It had been a hard year for all of us. Mama had died in August of 1959, her liver shot to hell, her face sallow and lined and so much older than her thirty-nine years. Daddy had managed to wait until January of 1960 to make an honest woman out of Loretta, and while I wasn’t exactly close to my stepmother, I didn’t dislike her, either. She was sweet and a little simple, desperate to fulfill her role as An Important Man’s Wife, and she and I mostly stayed out of each other’s way.
I was home that summer from Agnes Scott, the ladies’ college Daddy had sent me to in Atlanta. I liked it for the most part, but there was a sense that all of us there were simply killing time, waiting for a man to marry us. We read Chaucer and discussed Shakespeare and learned conversational French and filled our brains with knowledge that no one would care about the second a man went down on one knee.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
I liked Atlanta, liked living with other girls, but I missed the mountains of home. I missed Ashby House and its familiar hallways, the hidden corners where I’d sit and read or simply stare out the windows at the trees below.
But now that I was home, I missed the independence I’d had in Atlanta, missed going for malts with Becky and Susan and Trina after Western Civilization. Staying up as late as I wanted to read with no one calling, “Is your light still on? It’s past eleven, Ruby!”
It was a strange feeling, being caught between two lives.
I think that’s something you might understand.
So, there I was that summer night in 1960, twenty years old, growing out of being someone’s daughter, not sure I was ready to be someone’s wife, and searching for a place to hide in my own home because my sixteen-year-old sister was absolutely livid about my dress.
I told you, she’d “allowed” me to wear green. And so I had. But apparently it was meant to be only green, not green over gold. She was wearing silver, which somehow made her look “less special.” （I still don’t fully follow this logic, I should add. Maybe I’ll go up to Nelle’s room once I’ve finished this letter and ask her. I might get the pleasure of seeing her head explode all these years later!）
Normally, I would have given her hell right back, but as I said, it was a strange summer, and I had no real desire to engage in another sisterly skirmish, so I’d retreated, heading for the one room I knew would be deserted during a party—my father’s office.
I opened the door, the only light a banker’s lamp on Daddy’s desk, the familiar smell of furniture polish and cigar smoke hanging in the air.
But as I closed the door behind me, I realized it was not cigar smoke I was smelling at all. It was a cigarette, freshly lit, and the cologne in the air wasn’t the lingering hint of Daddy’s Acqua di Parma. It was something sharper, warmer. Something that made my toes curl in their mint-green pumps.
“If my mother sent you to drag me back to the party, you should know that I’m not going without a fight.”
Startled, I stepped back, my heel hitting the brass plate at the bottom of the door, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet room.
I had known Duke Callahan would be at Nelle’s party. Nelle had practically danced around the room when his RSVP had been delivered. I later learned that he had been something of her “white whale” for the past year, and long after Duke was dead, I found an old diary of Nelle’s stashed behind those fancy copies of Charles Dickens that no one ever read. Mrs. Eleanor Callahan was scribbled on several pages, and I suddenly understood that Nelle’s tears at Duke’s and my wedding had had nothing to do with hay fever as she’d claimed.
I’d caught only the briefest glimpse of him earlier, as he’d made his way across the foyer to say hello to Daddy. That was when Mrs. Sidney had issued her warning, lifting the little skewer from her martini and gesturing at Duke’s retreating back with it, the pickled pearl onion on the tip nearly slipping off.
“Trouble,” she pronounced, puckering her lips. Her pale pink lipstick had bled into the fine lines there, and I suspected the empty martini glass in her hand was not her first cocktail of the evening. “And, from what I hear, on the hunt for a wife. Pretty and rich as you are, sweetheart? I’d steer clear.”
And I had, until I walked into my father’s study to find Duke Callahan leaning against the bookshelves lining the far wall.
He straightened up, walking closer to me, his eyes slightly narrowed. The end of the cigarette tucked between his lips glowed a bright, hot red as he took a drag, smoke curling around his head when he exhaled.