Marriage of Convenience
Hope turned to look at Jimmy, her eyes wide with disbelief at his inquiry. “No, of course there isn’t anyone else.” Why was she being so defensive? Couldn’t she have someone else in mind if she wanted to? She didn’t owe him any explanations. The fact of the matter was, she couldn’t even think of another person who might be the “someone else.”
“It ain’t Henry Morris, is it? Because I hear he’s sweet on Fanny Winters.”
“No.” Even the thought of loud Henry Morris, with his big belly that shook when he laughed, made her nauseated. “It isn’t anyone else, Jimmy. I told you. I just think we’re better off as friends.”
River turned the corner so they were headed down the street that went to her house, and she wished she could tell the horse to walk faster. “You know, Hope, there ain’t a lot of single fellows left in this one horse town. Me and Henry and Nelson Smith, Seth Donahue, that’s about it. Everyone else is either an old man or a young kid.”
Hope stared at him, not sure what he was trying to say but letting him speak.
“You ain’t gonna find another fellow better ‘an me ‘round these parts.” Jimmy pulled the wagon to a stop in front of her house, looking at her as if he expected a response to his bold statement.
“Are you implying that if I don’t marry you, I’ll die an old maid?” she asked, not quite able to believe what she’d heard.
“Well, unless you plan to marry one of those other fellows I named….”
“And how do you know that I’m not madly in love with a gentleman from one of the neighboring towns, Jimmy Brooks?” Her dander was up now. “What if I’m courting someone from Nevada, or Jasper, or Golden City?”
“Are you?” he asked, eyebrows up near his hat brim.
“It’s not your business!” Hope spewed, standing and getting ready to jump down from the wagon. “I told you, I don’t want to court you, Jimmy Brooks, and if you feel the need to present yourself as the only viable option for an old bitty like me, well, then so be it….”
“Hope, that’s not what I meant….”
“I assure you, the man I’m meant to marry is out there somewhere, and I won’t settle for just anyone because it’s convenient. Now, if you’ll excuse me….”
“Hope!” He reached for her, but Hope was already gone, leaping down into the grass next to the road and taking off for her front door as fast as her feet could carry her. “Hope! I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Go away, Jimmy!” she shouted without turning back. She didn’t hear the sound of the wagon taking off as she reached the porch, but he wasn’t chasing after her either, and Hope opened the door thinking she’d slam it behind her like she had the last time Jimmy Brooks had given her a ride home, but since that had alarmed her mother, she shut it quietly and then took off for the stairs and her room before she had to answer any questions from anyone.
Hope tossed herself down on her bed, thankful Faith was downstairs so she wouldn’t come barging in, and hot, angry tears wet her pillowcase. Who was Jimmy Brooks to tell her she was out of options? That she was going to die an old maid if she didn’t marry him? Her distress turned to anger, and she flipped over so that she was looking at the ceiling. What if he was right, and he was the best option she had available? Everyone else she’d gone to school with was married, and even her younger sister was engaged. Hope grabbed a pillow and shoved it over her face, wondering how this had become her life. While she was happy to be teaching school, she knew there was something more out there for her, and she’d been too frightened to take the opportunity to go searching for it. If she died here, all alone, it would be her own doing.
A knock at the door had her sitting up, and she assumed when she said, “Come in,” it would be her mother, but it wasn’t. The concerned face of her grandmother, Jane, poked in the crack in the door. “Grandma, come in.” Hope spun so that her legs were hanging off the edge of the bed so that her grandmother would have a place to sit down. She shuffled in and had a seat, taking a few deep breaths as she did so, as if the short walk from her room down the hall had been too much.
“I heard you come in, and you sounded upset. What’s troubling you, honey?”
Hope wiped the tears from her cheeks and tried to put into words what she was feeling, which was more complicated than she expected. Finally, she said, “I guess I just wonder if I’m doing what I’m meant to do, that’s all.”
Her grandmother raised a gray eyebrow behind her spectacles. “I thought you enjoyed your work at the school.”
“I do, Grandma. It’s just… I always thought I’d go off somewhere, that my life would be an adventure, more like Daddy’s I guess.”
“Your father had adventures out of necessity, Hope, not because he wanted to. He hasn’t left southwest Missouri for the last twenty years, and I think he’s just fine with that.”
Hope let out a sigh. “I know, Grandma Jane. That’s not what I meant. I guess I’m trying to say I thought I’d do something more important with my life, that the students I taught would be in dire need of a schoolteacher, that I could reach them when they’re young, children of the lawless, and raise ‘em up right.” Her grandmother chuckled, and Hope supposed everything just wasn’t coming out right. “I sound ridiculous, don’t I?”
“No, honey, but you do remind me of someone else I know. And it isn’t your daddy.”
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
