A Piece of the World(43)

It’s only now, with her hands draped over the arms of the rocker, that I notice a sparkle on her finger—a ring. “My goodness, is that—?”

She blushes deeply, then leans forward and thrusts her splayed fingers toward me. “Yes! Can you believe it? Engaged. I wondered when you’d notice.” The false cheer in her voice is evidence of how awkward this is for both of us. “I would’ve written to let you know, but it happened only a few weeks ago.”

The ring, with a sizable central diamond encircled by a pattern of tiny diamond chips, is more ornate than any I’ve ever seen. I tell her honestly, “It’s beautiful. From Harland, I assume?”

She laughs. “Of course Harland. It got quite serious quite suddenly. We plan to marry in the fall, just a small family wedding. There’s lots to do, goodness! But I’m so glad to be back here now. And to see you.”

“Well.” I think of portly Harland in his funny short-brimmed hat. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you. It means the world to have your blessing.” Spying Lolly sidling through the doorway, she cries, “Oh, what a pretty cat! So big.”

“She’s a Maine coon. They’re little tigers.”

“Here, kitty.” She clucks her tongue and snaps her fingers.

Lolly freezes, looks back and forth between us.

“She won’t come,” I say. “She’s stubborn and shy. Like me.” As if to demonstrate, the cat streaks across the floor and leaps onto my lap.

Ramona smiles. “You’re not shy. You just like who you like. That cat’s the same way.”

Lolly arches into my hand, insisting that I stroke her, and for a few moments her steady purring is the only sound in the room.

A faint citrus scent lingers in the air.

Finally Ramona sighs. “I have been fretting about how to bring this up. Walton . . . I don’t . . .” She shakes her head, twists one of the large buttons on her dress. “He’s a dear, I adore him, but he can be so exasperating.”

I can’t follow what she’s saying. Walton is a dear? She adores him? “He stopped writing,” I say.

“I know, he told me.”

I grip Lolly’s back so hard that she meows and sinks a claw into my palm, then squirms out of my lap. A bead of blood springs to the surface of my hand. I wipe it on my skirt, leaving a pink smear.

“It was abominable of him. I kept telling him so. And—well—cruel.”

Though I knew this moment was coming, not a single fiber of my being wants to be having this conversation. “Ramona—”

“Let me bumble through this, horrible as it is—I have to. Walton loves you—loved you, I suppose. Oh, Christina.” She sighs. “Every word out of my mouth is as painful for me to say as it must be for you to hear, and I don’t want to do this, but . . .” She stops. Then blurts: “Walton is engaged to be married.”

Walton is. Engaged. To be. Married. Am I missing something? Engaged to be married to me? I look at her blankly.

Walton is engaged to be married.

To someone else.

In all the ways I’ve thought about his silence, considered its sources, this possibility never occurred to me. But why not? It makes the most logical sense. He stopped writing abruptly. Of course—of course—he met someone else.

I feel as if I am emptied out, filled with thick, heavy air. I can’t think or see; it fills me to my eyes. I try to remember what Walton looks like. A straw boater with a black grosgrain ribbon. A linen jacket. Soft girlish hands. But I can’t envision his face.

“Christina? Are you all right?” Ramona’s face is stretched into a ghastly expression. I look into her eyes. It’s as if I’m watching her through a scrim.

“Why.” A tiny word, one syllable, not even a question.

She sighs. “I’ve asked myself a million times, and Walton too; I’ve begged him for an answer that makes sense. I don’t even know if he knows, except . . .” Her voice trails off.

“Except . . .”

“Except.” She twists in her chair. “The distance. And his parents.”

“His parents.”

“He told you, he said. That they—disapproved.”

“He didn’t say that.”

“He didn’t?”

Leaning back in the chair, I close my eyes. Maybe he did.

“His mother is an awful woman. A striver. She wanted—wants—a certain kind of life for her golden boy. And she kept bringing around the daughter of a friend, a girl at Smith, and I just think after a while he thought, what’s the use, I can’t fight it anymore; the easiest thing is to give in.”

“The easiest thing,” I echo.

“I suppose she’s not a bad sort, really. She’s all right.” Ramona shrugs. “Though of course I never said that to him; I only told him how vexed I was, how disappointed. On your behalf.”

By the way she’s telling me this I can see that she has spent time with this woman, that they have all been out together. “What is her name.”

“Marilyn. Marilyn Wales.”

I contemplate this for a moment. A real person, with a name. “He never even . . . wrote to explain.”

“I know. It makes me so angry. We argued about it. I told him it was unconscionably rude. He said he couldn’t do it; he begged me to write to you myself, to tell you, and honestly I refused.”