The Debutante

by Magnolia Mason

  All this time, I’d thought he was joking. I’d thought this was just some house he’d been working on as a side project. I thought we were living in a fantasy to take us away from our reality, but it turns out our reality was far more complex than I’d realized.

  “How… how could we live here?”

  Jack was a working man, a mechanic, a builder, a country boy. He didn’t buy grand old Garden District houses.

  “I bought it for you, Cassy. Please don’t refuse it,” he said in a serious voice before a grin bent his gorgeous lips. “I can’t get a refund.”

  I threw back my head and laughed as the reality settled over me.

  “You’re serious.”

  “I’ve never been more serious in my life. I bought this for you and I mean for us to live here together forever. You, me and her. Except for this room—this room is yours. Just yours.”

  “I think I need to sit down,” I murmured as a wave of dizziness washed over me.

  Jack guided me to one of the plush chairs beside the hearth. He knelt in front of me and pushed a loose lock of hair behind my ear.

  “How could you afford this place, Jack? It’s a mansion.”

  He looked around and nodded.

  “It’s a fine old house and I got it at a bargain rate. Still, that doesn’t matter. We—we’re very wealthy, Cassy. I don’t talk about it because I’m a working man and always will be, but I’m also a good investor. I’ve never wanted to live like a rich man and risk all that moral decrepitude that rich men tend to get… but I’ve finally found someone to share it all with. I see the woman you are and I want to share it all with you and our girl. It’s hers most of all.”

  In a hundred years, I never imagined myself where I was in that moment. This house, this man, this baby, this healthy body of mine were all together, all bound by love and want and struggle and healing. I didn’t feel like the same Cassy I’d been just six months before… because I wasn’t. She was gone and someone better had grown in her place.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I finally managed to whisper through my trembling lips.

  “You don’t have to say anything, my love, besides yes. We have each other. We have this place. Nothing can touch us,” he said as he kissed my hands and rested his forehead against my fingers. “I want to make you happy. Won’t you let me make you happy?”

  Eternity passed in a few heartbeats. I tried to imagine myself there, in that house, a mother and wife and… more. I wanted more. I needed to get my degree. I simply wouldn’t be one of those women who let everything fall away because of marriage and motherhood.

  “I—I need more, though. I want all of this. I want everything you’re proposing, but I need to finish school. I need my degree. I can’t be a debutante who sits in her mansion all day,” I said through sniffles and tears.

  Jack smiled, his white teeth flashing in the near darkness of the library.

  “I know, my love,” he said with a wicked grin. “Don’t you think that’s half the reason I love you so much? It’s all taken care of. It’s all in the plan. Loyola is just up the street. When you’re ready to start, it’s all set up for you. I said you’ll want for nothing and I meant it.”

  Loyola. The school of my dreams that I’d pushed aside because it was too far from Buford, too far from my family, too far outside my comfort zone. I’d never lived in the city and never spent more than a few nights away from home in all my life, and now I was on the verge of doing something I’d never done before, something I never thought would be an option.

  “Well, what do you say?”

  There was a giddiness on Jack’s features that was contagious. I bit my lip and closed my eyes, conjuring up an image of myself with all that he was offering.

  “Don’t keep me hanging, Cassy,” Jack pleaded with a bark of laughter that lit my heart on fire. He already knew my answer because, well, there was no other answer.

  “Yes,” I managed to say through tears as the baby kicked in my belly. “Yes, of course. I—I want to make you happy. I want us to be happy. I love you, I love you, I love you…”

  He was kissing me, lifting me gently, holding me close, stroking my body. I was in his arms again, light as a doll, as he carried me to the bedroom we were going to share together forever.

  “What do you want more than anything in the world right now?”

  He set me on the soft linen comforter and stretched out beside me. The down pillows swallowed me up as I sank against them. It was heaven.

  What do I want more than anything in the world right now?

  I pondered the question for a minute then let out a hungry growl.

  “A bowl of gumbo, three beignets and a coke.”

  Jack laughed and shook his head.

  “I should have known,” he said as he sat up and grabbed his cell phone. “Luckily, I know a guy.”

  “Of course you do. You seem to know everyone.”

  “Only the most important people,” he said with a wink as the person on the other end of the line picked up. “Leo. Jack here. I’m gonna need some things delivered tout de suite, I’ve got a couple of hungry ladies here…”

  Chapter 22

  “Wake up, ma cher,” Jack whispered in my ear, pulling me from the deep, cozy comfort of sleep.

  He slipped beneath the comforter and slipped his arms around me, holding me close as he nuzzled my hair.

  “Brrr, your hands are freezing,” I murmured as he stroked my belly. “What on Earth have you been up to?”

  “I was outdoors getting some firewood,” he whispered. “I forgot to wear gloves.”

  “Well, don’t pick up the baby with those hands or she’ll scream. Where is she, by the way?”

  “Still sleeping like a beauty,” he answered as he curled his big, strong body against mine like a big spoon.

  “Of course she is. She’s an angel.”

  She was, too. Eden Marie Peterson-Jolivet, the heiress to all this, the love of our lives. She was the best baby to have ever been made, and she was the apple of her daddy’s eye.

  “An angel who’ll sleep through anything. Even her daddy building a fire.”

  Suddenly, I smelled the faint whiff of woodsmoke and heard a loud pop and crackle from the bedroom fireplace. There are few things on Earth better than laying warm and snuggly in bed with a fire in the hearth and a good book in hand. All that was missing was a book. And a hot cup of coffee.

  I turned my head to Jack and looked at his face for the first time that morning. Each day was a revelation. I had to pinch myself. I couldn’t believe this man with his warm eyes and granite jaw was mine and that I was his. It was too much to believe.

  “There’s my lady,” he said with a smile as he kissed me softly three times. The last kiss he let his lips linger a little longer, melting me into the soft bed.

  As if on cue, Eden woke up and let out a little murmur that grabbed both our attention.

  “I’ll get her,” Jack said as he rose from the bed and padded on bare feet across the polished wood floor.

  I never tired of watching him lift our little girl in his bronze arms, how those hands that were so strong could be so gentle. It killed me.

  “Why hello, sunshine,” he said to her as he carried her over to the bed and my waiting arms.

  He climbed into the bed beside me and stared down into her little face as I fed her at my breast. There was nothing on Earth more precious than that.

  “We need to dress her warm today,” Jack said with a yawn as he leaned back against the mound of pillows on his side of the bed. “It’s freezing cold outside.”

  “Where are we headed?”

  It was Sunday, the day we usually stayed in bed reading until it was time to think about dinner.

  “Why, Cassy, it’s not like you to forget important occasions. We need to go find our first Christmas tree.”

  He was right; it wasn’t like me. Blame it on baby brain, but I’d completely forgotten. A sudden thrill shot through me imagining walking
around the chilly Christmas tree lot with our baby all bundled up in my arms and lights twinkling overhead.

  “I—I am not exaggerating when I say I cannot wait,” I said with a smile. “We’ll go after breakfast.”

  Jack’s laugh was filled with pure, unadulterated joy. I loved how his eyes crinkled and his happiness came bubbling up from his chest in a rich, baritone laugh that echoed off the ceiling. I couldn’t help but laugh with him.

  “Hold on, my love. It’s Sunday. We should relax a while and then head in a little later. If we leave now, the lights won’t be on and I know you want there to be twinkling lights.”

  “You know me so well.”

  “It’s my job,” he shrugged as he sat up and stretched his arms to the ceiling. “I’m going to see what’s taking so long with the coffee. I’m dragging ass this morning.”

  Jack disappeared downstairs, leaving me alone in our bedroom. I leaned back against the pillows as Eden nursed, my eyes lingering on the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the back yard.

  The magnolia branches reached up into the dark, cloudy sky, their blossoms long since lost to the season. Despite the fire and blankets and snug, weathertight walls, I could still feel the cold creeping in. I shivered and pulled the blanket a little higher around me and our little princess.

  “We’ll dress you warm, don’t you worry,” I said to her as I ran my fingers over her feet and wiggled her toes. She cooed at me and kicked her toes.

  Eden was a perfect blend of the both of us with her dark hair and dark eyes, her pink cheeks and little dimples. She even made my skeptical side-eye face and Jack’s look of concentration he got whenever he was puzzling over something. Even my mother, when she came to see her after she was born, remarked on the resemblance.

  She has Jack’s eyebrows, she said, in typical mother fashion. Better teach her to groom them early…

  It was hard to be mad these days when mother made such comments. They came and went and were forgotten as soon as the door shut behind her. It’s amazing what a few hours of distance and space will do for a relationship.

  “Here you are, my love.”

  Jack pushed the door open with his elbow and waltzed in with a bed tray piled high with breakfast. A polished silver coffee carafe released its fragrant steam beside a pile of croissants fresh from the bakery, apricot jam, ham, cheese, fruit… it was a feast of my favorite things.

  “You are my hero,” I teased as he set the tray on the foot of the bed and poured me a cup of coffee dressed with one sugar lump and one hefty glug of cream. I took a sip and let the bitter, creamy, sweet deliciousness melt onto my tongue with a growl of delight. “That is life’s nectar.”

  We lolled in bed over breakfast and books for a few more hours, letting the grey and lazy Sunday stretch on as long as we could, but I felt the anticipation sprouting inside me getting stronger and stronger.

  “You’re gettin’ antsy,” Jack observed when I set my book down for the tenth time that hour and stared at the window.

  “I am. I don’t know if I can wait much longer. The Christmas trees are calling.”

  “Well, the drive takes a little while so we may as well get dressed and set out. We’ll get there in time for the lights, I think.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice,” I said with a grin as I threw back the blankets and headed to the tub, stopping by Eden’s crib to give her a little kiss before I sank into a bath.

  “Yeah, since when?” Jack teased.

  A hundred rows of bristly, dark-green firs stood behind a split-rail fence along the edge of the country road. Deep inside the temporary forest was a little red house with smoke coming from the chimney. The woodsy, resinous smell of Christmas hung in the chilly air as I stepped out of the truck and got Eden from her carseat.

  “Here we are,” Jack announced to Eden as he pointed to the Christmas trees standing shoulder-to-shoulder as far as the eye could see. “Let’s go find us a big tree, baby girl.”

  Eden cooed and kicked her feet as I carried her across the county lane and into the embrace of a few hundred evergreen trees. The air was even chillier at the farm than it’d been in the city. It seemed almost brittle when it landed on my cheeks.

  “Afternoon,” said a little white-haired lady in a pair of worn and patched coveralls. She wore a red-and-white striped scarf around her plump neck, which made her look like Mrs. Claus.

  “Afternoon,” Jack answered back as he shook the woman’s hand and looked around. They spoke together while I took Eden over to the nearest tree.

  “This is a fir tree,” I explained to her, though all she cared about was the fluttering red tag tied to the top. I rubbed my fingers along the needles and held them under her nose, which made her eyes go wide.

  “Come on, ma cher,” Jack said as he guided me down a long, straight path deeper into the tree farm.

  I knew we were in an artificial forest, technically, but the thickness of the trees growing around us totally cut us off from the world outside and I found myself imagining that we were walking through the wild woods. I half-expected to hear a wolf howling in the distance, or to be greeted by a faun like in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

  “We should look further back to find the best trees,” Jack said as he held my free hand. He looked up at the sky, which still held light in the pearly white clouds. “Plus, we’ve got a few more minutes before the lights come on.”

  We found a half dozen trees we liked, then narrowed it down to three. The deciding factor was which tree will fit in the back of the truck?

  We found it. An ten-foot-tall fir that looked like it was from a picture book about Christmas trees. It dwarfed us, which meant it’d fit perfectly in the corner of our parlor between the fireplace and picture windows.

  “It’s perfect,” I said as Jack slipped his arm around me and held me close.

  “You’re perfect,” he said to me as he kissed my chilly hair. “Now, we just need to get it cut down and we can head home where it’s warm.”

  Jack sank to his knee and looked under the tree at the thick, gnarly trunk just as something cold and we landed on my face. I brushed it away. It was water. No, it was snow.

  “Jack,” I gasped as I looked up into the soft white flurry filling the chill air. The flakes eddied and fell to the earth as silent as moths. “Jack, it’s snowing!”

  “Holy smokes, it’s snowing,” he repeated as he looked up into the swirl of fat white flakes. They landed in his dark hair and on his thick flannel jacket.

  “I’ve never seen snow,” I said quietly, mostly to myself. Eden was all bundled up against my chest but I turned so she could see, though I knew she wouldn’t remember it when she was older. “Look, baby. It’s snow. Snow.”

  She blinked and hid her face as a flake landed on her little button nose.

  Just then, the sky darkened and the Christmas lights came on to twinkle above our heads. As far as the eye could see, the lights glowed in the dusk, lighting up the flakes that came pouring down thicker and thicker. With the evergreen trees, the snow, the chill in the air and the smell of woodsmoke, I’d never had a more magical Christmas feeling.

  “Cassy?”

  Jack’s voice drew me back to Earth, to the task at hand. We needed to get the tree cut and carried home before the snow started to stick to the ground.

  “Yeah?”

  I tore my eyes away from the glittering snowflakes and glowing lights to look at Jack… and I saw him looking back, eyes wet with tears.

  “I—I should have done this a long time ago, I know, but I was waiting,” he said as he unfurled his huge hand to present the little velvet box nestled against his palm.

  My heart stopped. We already lived together. We already had a child together. We already loved each other so, so much, but nonetheless seeing the box on his palm nearly brought me to my knees.

  “Oh, Jack,” I managed to say before my voice failed me. I felt faint, like all my blood had rushed to my heart.

 
He flipped open the box to show the ring. Bright with diamonds, it caught every bit of illumination cast by the Christmas lights overhead. Snow flakes landed all over it, in Jack’s hair, on his lips. The smell of fir trees and woodsmoke imprinted itself on my mind; it’d forever bring me back to this moment, in the swirling snow, my baby in my arms and the love of my life offering the one thing that was missing.

  “Cass… Life would have no meaning for me if we were apart again. This ring doesn’t matter as much as the pledge I’ve already made to you in my heart, but please accept it,” he said as a tear tumbled down his cheek and into his five o’clock shadow. He grinned suddenly, his eyes sparkling in the Christmas lights. “Will you make an honest man out of me?”

  A laugh broke through my lips despite the emotion I was feeling. He could always make me laugh. He could always take away the tension of emotion and bring me into the direct joy of any situation. I could have teased him. I could have made a joke, but I didn’t. I’d never felt more serious about anything in my whole life.

  “Yes,” I burst out with a sob and a gasp as he lifted the ring from the box and slipped it onto my finger. It was a cushion-cut diamond glinting like the North Star. “Yes, Jack. Now kiss me. Kiss me.”

  Suddenly, I was in his arms with his warm, soft lips thawing mine. His arms wrapped around me and Eden, holding us close as the silent snow fell like confetti around us.

  “Perfect fit,” he said with an air of relief. “I had to measure your finger when you were sleeping, which was challenging.”

  “You sneak,” I teased as I admired the ring, which was grander than I ever imagined myself wearing but which I instantly fell in love with the moment I saw it. “It’s—it’s gorgeous.”

  “Not half so gorgeous as you, my love,” he said as he kissed me again on the temple. Warmth enveloped us despite the chill. It was the warmth of wholeness and love and contentment.

  After a minute, Jack whispered “Thank you. Thank you for being mine.”

  “Don’t thank me,” I answered back as I nuzzled his chest and inhaled his scent. “Thank the good Lord.”