The Proposal

by R. R. Banks

  A bizarre, bizarre little family.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, turning my attention from them back to Richard.

  He was sitting on his knees beside me and staring at me intently.

  “I wasn’t supposed to meet you,” he said, and I felt my heart sink into my stomach. “I wasn’t supposed to need a baby contract. I wasn’t supposed to have to fight so hard for someone to know that I love them. I wasn’t supposed to ever have a difficult moment in my life. I was supposed to marry Flora, have children, and live out the rest of my life in a bubble of my own creation without ever thinking about anything that was happening to those not floating around with me. Then I met you. Now I know that the only two things in life I was ever really meant to do was meet you and have Clementine. Because that’s the difference. I wasn’t supposed to meet you, but I was meant to. And for every other thing that I was not supposed to do, I thank you with all of my heart for forcing me to do them. And for everything that I was supposed to do, I thank you with all of my heart for not allowing them to happen.

  You’ve taught me that paths are winding, not straight. The most meaningful choices in life are often the most difficult to make. If you don’t have to fight for someone, then they aren’t really yours. I wasn’t real until I met you, Rue. I didn’t truly have a life. I had an existence. I had things that people dream of and think will make them happy and create the perfect life for them. But what I didn’t have was so much more important than what I did, and I didn’t even know it until I met you. I have loved you for far longer than I admitted, but I will make up for it by loving you passionately and fully, without question and without hiding, every day for the rest of my existence. You have given me everything that I have ever wanted, even things that I never knew that I wanted but now know are the most precious things that I could ever have. Almost. You have given me almost everything that I have ever wanted. There is only one more thing that you could possibly give me that would make my life any better than it already is. Be my wife.”

  I felt my heart soar and tears forming in my eyes. I reached out and took Richard’s hand, pulling it close to me so I could press it to my chest.

  “Richard,” I murmured.

  He turned and reached his free hand into the picnic basket. When he turned back to me he was holding a plate of oatmeal raisin cookies.

  “I found a recipe in the kitchen. It was tucked in the back of a drawer. I don’t know if it’s the right one, but I made them for you.”

  It was a strange detour in the conversation, but I couldn’t resist the warm, spicy smell of the cookies and I reached forward to take one of the cookies from the plate. I took a bite of it and sighed as the flavor melted on my tongue. It was a bite of childhood, carrying with it the feeling of my grandmother’s kitchen and the memory of my father’s hugs. I was so enraptured by the cookie that I nearly missed the hint of black velvet that was peeking out from underneath the mound of cookies. I finished the cookie I held and moved the others away to reveal the box that had been tucked beneath. Withdrawing the box with a trembling hand, I held it still in front of me, not opening it, almost afraid to as though that would somehow break the fantasy that I was almost convinced I was imagining. Richard watched me for a few still moments and then took the box from my hand. He opened the lid and turned the box toward me. I gasped at the sight of the ring inside.

  The vintage piece was crafted out of white gold, the sides elaborately scrolled to hold up a massive center diamond with a cascade of smaller stones along each side. It was at once extravagant and elegant, not the gaudy over-done rings I had witnessed on some of the women who roamed around in Richard’s circle, but also not overly simple. It was nothing short of perfect and I felt breathless.

  “Will you marry me?” Richard asked.

  I looked into his eyes and nodded, feeling as though I couldn’t speak. Finally, I found the words.

  “Yes,” I said softly. “Yes, I will.”

  Richard took the ring from the box and slipped it onto my hand. It hugged my finger perfectly, telling me that he had gone through the effort of making sure that he knew my ring size and ensuring that the ring was sized to fit. I didn’t want to take it off for even a second. I stared down at it for a moment, realizing that until that moment marrying Richard had been an almost distant thought in my mind, something that I just figured might someday happen, but that I wasn’t actively seeking. Right then, though, as I felt him pulling me closer to kiss me, I felt a surge of fulfillment as if everything in my life had fallen into place.

  Christopher and Tessie walked up to the truck and climbed in, each giving me a congratulatory hug before settling onto the quilt. Clementine was awake, and I gathered her into my arms to feed her, gazing down into her perfect little eyes. I knew that she would never remember this, that by the time that she got old enough to form the memories that she would look back on when she was an adult all she would remember was us being married and having settled into life as a family. As much as I loved that she would always have that sense of security and wholeness, I also wanted her to know how much both of her parents went through to create this family and this life for her. I thought to her scrapbook and looked forward to the day that I would sit with her and tell her about this day.

  “Do I get to plan the wedding?” Christopher asked.

  I smiled at him and tucked my hand around his cheek.

  “You know what?” I said. “Yes. Yes, you do.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Rue

  Six months later…

  Dear lord, that’s a lot of tulle.

  I stood at the doorway to the converted barn and stared around me at all of the hustle and bustle that was happening around me. The last few weeks had been some of the most chaotic that Whiskey Hollow had ever seen. Richard and I decided that there was no real reason for us to have a long engagement because we both wanted nothing more than to finally be married.

  Despite how some of the old men sitting in front of Malloy’s General Store made mutterings about how we had already shacked up and were going into our wedding with a built-in flower girl.

  Considering so many of Richard’s friends were going to be in attendance, we went along with Christopher’s urging and decided to have the wedding in the city. That meant, however, that we were going to have to make sure that everyone from the Hollow was able to come. Within a week of mentioning to Richard that I was worried that they wouldn’t be able to make it and that Clarabelle’s Fancy Dress Extravaganza wasn’t exactly equipped to handle the surge of business of the entire population of the Hollow coming to find something to wear, a crew arrived ready to convert the massive old barn that had been hunkering on the edge of the valley for as long as anyone could remember. Because the family that had once owned it had been wiped out in an inter-clan shootout several decades back, Richard had been able to purchase it without much fuss and the crew went to work changing the tired, overgrown old building into an elaborate extension of Clarabelle’s, filled to the brim with every type of dress, suit, shoe, and accessory that he had been able to source from all of the boutiques in close enough proximity to send them in time.

  The price tags had been snipped out of everything and everyone was told to choose what they liked as a wedding favor from us. Though he hadn’t yet mentioned it to her, Richard planned to sign over the satellite shop and everything that was left in it after the wedding to Clarabelle. I had it on good authority from her oldest daughter that Clarabelle had a deeply held dream of extending her little shop to include a full-service tailor, lingerie section (behind proper Chinese screens, of course), and gift shop that would allow the women from the Hollow to sell their jewelry, handmade soaps, and other creations as gifts and favors for all occasions. It was a lofty aspiration that she likely thought was never even going to be a possibility, but through Richard’s kindness, and the promise that I would always get first choice of the lingerie and milk soaps, this barn would give her the space and the jump start to
do it.

  All around me women were scurrying around trying to find the perfect dress for the wedding. It was coming up so fast. I almost wished that I had made our engagement just a little longer. As much as I was looking forward to being Richard’s wife, it felt like I had barely even gotten a chance to enjoy being engaged. My bridal shower was that night, Christopher and Tessie were whisking me away for a bachelorette weekend the next weekend, and then the wedding was the next. Just two more weeks and the whirlwind would come to an end. Our honeymoon would follow and then all that would be left would be to settle into daily life.

  I sighed, a dreamy smile coming to my lips.

  Life. That sounds like Heaven.

  “Are you here to try on your dress?”

  I turned to see Clarabelle rushing up to me. Her face was high with color and her forehead damp with sweat, curls of her blond hair sticking to it. Her arms were overloaded with multiple colors of dresses and she seemed to be teetering precariously on her heels.

  “Yes,” I said. “But there’s no rush. I can just look around.” I looked down at her shoes. “Those are pretty fancy.”

  Clarabelle peeked down and turned one of her feet back and forth to display the crystals on the back of the heel so that they glittered in the light.

  “I thought that they might be a little much, but Sue Ellen said that I could pull them off with just the right dress. I think I’m going to go for it, but I need to break them in first, so I’ve been wearing them around the shop.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “I’ve got to get these to the dressing rooms. Apparently, some of the ladies have a little bit of difficulty with honesty when it comes to their size.”

  “Well, some formal wear can be deceptive when it comes to the size,” I said, trying to be diplomatic.

  “You’re sweet, honey, but there is nothing deceptive about Sissy Bigelow trying to squeeze seven children worth of ass into a twenty-year-old virgin worth of dress.”

  Diplomacy gone.

  Clarabelle shuffled away toward the dressing area in the back of the barn and I made my way in the opposite direction, settling onto a plush couch and accepting a glass of champagne offered by one of the staff that Richard brought in for the push before the wedding. I had sipped my way through the glass and was considering going and searching for Clarabelle among the women trying on their dresses, afraid that one of them might have caught sight of the size label on her dress and started a mutiny, when Tessie came around the corner carrying my dress. She had made the tremendous sacrifice of taking a leave of absence from her job, which I was fairly certain was her code for her doing something stupid and getting fired again, and coming to stay with me to help me through the last few weeks leading up to the wedding. I wasn’t sure what I really needed help with considering Christopher was handling all of the preparations, spectacularly successfully I was happy to say, and I had not only been reassured that I didn’t need to try to do anything but told in no uncertain terms that I was not to touch or attempt to change anything. This led me to believe that what had gotten Tessie fired had likely been one of those things that would cause her to want to get away from prying eyes for a little bit. Besides, since the last couple of times this had happened to her it had involved a hushed situation that resulted in her collecting a fairly large severance package, and I was starting to feel a little bit of stress, I happily accepted her being around.

  Tessie gestured at me to come with her and we went to the largest of the dressing rooms, one that had been specifically set aside for the brides who would hopefully swarm to the shop. Thus far I had been the only one to use it, twice now, but I still got a little shiver of excitement when I stepped through the door and into the room. It was large enough to hold a davenport, small table fully equipped with tissues, a rack for clothing, and shelves to store accessories that the bride might want to try on along with their dress. One whole wall was mirrored, with a small platform in front of it positioned there to allow brides to see the way that their skirt would fall. Tessie hung my dress on the hook in one wall and carefully unzipped the garment bag as I undressed. I took up the undergarments that I had stored in the shelves during my last fitting and shimmied into them, having a brief moment of regret for the biscuits and gravy I had had for breakfast that morning.

  When the dress dropped over my head, I felt like the rest of the world disappeared around me. The fabric fell around my body like a dream and molded to me perfectly as Tessie zipped the back then secured the long row of buttons that stretched from the scooped back to my hips. My eyes filled with tears as my fingertips traced the beaded lace of the bodice and the softly squared neckline. It was exactly what I wanted.

  “I wasn’t sure when you said that you didn’t want to do white,” Tessie said, coming to stand beside me and wrap an arm around my waist, “but you look amazing.”

  I nodded and looked down at the skirt. The delicate pink color was more like a breath of color than a real shade, reminding of the glow of candlelight through a glass of sweet wine. When I was a little girl I had always told my daddy that I wanted to get married in a pink dress, drawing him pictures of bubblegum-colored confections overflowing with ruffles and sequins. He had never laughed at me or suggested that that might not be a choice that I would really want to make.

  Bless him and all of the similar lies that he told me growing up.

  Instead, he had just kissed me on the top of my head and told me that I was going to be the most beautiful bride in the world. I missed him bitterly now as I stood on the platform and gazed at my finally finished gown. In two weeks I would walk down the aisle by myself, wearing the old iron key to the house that he always carried on a ribbon around my wrist, and knowing that he was there with me, at last seeing me as a bride in my pink wedding dress.

  ****

  Richard

  With the exception of the first moment that I saw Clementine, I had never seen anything as beautiful as Rue walking down the aisle toward me in her wedding dress. Hundreds of candles filled the room, gleaming off of the chandelier overhead and seeming to dapple her long train with pinpoints of light as it slid slowly along behind her. The rows of chairs on either side of the aisle were completely full, the gathering of our guests stretching far into the back of the room until I wondered just how much of the altar those in the back could really see in the dancing candlelight, but all I could focus on was her.

  When she reached the end of the aisle, Rue leaned down to touch a kiss to Clementine’s head where she slept in my mother’s arms. Mother looked up at Rue and I saw them meet eyes. They still didn’t adore each other, and I didn’t expect any type of epiphany in their relationship any time soon, but meeting Clementine had softened something between them and I could see a path opening where they might one day wander into some sort of bond. I walked down off of the small stage that created our altar and joined her at the head of the aisle, leaning down to give Clementine my own kiss. I straightened and took Rue’s arm, guiding her up the stairs toward where our officiant stood. Both of our hands grasped between us, we stared into each other’s eyes, not thinking of anything in those moments but each other and the sacred, deeply meaningful words that fell around us.

  As the ceremony ended and I leaned in to kiss her for the first time as my wife, the thought suddenly occurred to me that I was immeasurably fortunate that I had waited for her, that I had allowed myself to do something as out of character as to not go after Flora, and something as impetuous as to go after Rue. No matter how much I once thought that I did, or how much others told me that I did, I knew then that I didn’t understand those words before. They would have meant nothing to me if I had closed myself off to the possibility of the life that I wanted, and instead gone along with what was expected of me. Even if I had said them, they would have carried no weight, had no impact. I wouldn’t have felt any change. Now, though, I felt that something had changed within me. Saying those words to Rue had been more precious, more impactful than anyt
hing I could have imagined, and I knew that there was nothing that would ever take me away from her.

  We had planned our wedding so that it spanned two days, exchanging our vows on one and then celebrating with a reception that went through the night. We were still dancing as the first hints of pink and purple light started showing up on the horizon and the light of the new morning began to glow through the huge windows on either side of the reception hall. Our energy was starting to fade, and our dancing had been largely reduced to simply standing in the middle of the dancefloor and swaying vaguely to the rhythm of the music, but I didn’t want to stop. I didn’t want the magic of the night to end and give up the feeling of my brand-new wife, still wearing her gown, still smiling in the way she had since the ceremony, in my arms even for a moment. She leaned against my chest and sighed.

  “I think that they put on this music to put us to sleep,” she murmured.

  I looked around the dancefloor and saw that there were only a few other couple still scattered throughout the space. The rest of our guests were sitting at the tables or lounging on the vintage sofas and chairs that Christopher had arranged in the corners of the room. They looked completely drained, but none wanted to leave before we did.

  “Are you ready to leave?” I asked.

  She sighed and cuddled closer to me.

  “Let’s just finish this song.”

  As if Christopher could read her mind and had alerted the kitchen, waiters started streaming out of the back carrying trays of coffee and pastries for the guests, completing the progression of indulgent treats that we had served that started with a sumptuous dinner and lavish desserts after the ceremony and was followed by milk and cookies at midnight. I noticed that a few guests seemed to have spiked their milk, which I thought probably accounted for those who were still with us on the dancefloor.