BEN HAD DRESSED for supper, had even walked outside for a few minutes, taking in the late sun and the still-thick summer air. He tired quickly, but the walk invigorated his spirits. He had lost weight and strength and there was a tenderness in his chest, like a bruise, yet Oscar Morgan had proclaimed him fit enough to be out of bed, and that was enough for the time being.
“You’ll have to go easy, Ben,” the doctor had said. “If it’s rheumatic fever you’ve had, you’re going to have to pay attention to it the rest of your life. We don’t know as much as we need to, but we know it can cause you heart troubles down the road.”
It was a judgment that would sentence Ben to caution and worry until the day the warning became true, like a debt collected, in his early seventies.
Sally arrived to find him sitting in the porch swing, with his mother seated nearby in a rocker, cuddling Little Ben, who was looking at pictures in a children’s book.
“You’re up,” she said in delight. And then she saw the pale coloring of his face. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Are you sure you’re ready to be out of bed?”
“Just a little winded,” he told her. “I took a short walk.”
“It’s too hot,” Sally protested.
“I didn’t let him go far,” Margaret said. “Just to the corner and back. Little Ben walked with him.” She paused, peered down the street. “Where’s Lottie?”
Sally sat in the swing next to Ben. “She stayed to put away some things that came in today. I told her it could wait, but she wanted to do it.” She laughed lightly. “If Ben doesn’t come back to work soon, I’m afraid Daddy’s going to dismiss me and hire Lottie. She’s really a good worker.”
“A few more days,” Ben said. “Maybe by Monday or Tuesday.”
“Not until you’re ready,” cautioned Margaret. She wiggled Little Ben from her lap. “You two visit,” she said. “Little Ben and I are going over to Betty Render’s house to get some tomatoes she picked from her garden this morning. She told me they were almost as big as the ones Ben’s father used to grow, but I doubt it. Nobody could grow tomatoes like Elton. You remember them, don’t you, Ben?”
“Yes, Mama, I do,” Ben said.
“We won’t be gone too long,” Margaret said. Then, to Sally: “Don’t let him stay out here but a few minutes. The heat cooks the energy right out of a person.”
“I won’t,” promised Sally.
Ben and Sally watched Margaret and Little Ben leave the yard and cross the street. Little Ben ran ahead of her, then back, ahead and back, like a happy puppy, playing his child-game.
“She sure loves that boy,” Sally said quietly.
“She does,” Ben agreed.
“It’s going to seem awfully lonesome for her when they leave,” Sally added.
“I guess,” Ben said.
“She’ll need to keep herself busy,” Sally suggested. “Find something else to occupy her time, something that’ll take her mind off what Little Ben might be doing.”
Ben rocked the swing gently. He knew the hints, had listened to them for a week. The something else that Sally wanted for his mother was the preparation for a wedding.
“I think you’d better go inside,” Sally said. “It’ll be cooler.”
“In a minute,” Ben told her.
“I promised your mother—”
“I know. Just another minute.”
“All right,” Sally said in surrender. She reached for his hand, stroked it with her fingers. “Coleman Maxey came back in the store today,” she said in a cheerful, racing voice. “That’s three days this week he’s been in, and I don’t think I ever remember him even opening the door before. You should see him around Lottie, Ben. He’s just plain silly. Bought a shirt today. Yesterday, it was a pair of work pants. And I told you about the straw hat, didn’t I? It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen on a man. You could wear it, and it’d look wonderful, but not Coleman. But it’s Lottie he’s coming to see. Every time he looks at her, he gets red-faced. He even asked me if she’d ever been here before. He swears he’s seen her.”
Ben thought of the carnival. It had been years, and Lottie had only worked a food tent, but Coleman could have seen her and remembered. Coleman had an eye for beautiful women.
“I don’t know where he could have,” he said.
“I told him it must be somebody who looks like her,” Sally said. “Everybody’s supposed to have somebody who looks like them. I saw a man on the street one day that looked enough like my daddy to be his twin brother, but he was just somebody who was doing business with the quarry. He was from Italy, Daddy told me.”
“I think I remember him,” Ben lied.
“You can pretty much predict when Coleman will take to his bottle again,” Sally said. “When Lottie leaves.”
“Maybe so,” Ben said nonchalantly.
Sally laughed easily. “But he may not be the only one that mopes around when she’s gone.” She squeezed his hand, stopped the motion of the swing with her foot. “I’m just glad you don’t drink.”
For a moment, Ben did not speak. Then he said, “I think I’m just going to be glad when she’s on her way home, after all she’s done for me.” He paused. “Anyway, I’m going to be too busy to think about it.”
“Too busy,” Sally said hopefully.
“At the store, getting back to work.”
“Oh,” Sally said.
“And I’ve got that other thing to do,” Ben said.
“What other thing?”
“I’ve got a wedding to get ready for.”
Sally could feel a quivering in her chest. She whispered, “Whose wedding?”
Ben turned to look at her. “Mine,” he answered. A grin broke on his face. “Or did I forget to talk to you about that?”
“Ben—”
Ben furrowed his brow. “I could swear we talked about this. I did ask you to marry me, didn’t I? Or did I dream it when I had the fever and my mind was wandering all over the place?”
“Ben, don’t tease—”
Ben touched her lips with his finger. “Well, if you don’t remember, I must have dreamed it and it wouldn’t count, of course, but I’ll tell you about it if you want me to.”
Sally could hear the echo of her heartstroke. She inhaled, held the breath.
“We were sitting here in the swing—just like we are now,” Ben said casually. “And you were saying to me, ‘Marry me, Ben Phelps. Marry me.’ And you sounded so desperate about it, I thought the only kind thing to do was to ask you, so I did. I said, ‘Sally Ledford, will you marry me?’ “
“Ben—”
“I don’t remember your answer in my dream,” Ben said.
Sally began to cry. She leaned her face against his shoulder. “Ask me again, Ben.”
And Ben whispered, “Will you marry me, Sally Ledford?”
“Yes, Ben, yes,” Sally said. And a cry of exultation flew up from her throat.
Across the street, standing in front of Betty Render’s home, Margaret Phelps heard the cry, knew what it was, and she smiled relief. Soon she would have the daughter she wanted.
NINETEEN
TO TELL THE story of his marriage proposal to Sally Ledford would be one of the pleasures of Ben’s late life, for his memory of it was exaggerated humorously and he would develop an old man’s habit of pausing to think over what he had just said before continuing with his story, and the pausing somehow made it all seem more interesting.
In Ben’s telling, the news squealed from the porch of his mother’s home, paused for a gasp in Betty Render’s yard, and then was shot with electric quickness throughout Jericho, going house to house, shop to shop, in a relay of words that every woman in town seemed to be waiting to hear. No one used the telephone, Ben vowed. There was no reason for it. The telephone was not as quick as the tongues of women.
“And once it gets told, you might as well forget taking it back,” Ben always added philosophically, and with a wink. “Men don’t know it, but
women do. When the word’s out, you’re already married. You just haven’t had the ceremony, or anything else that comes with it.”
It was a tale containing foolishness and a great deal of truth.
By the time Sally reached her home, less than an hour after accepting Ben’s proposal, her mother had heard the news and had retired to her bed, leaving instructions with Lena, the maid, that she felt particularly exhausted, but held good thoughts about the proposal and looked forward to speaking with her daughter about it at breakfast.
“Miss Alice ought to be ashamed of herself,” Lena fumed boldly.
“She can’t help having bad health, Lena,” Sally said in a weak defense of her mother.
Lena shook her head vigorously. “Honey, you just been asked the biggest question you ever gone be asked, other than are you ready to pass through the Golden Gates, and your mama takes to her bed without so much as a hug. That’s not right.” She motioned for Sally. “You come here, let Lena hug you.”
The embrace from Lena was powerful and warm. Sally could feel trembling from inside the huge woman, and she wondered if it was for joy or pity. Or both.
“You got you a good man, honey,” Lena said, nodding her head against Sally’s shoulder. “I been knowing his mama a long time. His daddy, too, when his daddy was alive. They good people.”
She released Sally and looked at her for a long, gazing moment. Then she said, “You go off and be Miss Sally. Don’t you try to be like your mama or your daddy. Now, they good people, too. Always treated me fine. But they don’t talk to each other enough, honey. Don’t you let that happen to you and that fine Mr. Ben Phelps. You keep talking to him. Ask him every day how he feels. Make out like you just can’t wait to hear the next word that come falling out his mouth.”
Sally could feel tears rinsing the corners of her eyes. Her mother had never given her such advice.
“Lord, honey, having a husband’s a lot like having a puppy,” Lena said softly, touching a tear from Sally’s face. “You just got to talk mush-talk and keep him fed and watered and scratch his belly once in a while, and when he starts to wagging his tail, it’ll be you he’s wagging it at.”
Sally pushed herself close to Lena again, felt Lena’s arms circle her. “I love you,” she whispered.
“And I love you, too, child,” Lena said.
SALLY DID NOT ask her father who informed him of Ben’s proposal. He had worked late at the books, and when he arrived home, he knew—from someone, he knew; someone on the street or someone lingering at a front-yard fence on the walk across town—and he embraced her warmly, telling her he was glad. It was expected news, of course, he said, but it was still good to have something firm in place.
“Have you set a date?” he asked at the dining-room table, during their supper.
“November,” Sally told him.
“Very good,” her father said, forcing an accommodating smile.
“Are you all right?” asked Sally.
“Of course I am. What makes you ask that?”
“You just seem like you’re somewhere else.”
Her father turned his face to the food before him. “Just a couple of things in the books,” he said. “I’m thinking about having a sale.”
“If you do, can we wait until Ben gets back?” Sally asked.
“I’m sure we can,” her father said. “I expect he’ll be on his feet, good as ever, in a few more days.”
“He looks a lot better,” Sally said.
Her father nodded, chewed his food, gazed out the window at the gathering night.
“Did you put out some more women’s cologne after I left?” asked Sally.
Arthur turned to her, frowned darkly.
“I just smell it,” Sally said. “I thought you might have gotten some on you.”
Arthur lifted his hand to his face and sniffed. He could smell the perfumed scent of Lottie Lanier, and a stroke of panic and guilt washed through him. He wiped his hand over the napkin, fought to keep the redness out of his face. He said in a serious voice, “I don’t remember putting any out, but I must have moved a bottle, or something.” He touched the napkin to his lips and then to his forehead, as though in thought. “Now that I think of it, there was a bottle that somebody had left the cap off of,” he added. “Probably one of Carla Dupree’s girls. I put it back on just before I left. I didn’t notice that any had spilled, but I guess that was it.”
“You’re blushing, Daddy,” Sally said lightly.
Arthur put down the napkin and picked up his glass of tea. “It’s a little embarrassing to be going around with women’s cologne on you,” he said. “I suppose I’m so used to it, I don’t smell it anymore.” He drank from the tea, then added, “I’m sorry your mother’s not feeling well. She’d like to be sharing this time with you, I’m sure.”
Sally smiled, but did not reply. Her father was merely playing his role. He had apologized for her mother for so many years he did not know when he did it, or to whom.
“Maybe having a wedding to plan will be good for her,” Arthur suggested. “Give her a responsibility to enjoy.”
“I hope so,” Sally replied.
“You will have to be aware of one thing,” her father added, “and that’s to not let Margaret Phelps take over things.”
“She won’t do that, Daddy.”
“She’s a strong-willed woman, Sally. Don’t ever forget that. I’ve known her since childhood, and she’s always been—well, forceful.”
“I’ll get Mama and Mrs. Phelps together, and we’ll work things out,” Sally said.
Her father glanced at her. A frown wormed over his eyebrows. It was not a meeting he would want to attend. His wife had never cared for Margaret Phelps—not even enough for polite pretension—and he knew how such a meeting would end: his wife’s face hard-set, her lips sealed, her eyes cold. And Margaret Phelps would not notice anything unusual. His wife had been a near-recluse for so many years, people had long given up hope of seeing happiness in her. Margaret Phelps would ring bells of laughter; his wife would sit in silence and resentment.
“Take my advice,” her said after a moment. “Don’t get them together until you have to.”
Sally turned to her father. An expression of amusement was on her face. “Daddy,” she said, “you make it sound like a war instead of a wedding.”
“I don’t mean it that way,” he replied. “I just want you to be aware of what you could be facing, that’s all, and to let you know if you ever want to talk about it, I’ll listen. Right now, I suspect you’ve got stars in your eyes, and sometimes that makes a person blind.” He paused. “Happens to everybody,” he added quietly.
Sally reached across the table and touched her father’s hand. She said, “I’ll watch out for them. I just hope Mama feels up to everything. Sometimes I think she gets tired around me, and I’m not really sure she thinks my marriage to Ben is a good thing.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know. She never said anything, but sometimes I can feel it. Maybe it’s because he’s older.”
“May I ask you something?” her father said gently.
“Yes.”
“Are you happy?”
“Of course I am.”
“And it’s because of Ben Phelps?”
Sally nodded.
“Then hold to that,” her father said. “No matter what happens, hold to it. No matter what people say, hold to it. If you don’t, you’ll always wonder, always regret.” He paused again, gazed into his daughter’s large, bright eyes. She was a child. A child. “Believe me,” he whispered, “you don’t want that.”
Sally did not speak. She slipped from her chair and moved to her father and embraced him awkwardly as he sat.
“Go see Ben,” Arthur told her. “I would imagine he wonders where you are.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t,” Sally said hesitantly. “Maybe I should sit with Mama.”
Arthur shook his head. “No, you go see Ben. I’ll take care of
your mother.”
“I won’t be long,” Sally promised.
“It’s all right,” her father said. He smiled faintly, and she saw moisture in his eyes. “I might as well start getting used to you being somewhere else.”
IT WAS AFTER sunfall—not light, not dark—and Ben sat in the swing on the front porch of his mother’s home, waiting for Sally to return from sharing the news of her engagement with her parents. He had expected her earlier and now wondered if something had happened. An argument, perhaps. He had been around Alice Ledford enough to know that argument thrived in her bitter look, that it could erupt suddenly, unexpectedly.
His mother had guessed his worry. She had said, “I’m sure they’re as excited as I am, and they’re just spending some time with her.” It was meant to comfort him. His mother also knew Alice Ledford.
The mood at his home had been festive. After their supper, his mother had found the ice cream churn and made ice cream with fresh peaches, taking turns with Lottie for the cranking. He had volunteered to help, but was refused. He was not strong enough for such labor, his mother had declared. Besides, the night was in his honor—and Sally’s.
“She’ll be here soon enough,” his mother had said, leaving him on the porch. “I’m going to help Lottie get Little Ben ready for bed, but be sure and get some ice cream for Sally, and tell her I’ll see her in the morning, if not tonight.”
Ben had stopped her. “Mama, do you think Lottie’s all right?”
“Seems fine to me. Why?” his mother had replied.
“I don’t know,” Ben had answered. “She was real quiet when you told her about me asking Sally to marry me.”
“Well, son, maybe it took her by surprise,” his mother had said quietly. “And maybe she’s had a little crush on you herself, the way you helped her out so soon after her husband died. Women never forget that sort of kindness from a man, and, who knows, maybe her husband was as sorry as a carpetbagger.” She had glanced at the door of the house and then moved close to Ben. “I haven’t said anything about it, but I have noticed how shy she seems around you. That’s usually a pretty good sign that a woman has an interest, and I think you should know that Sally sees it, too. Oh, she hasn’t said anything about it to me, but she doesn’t have to. I can tell.”