“Margaret did not speak for a full ten seconds,” he said. “Then she asked if you still lived in the trailer park on the county road.”
“And Daniel?” I asked.
“Daniel asked if we had set a date,” Garrett said, his voice dropping. “Then he asked if we were going to need a lawyer to draft an agreement before the ceremony.”
He looked down at his empty plate, the red syrup staining the white ceramic.
“I told them there would be no agreements,” he said. “I told them that sixty-two years of life should earn a man the right to make his own choices without a committee.”
“They are just protective of you,” I said, trying to soften the edge in his voice.
“They are protective of the ledger, Eleanor,” he said.
By Friday evening, the April wind had died down, leaving the air damp and smelling of wet Indiana clay. Garrett sat beside me on the green wicker glider on my small front porch, his shoulder brushing mine every time the seat swayed.
The streetlamps were just flickering on, casting long, pale shadows across my small yard. He reached into his pocket, but his hand came out empty.
“I wanted to have the ring tonight,” he said, his voice dropping to a soft murmur. “The real one. The one I promised you behind the bleachers after the sectional game.”
“We were seventeen, Garrett,” I said. “A promise like that does not keep its shape for fifty-three years.”
“This one did,” he said, turning to look at me. “I am still working on getting the perfect one. There are some details to clear up first with the family accounts, but it is coming.”
He leaned closer, his eyes reflecting the yellow light from my porch lamp. He took a breath, his chest rising slowly under his wool jacket.
“Will you marry me, Eleanor?” he asked.
The quiet of the neighborhood seemed to swell around us, the distant hum of the highway the only sound in the dusk. I looked at his hands, older now with prominent veins and a slight stiffness in the knuckles, but still the hands of the boy who had walked me home through the autumn rains.
“I do not need a diamond to know your heart, Garrett,” I said.
“I want you to have it,” he said. “I want them to see it on your finger.”
“I am marrying you, not your family,” I said, though a small knot of doubt tightened in my chest.
“They will have to accept it,” he said, his voice firming. “I have made my choice.”
The glider gave a tiny squeak as he shifted his weight, his shoulder pressing against mine in the cool evening air.
“We will have the dinner at the mansion next month,” he said. “Just the children and us. A quiet family dinner to set things right.”
“Are you sure they want to come?” I asked.
“They will come because I asked them to,” he said.
On Monday afternoon, the sky was the color of a wet slate shingle. I drove my Buick down to the municipal building, the tires kicking up small puddles of rainwater in the alley behind the courthouse.
Brenda, the deputy clerk, was behind the counter, her wire-rimmed glasses sliding down her nose as she sorted through a stack of blue tax assessment cards.
“Forty-two dollars, Eleanor,” she said, not looking up.
I slid two twenty-dollar bills and a two-dollar bill across the Formica counter. She pulled the ledger for the south-side properties and turned to the page for lot fourteen.
“You are three days early this month,” Brenda said, stamping the yellow receipt with a heavy thud. “Most people do not pay the lot rent on an empty trailer with such enthusiasm.”
“It is my sister Ruth’s place,” I said. “I like to keep the account current.”
“Ruth has been resting in the Methodist cemetery for two years now,” Brenda said, sliding the receipt toward me. “The single-wide is just sitting there gathering damp. You could stop the payments tomorrow and the county would just reclaim the dirt.”
“It is just out of habit,” I said, tucking the yellow slip into my coin purse.
The truth was harder to explain to Brenda, who had lived in Oakhaven long enough to know everyone’s business. The little trailer was the only place where the air still smelled of my sister’s lavender soap, and letting it go felt like locking her out of her own home.
“Well, habits are expensive these days,” Brenda said, reaching for her coffee mug. “The utility board is talking about raising the water hookup fees again next month.”
“How much?” I asked.
“Twelve percent for the county road hookups,” she said.
“I will pay the difference when it comes,” I said.
She looked at me for a long second, her eyes narrowing behind her glasses.
“You always were stubborn, Eleanor,” she said.
We met back at the diner on Tuesday afternoon. The lunch crowd had already cleared out, leaving only a couple of truck drivers arguing about diesel prices near the cash register.
Garrett seemed quiet during our meal, barely touching his egg salad sandwich. He kept checking his watch, the heavy gold band catching the fluorescent light from the ceiling.
“I have to meet with the bank manager at three,” he said, sliding his plate away. “Just some routine updates on the estate trust.”
“You look tired, Garrett,” I said.
“Just the weather,” he said, giving me his crooked smile. “The damp gets into my joints these days.”
“You should see Dr. Evans,” I said.
