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of land on Val Verde that Cory had grown up on. We rumbled up the gravel
drive, the area already dry enough to start throwing off dust, and pulled to a
quiet stop, and I made a decision and turned to Cory's mother.
"Your daughter is painfully honest, I said, catching her gray eyed gaze and
making sure she was tracking my eyes. "I expect you to be as well. You can
either forget this morning and come to this wedding blind, seeing what you
want to see and being completely in the dark& " I nodded once to make sure she
understood, "Or you can remember this morning and try to come to grips with
the idea that your daughter's future not only involves graduating from college
and working for Green but also includes a wedding ceremony between the four of
us. It's up to you, but you need to decide now, because if we ever have a
conversation like this again, I won't ask, I'll simply take it all away." The
one thing holding me back was the desire to honor Green. "The only memories
you'll have of your only daughter from here on out will be the ones we want
you to have, and that includes your husband as well. So which do you want it
to be? The lie that's pleasant for you or the truth that's glorious for Cory?
She swallowed painfully, and I could see for the first time an absolute belief
in her that I could do this, that I could play with her memories like a
teenager edits a comic book, and she was suddenly grasping the enormity of
what she would lose if she let go of what she knew for what she wanted to
believe.
She breathed in slowly and let it out, and sighed, a tiny smile quirking at
her lips. One more thing, I thought with a wrench in my heart, to add to the
list of qualities she had given her daughter. "She looked awfully happy today
at brunch, didn't she?" Ellen said wistfully, and I nodded.
"She looked beautiful," I agreed.
"She really looked like a queen." She was begging me for confirmation. I gave
it to her.
"We'd give our lives for her," I told her truthfully, and she nodded shakily.
"I'll keep my brains in my head, thank you very much, she said decisively,
and then opened the car door. "Let me know what she wants for a wedding
present I was going to make a quilt, but if you wanted something else&
"She'd love that," Nicky said from behind me, and I nodded. "She would.
And then, with a birdlike little nod of her head that she hadn't given to Cory
but kept all to herself, she shut the door with a chunk and walked across the
yard, giving her husband a kiss as he paused from pushing the lawnmower over
the lush grass of the season. He said something to her as I went to back out,
and then looked at us, raising his hand in a puzzled farewell as we finished
backing and threw the car into drive.
It was so quiet as I retraced our steps towards home that I could almost hear
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the churning in everybody's stomach.
"Let's make a deal," Nicky said tightly, about midway up the hill to Auburn.
"We unload that conversation onto Green and then try to forget it ever
happened?" Mario asked and answered, and the rest of us nodded.
"I'm in," La Mark said on a puffed breath, and everybody looked at me. I kept
trying to say something, anything, but I had this thing in my throat that
would hardly let me breathe. I could see her, tiny and plump, being regal and
gracious and happy, telling a story: Listen here my people, once upon a time
there was a princess who believed in herself, and she could do anything, and
then a well meaning queen convinced her that her entire fate was a dark
accident. Now she can still do anything, but she will never believe in herself
the way she did when she was tiny and plump and wore a quilt as a chaperone
and a butter tub as a crown.
"I'll never forget that, I said at last, aware that they were still looking
at me, waiting to see what Cory's due'alle would do with an understanding he
had never wanted. "I'm all for telling Green& and for never mentioning it to
her again." I swallowed. "But I'll never forget it." Never.
And, silly us, we thought that was the worst thing that would happen to us
this day.
La Mark and Mario hadn't been fed like Nicky and I, so we stopped for lunch in
old town Auburn, and by the time we got to the top of the hill and off the
freeway it was nearly seven o'clock. After the freeway overpass and right
before the canyon to Foresthill Road is a McDonalds with a vast parking lot
for busses headed to Reno, and that was where the police cars were gathered,
cherry top lights flashing urgently. In the center of the circled cop cars was
Chloe's oversized champagne colored truck. Chloe was talking to an officer,
her white face chafed with tears, her shoulders trembling and her head shaking
in violent denial. The boys were nowhere to be seen.
CORY
Unraveling
Green and I couldn't make love all afternoon, and we'd slept in plenty. About
an hour after Brack took Mom home we left Green's room with hair all wet from
the shower, and he went left to the front room to talk to his people and I
went right to Renny's room to see if Max was still there or if we could talk.
Renny answered a soft 'come in' when I knocked, and I was surprised to see
that Max was still in her room, but he was face down on her dainty,
queen-sized bed, fast asleep on the pale yellow comforter. I looked around the
room, noting that the bare wooden walls had been stained a faded, sage green
with stunning bursts of beige and tawny brown.
"When did that happen?" I asked curiously. She had two chairs like I did, but
hers were the kind with plump middles and wood scrolled legs and edgings, and
they were done in an antique white which was good, because it contrasted
nicely with the long, tawny cat hairs that covered the fabric. Renny was
sitting in one of them, knitting.
"Last night," she answered calmly, then she looked at me and smiled, the kind
of soft smile I knew I must get sometimes when I thought of my beloveds.
"Thanks.
"My pleasure," I replied, raising my eyebrows suggestively, and she looked at
me sideways.
"My God, I certainly hope so." And we both laughed a little.
"So& " And I was only kidding, "Do I get to be a bridesmaid?
"No," she responded seriously, and I blinked back at her, surprised and not a
little hurt. "We're going to have a justice of the peace thing for his
parents, and a little thing here that Green will officiate.
"And I don't get to stand up with you?" Maybe I should have said
'congratulations' first, but I was now really shocked, because this was a lot
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more planned out than I had anticipated, and I didn't get to be a bridesmaid.
Renny rolled her eyes and switched her needles. "Jeez, Cory you totally rank
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