Part 50 (2/2)
”Will you marry me?”
I laughed nervously, thinking it was a jest or something, but he was very, very serious.
”What are you talking about?” I asked.
”Will you marry me, Wiley Cantrell?”
”You know we can't ever get married,” I said, fl.u.s.tered.
”We can go to Boston and get gay-married anytime we want,” he pointed out. ”So I'm asking you: Will you marry me? Will you be my husband for the rest of my life? Will you let me be Noah's father?”
It might have been the vodka slowing down my brain, or the distraction of Christmas and watching how happy Noah was, but it caught me completely by surprise, this sudden proposal, this sudden seriousness.
We had joked about getting married, of course. We were even serious about it, at times. But it never occurred to me that we might actually get married, might actually walk down an aisle in a church and take wedding vows. And it certainly never occurred to me that someone like Jackson Ledbetter would want to do such a thing with me, of all the possible people who would so willingly throw themselves at his Yankee feet.
”I don't know what to say,” I confessed.
”Yes, you do,” he said encouragingly.
”You want to marry me me?” I asked, incredulous. ”You mean, really marry me me?”
”I love you, but you are so stupid sometimes,” he said with a smile. ”Of course I want to marry you. And if you say yes, I will be the happiest man in the whole world and I'll do right by you and Noah. You'll see. You will never regret being my husband. I promise you that.”
”This is a whole new level of courting,” I said.
”This is the real deal,” Jackson said. ”I've got some major skin in the game now, don't I?”
”But I can't do this,” I said, pus.h.i.+ng the ring away.
”What are you talking about?”
”This must be some kind of a joke,” I said.
”It's not a joke. I love you. What's so hard to understand?”
”We can't get married. It's not even legal.”
”It's legal in some states,” he pointed out. ”And someday it will be legal here too.”
I was the verge of tears. And they weren't happy tears.
”What's wrong?” Jackson asked, moving closer and putting a hand on my knee.
Noah noticed my unhappiness too, and crawled over, looking up at me with confused eyes.
What's wrong, Daddy?
I wiped at my eyes, trying to hide my tears, feeling foolish and overwhelmed.
”What is it?” Jackson pressed.
I had quite killed the mood. Killed it dead.
”I know I go out there and fight for gay rights,” I said, ”but I'm fighting for the younger generations. The kids. I'm not out there fighting for me. I don't ever expect to have any rights, not in my lifetime.”
”What the h.e.l.l?” Jackson said.
”I knew you wouldn't understand.”
”I'm trying,” he said. ”But I don't get it.”
”Nothing changes down here in the South,” I said. ”Don't you understand that? Nothing ever changes. It's all right for people like you in Boston or LA or New York to talk about gay marriage and equality and all the rest of it, but that's never going to happen down here. Not for us. Not for people like me.”
”That's a bunch of bulls.h.i.+t,” Jackson said rather angrily.
”That's just the way it is,” I said. ”We haven't even finished the G.o.dd.a.m.n Civil War yet. By the time we get around to gay marriage, we'll both be long dead and gone and people will be living on the planet Jupiter.”
Jackson sat back on his haunches, a mystified look on his face.
”We can go to Boston,” he said quietly. ”It's just a few hours on a plane. It's not a big deal.”
”You don't understand,” I said. ”I want to be married in my own church, by my own priest, in my own community, with my family there. My friends. Here Here. In the place where I grew up. In my home. I don't want to go to some foreign country to get married. It's like going to Las Vegas. It won't be real to me.”
”I don't believe what I'm hearing,” Jackson said.
”As long as one person is a slave,” I said, quoting an old saying, ”we're all slaves. As long as one person isn't free, none of us are free. Sure, I could go to Boston, but there's so many people like me down here who can't. They don't have the money. It wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't be right.”
”Wow,” Jackson said quietly.
”Don't listen to me,” I said, feeling foolish, like I'd said too much, like I was talking straight out of my a.s.s.
Jackson fingered the jewelry box, his eyes lowered.
What's wrong? Noah asked. Noah asked.
Nothing, I said. I said.
Is J. going to be my daddy too?
I smiled, but did not answer.
”I don't know what to do with that,” Jackson admitted at last. ”I thought you'd be happy.”
”I am happy,” I pointed out.
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