Part 45 (2/2)
I touch the ring. It is cold and gorgeous. Three rubies are set on both sides of the diamond. I look up at him, feeling very hot all of a sudden. I pull my sweater off my shoulders. I am smiling and about to cry at the same time.
”I have to tell you something, Stuart,” I blurt out. ”Do you promise you won't tell anyone?”
He stares at me and laughs. ”Hang on, did you say yes?”
”Yes, but . . .” I have to know something first. ”Can I just have your word?”
He sighs, looks disappointed that I'm ruining his moment. ”Sure, you have my word.”
I am in shock from his proposal but I do my best to explain. Looking into his eyes, I spread out the facts and what details I can safely share about the book and what I've been doing over the past year. I leave out everyone's name and I pause at the implication of this, knowing it's not good. Even though he is asking to be my husband, I don't know him enough to trust him completely.
”This is what you've been writing about for the past twelve months? Not . . . Jesus Christ?”
”No, Stuart. Not . . . Jesus.”
When I tell him that Hilly found the Jim Crow laws in my satchel, his chin drops and I can see that I've confirmed something Hilly already told him about me--something he had the naive trust not to believe.
”The talk... in town. I told them they were dead wrong. But they were . . . right.”
When I tell him about the colored maids filing past me after the prayer meeting, I feel a swell of pride over what we've done. He looks down into his empty bourbon gla.s.s.
Then I tell him that the ma.n.u.script has been sent to New York. That if they decide to publish it, it would come out in, my guess is, eight months, maybe sooner. Right around the time, I think to myself, an engagement would turn into a wedding.
”It's been written anonymously,” I say, ”but with Hilly around, there's still a good chance people will know it was me.”
But he's not nodding his head or pus.h.i.+ng my hair behind my ear and his grandmother's ring is sitting on Mother's velvet sofa like some ridiculous metaphor. We are both silent. His eyes don't even meet mine. They stay a steady two inches to the right of my face.
After a minute, he says, ”I just . . . I don't understand why you would do this. Why do you even . . . care care about this, Skeeter?” about this, Skeeter?”
I bristle, look down at the ring, so sharp and s.h.i.+ny.
”I didn't . . . mean it like that,” he starts again. ”What I mean is, things are fine around here. Why would you want to go stirring up trouble?”
I can tell, in his voice, he sincerely wants an answer from me. But how to explain it? He is a good man, Stuart. As much as I know that what I've done is right, I can still understand his confusion and doubt.
”I'm not making trouble, Stuart. The trouble is already here.”
But clearly, this isn't the answer he is looking for. ”I don't know you.”
I look down, remembering that I'd thought this same thing only moments ago. ”I guess we'll have the rest of our lives to fix that,” I say, trying to smile.
”I don't . . . think I can marry somebody I don't know.”
I suck in a breath. My mouth opens but I can't say anything for a little while.
”I had to tell you,” I say, more to myself than him. ”You needed to know.”
He studies me for a few moments. ”You have my word. I won't tell anyone,” he says, and I believe him. He may be many things, Stuart, but he's not a liar.
He stands up. He gives me one last, lost look. And then he picks up the ring and walks out.
THAT NIGHT, after Stuart has left, I wander from room to room, dry-mouthed, cold. Cold is what I'd prayed for when Stuart left me the first time. Cold is what I got.
At midnight, I hear Mother's voice calling from her bedroom.
”Eugenia? Is that you?”
I walk down the hall. The door is half open and Mother is sitting up in her starchy white nightgown. Her hair is down around her shoulders. I am struck by how beautiful she looks. The back porch light is on, casting a white halo around her entire body. She smiles and her new dentures are still in, the ones Dr. Simon cast for her when her teeth starting eroding from the stomach acid. Her smile is whiter, even, than in her teen pageant pictures.
”Mama, what can I get you? Is it bad?”
”Come here, Eugenia. I want to tell you something.”
I go to her quietly. Daddy is a long sleeping lump, his back to her. And I think, I could tell her a better version of tonight. We all know there's very little time. I could make her happy in her last days, pretend that the wedding is going to happen.
”I have something to tell you, too,” I say.
”Oh? You go first.”
”Stuart proposed,” I say, faking a smile. Then I panic, knowing she'll ask to see the ring.
”I know,” she says.
”You do?”
She nods. ”Of course. He came by here two weeks ago and asked Carlton and me for your hand.”
Two weeks ago? I almost laugh. Of course Mother was the first to know something so important. I'm happy she's had so long to enjoy the news.
”And I have something to tell you,” she says. The glow around Mother is unearthly, phosph.o.r.escent. It's from the porch light, but I wonder why I've never seen it before. She clasps my hand in the air with the healthy grip of a mother holding her newly engaged daughter. Daddy stirs, then sits straight up.
”What?” he gasps. ”Are you sick?”
”No, Carlton. I'm fine. I told you.”
He nods numbly, closes his eyes, and is asleep before he has even lain down again.
”What's your news, Mama?”
”I've had a long talk with your daddy and I have made a decision.”
”Oh G.o.d,” I sigh. I can just see her explaining it to Stuart when he asked for my hand. ”Is this about the trust fund?”
”No, it's not that,” she says and I think, Then it must be something about the wedding. Then it must be something about the wedding. I feel a shuddering sadness that Mother will not be here to plan my wedding, not only because she'll be dead, but because there is no wedding. And yet, I also feel a horrifyingly guilty relief that I won't have to go through this with her. I feel a shuddering sadness that Mother will not be here to plan my wedding, not only because she'll be dead, but because there is no wedding. And yet, I also feel a horrifyingly guilty relief that I won't have to go through this with her.
”Now I know you've noticed that things have been on the uptick these past few weeks,” she says. ”And I know what Doctor Neal says, that it's some kind of last strength, some nonsense ab--” She coughs and her thin body arches over like a sh.e.l.l. I give her a tissue and she frowns, dabs at her mouth.
<script>