Many Waters

by William Woodall

  * * * * * * *

  As soon as we got up the next morning, he took me down to Longview to Ambrose’s Jewelers. The streets and sidewalks were full of melting slush, and it was hard to walk without getting our feet soaked.

  “Do you know what kind of ring you’d like?” Cody asked.

  “Just something simple, that’s all. White gold, I think, maybe one stone,” I said, thinking out loud.

  “We’ll see what he’s got, then,” he said.

  But as soon as we got inside, the first thing he did was to pull the Guardian Stone out of his shirt pocket and ask if it could be put on a chain. Apparently it could, so while he and Mr. Ambrose haggled out the details of all that, I browsed the ring case.

  After a few minutes he came up beside me.

  “Did you get that all worked out?” I asked, still looking at rings.

  “Yeah, it’ll be ready on Tuesday. I know it’s a little bit of a risk to be without it, but it’s only three days, and I figure it’s better than the risk of losing it if it’s not attached to anything,” he said.

  He scanned the ring box, and then shocked me by immediately picking out the biggest diamond in the case, a round cut solitaire on a white gold band. When he slipped it on my finger, it fit perfectly.

  “You like it?” he asked, grinning.

  “It’s beautiful, but I’m sure it’s much too expensive,” I said in a low voice which Mr. Ambrose pretended not to hear.

  “Well, not so much. So happens I’m rolling in dough right at the minute; might as well spend some of it,” he said. Nothing I could say would deter him.

  When he paid for my diamond and matching bands for both of us, I almost fainted. It didn’t seem to faze Cody a bit, though, and five minutes later I left the store wearing a diamond big enough to cut logs with. Well, really it was only one carat, but that was still bigger than anything I’d ever seen in my life. I was almost afraid to wear something that expensive, for fear I might lose it or have it stolen.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” I told him when we got back to the truck.

  “Well. . . I wanted you to have somethin’ special, you know. It’s a one-time thing; might as well make you happy,” he said.

  “Aw, I would’ve been happy with a ring from a gumball machine, as long as it came from you, Cody,” I told him, and he laughed.

  “Okay, then. Should we take the ring back in there and get a refund and go get you a really nice cubic zirconia for thirty bucks?” he teased.

  “Don’t you dare,” I told him, and he laughed again.

  “Uh-huh, didn’t think so. I’m glad you like it, though,” he said.

  “I absolutely love it. I can’t wait to show it to everybody,” I said.

  “Good,” he said, sounding pleased as punch.

  We drove for a while in silence, while I admired the diamond by moving it back and forth in the sun. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever owned.

  “Any idea what day you’d like to get married?” he finally asked.

  “What about today?” I asked immediately, and he laughed.

  “We can’t do it today, Lisa. There’s no way,” he said.

  “I don’t care if it’s fancy or not. I don’t even really want anybody there except family and a few friends, anyway. It’s for us, not for the whole world,” I said.

  “But it’s Saturday. The courthouse is closed, and anyway you don’t even have a dress,” he objected. I considered that idea, and decided he might have a point.

  “Well, okay, maybe we can’t do it today, then. What about the day before you leave? That’ll give us almost a week to get everything ready,” I said. He was supposed to leave sometime late Friday morning, so Thursday afternoon seemed like the most feasible date on the calendar.

  “Are you sure? You wouldn’t rather wait till I get back home?” he asked.

  “No, I definitely want it to happen before you leave again,” I said. I was firm on that point; I didn’t want to take a chance on anything splitting us up ever again.

  “Well. . . okay, then,” he said.

  “Are you sure? You don’t sound real enthusiastic,” I said.

  “No, it’s not that. I just always thought a wedding was something special for a lady, you know. I want you to have a nice one, that’s all,” he said.

  “It’ll be nice. This is what I want, Cody; I promise,” I told him, and finally he smiled.

  “Then that’s the way it’ll be. But I want you to have a pretty ring and a long white dress and all that stuff, too, even if it costs a little more. You can tell me you don’t care about that stuff all day long if you want to, but I know better,” he said, and all I could do was laugh. He had me pegged, and I couldn’t deny any of it.

  So he took me into Tyler that afternoon to go shopping, and I found the perfect dress in a bridal shop down there. It was white and lacy and beautiful, with a ten-foot train and little silver horseshoes embroidered into the hem with metallic thread; a very old custom, they said. I’d already decided I wanted Cody to wear a royal blue western shirt and black wranglers instead of a tux, with his silver dress-buckle and cowboy boots. He said that was fine with him; he never liked monkey suits in the first place.

  Monday morning he surprised me with a real silver sixpence to wear in my left shoe; a very old one from 1897, from Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.

  “Where’d you get that?” I asked, holding the coin in my hand and staring at it.

  “Ordered it online from a coin shop, had it shipped overnight. It wasn’t all that hard to find, honestly. I remembered how much you loved Queen Victoria, so I thought you’d like to have it,” he said.

  I kissed him for that, and tucked the sixpence safely away inside my purse until it was time to use it. I already had my new dress, an old necklace that Mama had loved to wear, some shoes borrowed from Jenny, and a long blue ribbon for my hair. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a silver sixpence to wear in me shoe. Now I had it all.

  I didn’t plan on a very big reception since I wanted something a little smaller and more intimate. . . only about two dozen people. Miss Josie was more than happy to have an excuse to cook and to bake us a cake, and I meant to serve the traditional red ginger ale punch out of my grandmother’s crystal punch bowl.

  We decided to have it in the living room at Goliad, since we couldn’t find a church on such short notice. But that was all right.

  In saner moments, I realized I might have been a little too optimistic about being able to get everything done in less than a week. Well, okay, I’d been a lot too optimistic, actually. It made things hectic, trying to organize and arrange and make plans and run here and there to take care of all the various things. But nevertheless, I was too happy to care about minor inconveniences.