"Let's not look down on it and what it will bring us." She gazed at the ring and then looked away a moment, blinking back a tear. "I'll never find anyone as wonderful as your father was anyway, and I don't like being out there like so much meat on display. The one great thing Winston has given me is taking me off the market. I could see it in the faces and the lusty looks of the young men who came to the Tremont Lim bar. After they learned whom I was seeing, they looked right through me, and that suited me real fine.
It gave me some class," she said, raising her head. "I felt like somebody and not just a Navy widow everyone expects is dying for another man.
"Then, when he began to take us to the charity events and I met these... these rich-beyond-yourimagination people. I thought to myself that they are no better than we are Why did fate give them so much and do so dirty a deed to us? Why should I let it stand?
"When I saw how beautiful you looked in those expensive clothes, how you glowed on the yacht and how you glowed when he took us to Paradise Island for dinner and you danced with him. I knew what I had to do for us. and I've done it I'm not ashamed. and I feel no guilt."
"But... but you're not in love with him. Mommy. You're going to marry a man you don't love."
"I like him enough. Grace, and he loves me enough to compensate for what I lack. We'll be fine together, just fine," she insisted,
"He's so much older than you are," I whined. "He could be your father."
"Your father used to say he was my father. too. He used to say he had two little girls, two young women to take care of, and that's fine. I like a man to take care of me. I'm not one of these women who is out to prove she is as strong or as capable as any man. I don't have to prove it. I know it, but if I have the choice. I choose to be pampered, spoiled, protected, and made a citizen of the privileged class.
"Didn't you enjoy the way the stylist in the beauty parlor leaped to please me and the way the saleswomen in the boutique nearly broke their necks trying to make us happy? I did. and I will from now on.
"I can thumb my nose at fate now. I can tell it to bury its tail between its legs and go off. And as far as unhappiness goes, that's over for you. too. Grace. Next year you'll be attending a private school, and you won't have to battle any Phoebes or any other girl who thinks she's superior to you. You'll be able to buy and sell the whole lot of them, and they'll know it.
"No," she practically screamed at me. "I am not in love. but I'm in comfort and security. I've had love. It was ripped out of my heart. but I won't wilt like some flower without water or sunshine. I'll have my own sunshine whenever I want it, and we'll water our flowers with champagne.
"Be happy for me. Grace. Be happy for us both. Winston is so fond of you, at times I think he's fonder of you than he is of me. You're the daughter he never had but so wanted, and you like him. too. I know you do."
"I'm not saying I don't."
'Good," she snapped as if she was closing the lid on any further mix of thought, "We're getting married in two months, and the wedding will be at Joya del Mar, and it will be a wedding fit for a queen.
"Your father and I didn't have a big wedding, just a simple ceremony with a few of our relatives. We had a two-day honeymoon at Atlantic City. We used to talk about getting married again and having a really big wedding and a real honeymoon."
"Does Winston know all this?" I asked her. "Does he believe you love him very much?"
"I'll just tell you what he told me last night before he gave me this ring. He said the day I was angry at him was the saddest and hardest day he's had since his wife's death, and that told him that he needed me to make his life worth living. He asked me if I would do that. and I said yes. yes I would. and I will, I'll be a good wife for him. Grace, and you'll be a good daughter. We'll give him happiness, and that is more than most men have in their marriages, believe me.
"Be happy for us, Grace, please." she begged, taking my hand into hers.
I looked down at our joined hands and nodded. "Okay. Mommy. If this is what you want."
"It is, yes, very much."
"I have to get to school," I said.
"I'll call for the taxi."
"I can still make the bus."
"But you haven't had your breakfast, and you have a final exam. Go on, eat something. and I'll call." she insisted. "We're not going to worry about the expense," she added. smiling.
I looked at her. No, we won 't, I thought. "Okay," I said, and made myself some toast and jam and had some coffee.
When the taxi came I called out to her, and she called back. "Good luck. honey. That's all we're going to have now."
I hurried to the cab and told the driver where to take me. We pulled away, and I looked back at the condo which was truly only one of our many way stations. We were still on a long journey. I wanted to be happy for my mother. I really did. and I understood how much marrying Winston Montgomery meant to her and haw it gave her a sense of security and purpose when all that seemed to have been stolen away with a tragic helicopter accident.
She was going to put it all behind us. and I supposed that was good.
But when she married Winston. I thought, on that day, my daddy would truly be gone. Her name would change. She would become another man's wife.
It was like closing a book and putting it an the shelf, burying it in a cemetery of emotions and memories. No more laughter and smiles because of something Daddy had said. No more waves and salutes.