I look down, remembering that I’d thought this same thing only moments ago. “I guess we’ll have the rest of our lives to fix that,” I say, trying to smile.

“I don’t . . . think I can marry somebody I don’t know.”

I suck in a breath. My mouth opens but I can’t say anything for a little while.

“I had to tell you,” I say, more to myself than him. “You needed to know.”

He studies me for a few moments.“You have my word. I won’t tell anyone,” he says, and I believe him. He may be many things, Stuart, but he’s not a liar.

He stands up. He gives me one last, lost look. And then he picks up the ring and walks out.

THAT NIGHT, after Stuart has left, I wander from room to room, dry-mouthed, cold. Cold is what I’d prayed for when Stuart left me the first time. Cold is what I got.

At midnight, I hear Mother’s voice calling from her bedroom.

“Eugenia? Is that you?”

I walk down the hall. The door is half open and Mother is sitting up in her starchy white nightgown. Her hair is down around her shoulders. I am struck by how beautiful she looks. The back porch light is on, casting a white halo around her entire body. She smiles and her new dentures are still in, the ones Dr. Simon cast for her when her teeth starting eroding from the stomach acid. Her smile is whiter, even, than in her teen pageant pictures.

“Mama, what can I get you? Is it bad?”

“Come here, Eugenia. I want to tell you something.”

I go to her quietly. Daddy is a long sleeping lump, his back to her. And I think, I could tell her a better version of tonight. We all know there’s very little time. I could make her happy in her last days, pretend that the wedding is going to happen.

“I have something to tell you, too,” I say.

“Oh? You go first.”

“Stuart proposed,” I say, faking a smile. Then I panic, knowing she’ll ask to see the ring.

“I know,” she says.

“You do?”

She nods.“Of course. He came by here two weeks ago and asked Carlton and me for your hand.”

Two weeks ago? I almost laugh. Of course Mother was the first to know something so important. I’m happy she’s had so long to enjoy the news.

“And I have something to tell you,” she says. The glow around Mother is unearthly, phosphorescent. It’s from the porch light, but I wonder why I’ve never seen it before. She clasps my hand in the air with the healthy grip of a mother holding her newly engaged daughter. Daddy stirs, then sits straight up.

“What?” he gasps. “Are you sick?”

“No, Carlton. I’m fine. I told you.”

He nods numbly, closes his eyes, and is asleep before he has even lain down again.

“What’s your news, Mama?”

“I’ve had a long talk with your daddy and I have made a decision.”

“Oh God,” I sigh. I can just see her explaining it to Stuart when he asked for my hand. “Is this about the trust fund?”

“No, it’s not that,” she says and I think,Then it must be something about the wedding. I feel a shuddering sadness that Mother will not be here to plan my wedding, not only because she’ll be dead, but because there is no wedding. And yet, I also feel a horrifyingly guilty relief that I won’t have to go through this with her.

“Now I know you’ve noticed that things have been on the uptick these past few weeks,” she says. “And I know what Doctor Neal says, that it’s some kind of last strength, some nonsense ab—” She coughs and her thin body arches over like a shell. I give her a tissue and she frowns, dabs at her mouth.

“But as I said, I have made a decision.”