The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush

“Well, then.” Uneasily, she groped for something to say. “Can I . . . can I get you something? Lemonade, maybe? Coffee?”


“No. Nothing. I don’t want anything.” He put up a hand and rubbed his eyes, closing them for a moment, as if he were closing them against a sharp pain. His mouth tightened, and when he opened his eyes and looked at her, she saw that they were red rimmed and bloodshot, as if he had been crying. But that couldn’t be right, because Grady never cried, not even when he’d had to shoot the horse he’d ridden ever since he was eight.

“But there’s something wrong, Grady.” She was now thoroughly alarmed, and she could feel her heart beginning to pound. “Has somebody . . . died?”

“You might say that,” he said, and his voice cracked. “But not exactly.” He cleared his throat and tried again. “I . . . I . . . Oh, God, Liz, I’d give anything on this earth if I didn’t have to tell you.”

“Tell me what?” she cried, clenching her fists. “Grady, what’s wrong? Is it your mother? Is it—”

“No, it’s me, Liz. It’s me, just me, nobody else. I’ve done something . . . really awful, and I have to pay the price. And that means that you and I . . . we can’t . . . we can never . . .” He stopped.

Done something awful? Pay the price? It sounded as if he had been arrested and would spend the rest of his life in prison! Lizzy stared at him, perplexed.

“We can never what?” she demanded. “What in the world are you talking about, Grady Alexander? Why don’t you just come out with it?”

He dropped his face into his hands. His voice was so muffled that she had trouble making out the words.

“. . . have to . . . don’t want to . . . hate like hell . . .”

“Grady,” she said firmly. “I cannot hear a word with you talking that way. Now, sit up and look at me and say whatever you’ve got to say.” She sounded like a schoolteacher, she knew, but he was behaving like a schoolboy, when he needed to act like an adult.

He looked up and the expression on his face hit her like an almost physical blow. “Liz, I . . . I have to get married.”

She was nonplussed, then impatient and angry. “Grady, we have discussed this over and over. I am just not ready to get married. I don’t—”

He shook his head from side to side, hard. “No. No, Liz.” His voice was savage. “Not to you. I can’t marry you. I’m marrying Sandra. Sandra Mann.”

She stared at him, her heart thumping like a hot fist against her ribs. “You’re . . . getting married?” she asked incredulously. She swallowed, trying to make sense of this. “And who is . . . Sandra Mann? I know Twyla Sue and Archie Mann, of course, but I’ve never heard of your . . . fiancée.” It took every ounce of courage to say that last word.

“She’s Archie’s niece,” he said flatly. “She lives over east of Monroeville, works at the grain elevator there. I . . . met her last fall. We’ve gone out together a few times.”

Lizzy felt the way she did the time Lily Dare took her for a ride in her airplane and did a loop-the-loop. It was as if the bottom had just dropped out of the world and she wasn’t sure whether she was upside down or right-side up. She struggled to get her breath, to form words that made some sort of sense, but her lips were stiff and cold. Anyway, she couldn’t imagine what she was supposed to say in a situation like this. Congratulations, maybe? Or I hope you will be very happy.

The silence seemed to stretch out like a rubber band. Just when it was about to snap, she managed to say something reasonably honest. “Grady, I don’t see how you can possibly marry a girl you’ve only gone out with a few times. I don’t understand—”

And then she did.

“Oh,” she said, in a small, thin voice. “This girl. Sandra. She’s . . . going to have a baby. And you have to do the right thing.”