Miss Julia's Gift: A Penguin Special from Viking by Ann B. Ross Page A

asked another pastor in town. So we eloped and got it done without all the fanfare of gossip and so on. And if it offended the pastor, well, so be it. He’s offended me often enough.”
    “Uh-huh,” Lillian said. “But you wouldn’t even let us have a party for you after it was done. Little Lloyd an’ Latisha didn’t get to throw any rice on you.”
    I waved my hand in dismissal. “I don’t want to go back over what we did and didn’t do. It’s done now and I have to live with it. Except I don’t know how.”
    “Set down,” Lillian said, unperturbed, “an’ have some coffee.” She put a cup before me, poured one for herself, and we settled at the kitchen table, the place we’d had many a conversation and consultation as she often set me straight in my thinking. “Now, what you don’t know how to do?”
    “Live with Sam, that’s what.”
    She rared back in her chair, surprised and dismayed. “You mean you tired of him already? Why, Miss Julia, you only been married less ’n a year.”
    “Oh, no, I’m not tired of him. In fact, I’m . . .” I stopped, feeling my face redden. I looked away. “Well, truth be told, I’m quite pleased with him. Except I never know what he’ll do next. He keeps surprising me while I keep expecting him to draw up the rules. You know, like when dinner should be on the table, how he likes the newspaper folded, where the thermostat should be set, what time we leave for church, what he likes to eat and what he doesn’t, and so on. Instead,” I went on, taking a deep breath, “Sam acts as if anything I want to do is fine with him, which means I don’t have a clue as to what
he
wants.”
    Lillian just sat and stared at me. Finally, she said, “Miss Julia, I guess I better be the one to tell you ’cause you actin’ like you don’t know it, but it’s not Mr. Springer you married to now.”
    “Well, I
know
that. My problem is that I don’t know the one I
am
married to.”
    Lillian shook her head while her eyes rolled just a little. “Some folks don’t know when they well off.” Then she looked me straight in the eye. “You been knowin’ Mr. Sam for years an’ years. What you mean you don’t know him?”
    “Oh, of course I know him when you put it like that. What I mean is I don’t know when he’s going to start acting like a husband and not like he’s still courting. Why, Lillian, every time I turn around he’s bringing flowers or leaving little notes or asking if he can do anything for me or if there’s anything I want, and on and on. And on top of that, here he comes with some little present for every semblance of a holiday that rolls around, including Flag Day when he gave me one of those little glass globes with a mouse inside waving an American flag in a snowstorm. I hate to think what he’ll come up with on Arbor Day. And you remember what he did for Advent. He brought a gift for every blessed day and we Presbyterians don’t even recognize Advent—as a holiday, I mean.” I think I blushed again, recalling some of the intimate wear that Sam had bestowed on me—and during a holy season too, if you can believe it. “It’s disturbing, to say the least.”
    Lillian started getting up from the table. “If that’s all you got to worry about, you in pretty good shape. You might not like what he doin’, but they’s one thing you forgettin’. Mr. Sam, he always where he s’posed to be. I got to get supper on.”
    That told me she was through with the subject and probably with me. I could tell when she thought I was out of line, whether or not she out and out told me, something she rarely hesitated to do. So I wandered off to the living room to ponder the situation alone.
    It was certainly true that, unlike my old husband, my new one was always where he was supposed to be. If he said he was going to Rotary, that’s where he would be. If he said he had an elders’ meeting at church, I never had to check the bulletin to confirm it. Sam was as