I couldn’t wait to get there…

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I was raised in a small town along the Chesapeake Bay, the youngest of three girls. My father, who was deaf due to contracting meningitis when he was two, worked nights in the printing department of the local newspaper and my mother was a homemaker. My parents had come from divergent backgrounds: Mom was from a tiny town in the hills of rural, western Maryland and Dad had grown up in the District of Columbia. They were conservative, hard-working people who attended a small Baptist church that seated a hundred or so. My sisters and I had a strict but secure and loving home—until life took a horrible turn when I was four or so.

My middle sister, Beth, was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of six. My parents were terrified as my oldest sister, Carrie, and I struggled to understand what was happening. Couldn’t the doctor simply give her some pink medicine and make her better? Our lives began to revolve around my gravely ill sister. I recall sitting in hospital waiting rooms, coloring and drawing endlessly as I waited for my parents to come out of Beth’s room. Sit here and be quiet, they would say. And that’s what I did: I sat, I was quiet, and I colored in a frenzy until the crayons snapped in my hands.

Beth passed away one day before her tenth birthday in 1980. I was seven years old as I stood on that mountainside in Allegany County and watched her casket being lowered into the ground. The cold November wind whipped around us, bearing my childhood away across the valley of the shadow as my grieving parents fell apart. I cried, too, even as I somehow was convinced that Beth would come back someday. Death’s permanence was beyond my young capacity for understanding, as was one other sad fact: from that day forward, the four of us left behind were irretrievably shattered as a family unit. I didn’t know it, but emotionally I was on my own.

CHAPTER

2

MAKING PLANS

I grew to adolescence as my parents grieved, at times oblivious that Carrie and I had lost someone dear to us as well. My sister, nearly in her teens when Beth died, began to rebel and seek the happier environments of friends’ homes. I tried to remain dutiful to my parents as I searched for identity. I was a girly-girl. I loved bling and anything that sparkled. I especially loved my jazz dance costumes and all the flair. I also loved animals.

My father was not a drinker. My parents had been teetotalers for the most part, especially my mother, who was a Baptist. I recall one evening before my sister died where my dad came home drunk, after blowing his paycheck at the local bar. My mother confronted him, telling him that it was either the bottle or us. He chose us, if only to appease my mother. I never forgot the day my mother issued that ultimatum. It defined my own attitudes about drinking in many ways, although I was unaware of one critical element: ultimatums don’t always work so easily.

I attended community college where I studied psychology, thinking of an advanced medical degree of some kind. Eventually my plans changed, and I quit school and worked as a security guard. I also started my own pet- and house-sitting business, which ultimately led to my meeting my future husband.

When I saw CJ that day in the neighborhood where I was working, I was instantly captivated by his broad shoulders and his tan skin. It was one of those chemical, love at first sight attractions. I saw him standing there in the street near his work truck, talking to a client, and I knew I had to make contact. I approached him on the premise of wanting his card for one of my clients. I’m sure my smile and direct eye contact gave me away. Two days later he called me and we had our first date.

We developed an easy rapport, hanging out at my house located in a small town in Anne Arundel County. We enjoyed going on weekend excursions as well as taking in the Baltimore night life. CJ told me all about his upbringing in Oklahoma, and that he intended to return and work on his family’s farm. I told him all about my life and in time he met my parents. I even took him to the mountain town where my mother grew up. We fell in love rapidly.

Though CJ was several years younger than I, we had no problem communicating in general. During the thirteen months we spent together prior to our engagement, we had one life-altering argument. He had driven my SUV one night when he went out with some co-workers. When he arrived at my place, he was clearly drunk and I reprimanded him for driving my car in his condition. I had expressed concern for his drinking prior to that evening, but had put it down to his being young. After the car incident, I issued an ultimatum: it was alcohol or me. CJ stopped drinking altogether and agreed to attend AA. By the time he asked me to marry him, things were going smoothly.

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CJ and I began to talk wedding plans immediately. For me, things were simple in that I had never in my life wanted a big wedding with a fleet of bridesmaids. A simple ceremony with my family was sufficient and CJ agreed. The issue was location, of course. His folks were several states away. We considered a halfway point for both families, but that would put us in Indiana, and I didn’t have any idea about venues. Besides, it still required a lot of planning and coordination.

After some searching, I happened on the idea of a destination wedding. I had been to the Bahamas and the Caymans and had loved both places.

When CJ pulled into my driveway one evening shortly after we got engaged, I was waiting for him. I ran up to his work van.

Hey! I said. I think we should find a tropical island and get married there.

Are you sure that’s what you want? he asked as we walked into the house.

Yes, I replied. We can show up with our families, relax, and let someone else do the planning.

CJ was thoughtful for a moment. Well, if that is what you really want, then it’s fine with me. He then commented that it would be the first time he had ever swum in the ocean.

I was ecstatic. This is going to be fun… I visualized CJ and me taking our vows underneath the palm trees, our bare feet caressing the warm sand as gentle waves lapped the shore, the smell of frangipani and coconut oil wafting on the breeze. I was trying not to think about one detail: I hated to fly.

The next day, I stopped by a travel agency on my way home from work. The agent greeted me, and I told her my dilemma.

What’s the closest island? I asked.

She led me to her desk, and I sat down in a chair across from her. She opened a wooden filing cabinet and the drawer squeaked so loudly I nearly jumped out of my skin. As she handed me a stack of brochures, she said, Honey, this will be your closest island. My clients say nothing but good things about Jamaica. She stapled her business card to the top of one of the brochures and a few minutes later I was out the door. I knew I had found the right location for our wedding before I even started the car.

We chose an exclusive, adults only resort that catered to engaged couples. CJ and I pored over the colorful brochures, discussing flowers, music, food, our vows, all of it. We were excited as we planned our magical week. The only problem, we knew, was getting our families on board.

When I phoned my mother and told her our plans, she was far from enthusiastic.

We’ll have to think about it, she said.

My parents were not world travelers and they were easily intimidated by change or adventure. I became apprehensive as I began to picture my wedding without my parents in attendance. Who would walk me down the aisle if my parents chose not to come?

When CJ called his parents, he got the exact opposite reaction. His mother said that they would be honored to share our special day and asked all sorts of questions as she made plans for the trip. This will be the first time your father has flown commercial, she told CJ. When he hung up I said, I wish it were that easy to convince my parents.

Days went by and I heard nothing from my folks. I tried to remain calm, reminding myself that I wanted a simple, stress-free wedding and that I would handle it no matter what decision they made. Finally, I called my mother and told her that if they were not going to come that I was going to phone my uncle in Florida and see if he would fly down and give me away. My mother promptly asked my father what he thought.

It’s up to you, I heard him say in the background.

I gave my mother the travel agent’s information and we hung up. A while later she called me back. They were all set. In the meantime, my sister and her husband informed us they could not make it. They were too involved with their kids and their business. I wasn’t disappointed in the least. I was happy to just have our parents there. It would be the perfect, small wedding I had always wanted…

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The only thing that I wanted complete control over when it came to my big day was my dress. It was the one thing that I wanted to select independently. My mother, who had been a seamstress all her life, phoned me a few days later, asking if I had picked out a pattern for my dress.

No, Mom, and I’m not going to. I just want you and Dad to worry about your passports and getting to Jamaica. I don’t want you fussing over my dress.

In truth, I had been to a few bridal shops and was beginning to become frustrated. I couldn’t find anything that I liked or that fit me right. About that time, CJ and I decided to take one of our weekend trips to the Allegheny mountains.

We drove three hours to the little mountain town where my mother was born. We loved going there to breathe the crisp air and decompress from our weekly work stress. I always felt at ease there. I would take CJ around and show him my mother’s childhood stomping grounds and our family cemetery. As we drove down the main street in sleepy little Valley, Maryland, it was getting on towards evening. I spied a dress shop with an Open sign in the window.

Stop! I said to CJ. Turn around!

I made him park the car and told him to stay there and wait for me. When he asked why, I reminded him it was bad luck for him to see me in my dress before the wedding.

I ran up to the little