Elspeth, I am back. I am at last alone in my bedroom again, after what has felt like a decade of a day. Nan is in your old room with Star, both under a pile of quilts. Hawkweed is with me, sitting at the end of the bed, purring off and on in a pattern I can’t entirely parse. It is a peaceful tableaux, one that has become the norm here, for which I am boundlessly grateful. But for once I half wish Nan weren’t in the house and that I could be alone to pace and make whatever noise I want or need without inhibition. A noise that expresses that I am ridiculous. Absurd. I made a complete fool of myself, and have no one to blame but me. Who did I think I was, Elspeth?
I am completely embarrassed, even though no one knows. Well—Virgil knows.
I hardly identify with my pathetic, happy pages from this morning, when I was yearning but free. Here, I continue on, into a sober future. I am going to tell it as it happened, without hindsight. It has to be recorded plainly, for me to have as a referent in case I am ever tempted to reinterpret the events. I must never fool myself again.
I went down to find Karen bubbling, so much so that I giggled without knowing why. Even Mrs. C. was smiling. Star barked happily and Karen picked him up and hugged him and let him lick her face.
“Karen! Hand me your cape!”
“No, Agnes, you come out! Put on your coat and come with me over to see Virgil.”
“But we can’t interrupt him! I’m sure he’s working.”
“Not today. He’s expecting us.”
“He is? How do you know?” I was confused.
“Because we made a plan.” She grabbed my arm in both her hands and tugged.
“You and Virgil made a plan?”
She laughed. “Put on your coat and boots.”
“What about soup? I can bring lunch.”
“Virgil is making lunch for us,” she said.
“He is?” I kept repeating that. He is? He is? It pricked that she was bringing me the invitation rather than the other way around.
“Yes, he’s making lunch, all by himself. He’s going to be our host. You can’t pass up the opportunity to see that, can you?”
Her excitement was infectious.
“I just need a few minutes to get ready,” I said.
She giggled. “Oh, I’m sure you’d do a hundred chores before you put on your coat. But I’m not going to allow it. Come now, right now! You too, Star!”
“The snow isn’t too deep for her yet?”
“If it is, we’ll take turns carrying her. She’ll have fun.”
I patted Hawkweed and we stepped outside. For a moment it was warm. I had the same old thought I always have had in those circumstances—it’s not cold out after all, why are we so bundled up? Then after a few steps I walked into the wall of cold. The day was low and close, the air tinged with the scent of woodsmoke and snow. Though the flakes looked light, they covered the branches in heavy sleeves. The trees creaked. Automatically I craned around to look at the graves halfway across the field. I’d had all the stones removed after the accident, so the meadow ran unbroken down to the Sank. I thought as I always do how unfathomable it is that you are there, lying in the ground. Beyond the land the slate water looked like a hole.
Karen spoke about the Christmas just past, how fun it had been to watch Nan open her presents. I said I wished I could have been there, but I got to hold Lydia. Were we competing? Hard to tell in that weather. The snow pulled the day close around us, and made our footsteps and voices loud to our ears. I picked up Star and he snapped at the flakes from the luxurious throne of my arms. I remarked that I felt like a Russian struggling over the steppes. Karen smiled. She looked almost pretty.
At the Chalet Virgil opened the door for us and we stomped our boots and went in. The table had been cleared of papers and surrounded with three chairs. The settings were spotty, but Karen rounded them out swiftly with items she pulled from a satchel, including a loaf of bread and butter wrapped in foil. I kept smiling, but I was perplexed. How had they made a plan without my knowing? Did they speak privately? Sometimes Virgil walked Karen outside to her car after dinner, but I could think of no other time they were together, and Nan was usually with them then. It was all very odd.
Three places were laid, humbly but with a stark glamor. I noticed a pot sitting on top of the woodstove, vapor climbing up its sides. Scent of onion and carrot. My mouth watered.
Virgil poured us glasses of wine. “Scandalous, in the day!” I teased. I was relaxing into the situation.
“Here’s to friends,” he said.
We drank. I followed the rule of meeting eyes over a toast, but neither of them seemed to know of it, and only looked down shyly into the maroon liquid.
He’d decorated the room with fresh green tree boughs. A bowl of acorns adorned with sprigs of holly acted as a centerpiece. He’d thought this through, and gone to trouble.
“This is such a treat,” I said, my manners compelling me to shape the moment. “Are you planning to start entertaining now?”
“Maybe I’ll oversee the Point Party this summer.”
How I loved teasing with him! His height, his scent, his arms even under his sweater—all were so dear to me.
“You’re going to need a lot of practice. I think we’ll have to eat here a lot, don’t you, Karen?” I continued.
They looked at each other. More than just a look—a conversation passed between them, a swift back-and-forth that I saw very clearly; but it was an exchange in a foreign language, and I didn’t know what it meant. I watched and waited, bewildered. I felt like a child.
Finally—or it seemed like finally, but was probably a second later—he nodded.
Karen came close to me and took both my hands. Her plain face glowed. The walk in the cold had brightened her skin and loosened her hair, and the dim light in the room softened her features.
“Agnes, dear Agnes, we have something very happy to tell you.”
The look on her face—I’d never seen it before. Yet instinctively I understood it to be a threat. My whole body tingled with wariness. “Oh?”
“Yes! We are engaged! Isn’t it wonderful?”
She beamed. Virgil stepped forward and put his arm around her shoulders. A log in the woodstove, as if on cue, cracked and burst. A roar of fire shot up through my torso, a great flame shooting and huffing and threatening to immolate me from the inside. My arms ached, and I wanted so badly to do something with them, to hit or squeeze. My legs tensed in a desire to run.
Instead, I nodded, jerking up and down. I didn’t dare look at Virgil.
Karen held out her hand to show a piece of string around her finger. “A placeholder,” she said. “Virgil has asked me to marry him! And I have agreed.”
“I’ll get something soon,” he said to her, as pleased as if he already had.
I thought of all Grace’s rings, sitting in a safe deposit box in Philadelphia, useless. But I made no offer.
“So what do you think?” she asked. “We have been wanting to tell you for so long.”
“How long?” I asked.
“Oh, we can tell you while we eat. I’m starved! Let’s get the food on the table.”
“What about college?”
“I still want her to go,” Virgil said.