Double Wedding Ring

by Peg Sutherland

  “Something like that,” he said.

  She nodded, leaned over and picked up one of the tools. “What’s this for?”

  “Whatever’s on your mind, spit it out,” he said as softly as he could manage. Visions of Susan began to crowd into the parts of his mind he was trying to fill with that map he kept in his head, the map of all the side roads and off-the-beaten-path routes to nowhere he’d traveled over the years.

  Malorie took a long, deep breath, but she was smiling. “I’m glad Sam didn’t get the Hutchins temper.”

  “You should be.”

  “I wish you’d come see Mother.”

  Tag leaned over and snatched a greasy rag off the nearly bare ground behind his mama’s house. He wiped his hands, paying careful attention to the grease accumulating beneath his nails. They’d been damn near grease-free these past few months. Old habits died hard, he supposed.

  “She doesn’t want to see me,” he said when he was satisfied that the greasy rag wasn’t doing a thing to clean him up.

  “Yes, she does. She just...maybe she’s just scared.”

  “Maybe.” He took in her earnest expression and felt a softening. “Maybe we all get scared.”

  “Think about it. Okay?”

  “Sure.” He wasn’t soft enough yet to tell her that was all he thought about.

  She made no move to leave. “The new part-timer, she’s doing pretty well. I was thinking, maybe she could take over a few days after Christmas. So Sam and I can get away. Just a few days, and you’ll be there to keep an eye on her. Not a whole week or anything.”

  Tag didn’t see any point in mentioning that he might not be around to keep an eye on the new clerk or the store or anything else in Sweetbranch. “Take all the time you want.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Hutchins. Is there something you’d rather I call you—instead of Mr. Hutchins, I mean?”

  At this late date, he saw no point in telling her that every time she said it, he felt like a broken-down version of his old man. “Doesn’t matter to me, Mal.”

  “Oh. Well, there was one other thing.”

  Now she looked uncertain. Tag fingered the key ring in his pocket and wished she would go away.

  “At the wedding...well, I wondered if you’d, you know, walk down the aisle with me?”

  Tag flung his rag to the ground. The request slammed him in the gut, took the wind right out of him. He wanted to knock the tires out from under his bike with one vicious kick. Violence seemed a better alternative than crying.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m...not sure I can make it.”

  He didn’t look at her, but he heard the little-girl disappointment in her voice. He called himself a lot of names he wouldn’t have repeated aloud in front of her.

  “Oh,” she said. “Well, if you change your mind—”

  “Sure. I’ll let you know,” he said.

  She sighed. “Well, I guess I ought to let you get back to your work.”

  He watched her walk away. Her skirt swished around her calves. The little bit of late-afternoon sunlight glinting through the bare trees caught on her hair. Tag opened his mouth to call her name, tell her he would be there for her. But he told himself the only thing he could accomplish would be to hurt a lot of people.

  Better if he stayed out of it.

  He looked back at his bike. Afraid he still might give his tires a good, hard swipe with his boot, he turned and walked into the house. Just so he finished by Christmas Eve.

  * * *

  SUSAN HAD FORGOTTEN many things, but she still remembered that Santa Claus existed only for the very young.

  As Christmas Eve wound to a close, she nevertheless harbored a secret hope that the old elf would put something in her stocking to ease the hurt.

  More than a mouse still stirred in the house when she wheeled herself into her room with the excuse that she was tired. She sat in her chair in the darkness, listening to the sounds of her brother, his wife and their grown children, laughing with Malorie and Sam as they experienced the joys of Some Assembly Required.

  What had she done? How had she been so cowardly? And could she ever find the courage to do anything about it?

  Sam had gone out the front door, the lights downstairs had just gone out, and she heard five giggling adults creeping up the stairs when another sound split the night.

  Tag’s motorcycle roared down Mimosa Lane. Heading out, away.

  Susan didn’t need Santa Claus to tell her he wouldn’t be back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  SUSAN GAVE HERSELF to the spirit of Christmas the next morning, vowing she wouldn’t dwell on the way her heart had broken when she heard Tag leaving in the middle of the night. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized that a part of her had clung to the hope that when he showed up for the wedding this afternoon, she could set things right.

  That was not to be her Christmas gift, it seemed. But she made up her mind not to brood over it. Today would be joyous, regardless.

  She smiled through the delighted squeals of Cody and her brother Steve’s young grandchildren. She focused on the rich sound of foil paper crumpling in the center of the room and the smell of cinnamon-spiced cider. She gave and received hugs and tried to remember that love was the best gift of all, even if it didn’t come from the person at the top of the list you’d sent to the North Pole.

  At last the gift-giving was over and the holiday brunch devoured, and everyone dashed off to dress for the wedding. Susan relaxed, let go of her smile.

  Betsy’s sharp voice cut into the quiet. “There isn’t time to sit around and daydream.”

  “I know.”

  As she watched her mother scoot around the room filling a garbage bag with torn paper and curling ribbon and smashed bows, she tried to understand what Betsy had done to the lives of everyone around her. She doubted she would, because she doubted Betsy knew herself.

  “You know you’re going to be slow, Susan,” her mother prodded one more time.

  The one thing Susan did understand, though, was that she had two choices when it came to her mother. She could either forgive her, or she could let resentment poison the rest of her life. And she’d wasted too much time already to be wasting any more.

  “I’m going back to Atlanta, Mother. As soon as the holidays are over.”

  Betsy straightened, a trail of red-and-green ribbon in her fist. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re in no condition to take care of yourself and you know it.”

  “Yes, I am,” Susan said. “Plenty do, and so can I.”

  “I won’t allow it.”

  Susan rolled toward her mother. “It isn’t your choice, Mother.”

  Then she reached for the hand that had slowly dropped the ribbon as Susan’s announcement sank in. Susan took it between her own and squeezed. The first step toward healing, she hoped.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said. “It isn’t that I don’t love you. It’s just time, that’s all. Time I got on with my life.”

  * * *

  THE STRANGER IN TOWN sat a block from the church in a car with North Carolina plates, watching intently as the wedding guests trooped in.

  She grew impatient. She saw the slight strawberry blonde and the handsome dark-haired man, with a brood of a half-dozen children, none of whom looked alike. She saw the strikingly lovely woman with gleaming mahogany skin, accompanied by a lanky fair-haired man and two beautiful children, but where was the family she was waiting for?

  She began to fidget, first with the mother-of-pearl buttons on her crimson silk blouse. She patted her platinum hair and checked her makeup in the rearview mirror. She looked perfect, except for the red tracks through the whites of her eyes.

  She needed more sleep. She’d had too much to think about to rest easy lately. But that would change. Soon.

  They came on foot and she felt certain her heart had stopped.

  A wiry old man with flyaway white hair led the way, holding a little boy by the hand. Then Ben, who looked more distinguished and more
attractive with every year that passed, damn him. Then the auburn-haired woman he had married. She barely noticed Rose because walking beside Ben’s new wife was the reason Cybil Richert McKenzie had come to town in the first place.

  Krissy.

  “Baby,” Cybil whispered as the little dark-haired girl skipped along beside the woman. She hadn’t seen Krissy since summer and already the girl had grown. Long-legged and lean-limbed, her shining hair touching her shoulders, Krissy was her father’s daughter in every way.

  Pain twisted at Cybil’s stomach as she watched the little girl who had told her last summer she didn’t want to stay in North Carolina.

  “I want to go home,” Krissy had said, and Cybil had been unable to persuade the six-year-old that North Carolina was home.

  Once again pain clutched Cybil’s heart as Krissy tugged on her stepmother’s sleeve, then stood on her tiptoes to give the woman a kiss. Cybil told herself there was no need to hate Rose Finley McKenzie, but that line of persuasion was wearing thin.

  If not for Rose, her ex-husband would never have stayed here, would never have dragged her daughter hundreds of miles from home.

  But Cybil knew she could set things right. She had thought about it long and hard while nursing bottle after bottle of gin. Soon, Krissy would be hers again.

  * * *

  “DEARLY BELOVED...“

  Susan couldn’t be sure what other mothers thought about when they watched their daughters walk down the aisle and take the hand of the man who vowed to love them forever. She only knew she was having trouble keeping her mind on the words of the ceremony.

  She kept remembering all the ways in which Malorie had brightened her own life with her unique outlook, her impish humor, her warm heart.

  “I promise to do my best to be a good partner,” Malorie was saying now, the first line in the vows she and Sam had written together, “supporting you in all you try to accomplish in life.”

  Susan remembered seeing her daughter through periods of overalls hand-painted with life-size sunflowers; hiking boots with flirty little miniskirts; a fringed cowgirl skirt in elementary school when everyone else was wearing the uniform of jeans and T-shirts. Today, Malorie had walked down the aisle on Bump Finley’s arm wearing a crocheted lace dress with drop waist and uneven hem, something a very elegant flapper might have worn in 1926. Susan smiled.

  “I will do my best to make the hard times we will encounter easier, using the understanding and patience I’ve learned from you,” Malorie continued.

  “I promise to keep learning all the goodness you have to share with me,” Malorie said, “and to share with you what goodness I have to give.”

  Susan remembered the gap-toothed smile Malorie had hated so much when class-picture time rolled around in the second grade. She remembered the adolescent agonies of prom night and the very real grown-up agonies of unexpected pregnancy.

  And she remembered the courage with which Malorie had faced the small congregation of friends and family as she told them the truth about Cody right before the ceremony began. The secret had drawn a few muffled gasps, but Malorie had held her head high.

  “And I promise you a love that grows stronger through the years,” Malorie said, slipping a ring onto Sam’s finger.

  Susan didn’t cry, but tears were close to the surface. Tears of joy as well as her own tears of loss. When she had already lost so much, how could she have been foolish enough to throw away so much promise?

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” intoned the minister, “I give you Mr. and Mrs. Sam Roberts.”

  Malorie and Sam faced the small group of assembled guests, Malorie’s face aglow, Sam’s serene as usual.

  From Susan’s lap, Cody clapped his hands and said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “New mommy and new daddy!”

  Everyone laughed, except Betsy, and Susan felt her heart go out to the woman who had visited so much misery on others. That misery had finally come home to nest, it seemed to Susan.

  Because of the holiday, Malorie and Sam had planned a brief ceremony and even briefer reception so the small circle of invited guests could get back to their family celebrations. They had decided to dispense with many of the traditions, but Malorie had refused to forgo the tossing of the bouquet. She had arranged to throw it immediately after the vows.

  So while Sam and Malorie stood at the altar, Rose McKenzie, by prior arrangement, stood and said, “Okay, all you unmarried women out there, step up and take your chances.”

  Most of the females who rushed to the front were teens; there were even a couple of preadolescent girls. It was all in fun, of course, but as Susan watched them head for the front, she was suddenly filled with longing.

  She wanted that bouquet. She felt it would be symbolic of the fact that she had decided she wouldn’t be cheated out of life a second time. She rolled forward, vowing to herself that whatever it took, she would find Tag. She would track him down in whatever one-horse town had a Saturday-afternoon motorcycle race. She would make it up to him.

  She caught her daughter’s eye and knew from the twinkle there that this was exactly what Malorie had in mind. Susan watched the bouquet leave her daughter’s hand, saw it arcing in her direction. As it came toward her, one of the giggling preteens stepped in front of Susan’s chair to grab the prize.

  Swallowing a gasp of disappointment, Susan watched the moment being snatched away. Then, at the last moment, another hand reached out from behind Susan, over the head of the young girl. Susan looked over her shoulder.

  Betsy stood there with the bouquet of white rosebuds in her hand, holding it out to her daughter.

  With tears in her eyes, Susan accepted the beautiful peace offering. She barely noted the teasing crowd that gathered around Betsy, or the way Bump Finley conspicuously backed away from his one-time sweetheart. Susan’s attention was on the bouquet in her lap and the promise it seemed to express.

  She had been given a second chance.

  As the crowd began to drift toward the Fellowship Hall, Susan looked up and saw Tag sitting in the back row. He looked out of place and uncomfortable in a gray pinstripe suit, his hair trimmed and combed.

  One thing hadn’t changed. The look he leveled at Susan—a look of love and longing that fed the emptiness in her heart.

  Her legs trembling with the effort, Susan put her bouquet on the nearby pew and pulled herself out of her chair. She took one step toward Tag, then another before Tag was down the aisle, sweeping her into his arms.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, although the sanctuary was empty now, except for the two of them.

  “Me, too. I was stubborn. As usual.”

  “If you don’t mind that I’m not perfect, I don’t know why I should mind.”

  “You are perfect. For me.”

  “I don’t want to slow you down,” she said.

  “I want to slow down,” he said. “I sold the bike this morning. I don’t ever want to break a bone or throw out a shoulder in another race or stunt as long as I live.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I want to live a nice, quiet life right here in Sweetbranch, in a little brick house on Mimosa Lane.”

  “It might get dull.”

  “Haven’t you heard? I’ll be a ready-made grandfather. And I’ll live across the street from a meddling mother-in-law. How dull could it get?”

  “Dull enough to send you looking for something better.”

  He laughed softly. “I’ve been looking for something half my life. How could I be fool enough to go looking for something better now that I’ve got what I wanted all along? Oh, no, Susie. This is as good as it gets.”

  He set her down in the chair and put the bouquet back in her lap. “Now, let’s go. I think I need a little practice eating wedding cake.”

  And Susan knew that the treasure of first love was hers—again—to keep.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-8605-4

  Double Wedding Ring

  Copyright © 1995 by Peg Robarchek

 
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