Rock of Ages by Howard Owen Page B

hasn’t finished, to give her away.
    It all seemed to Georgia like payback for a lifetime of struggling with bad marriage karma, or bad judgment. She and Jeff Bowman had been too immature. She and Mark Hammaker had been too ill-suited.
    But she hadn’t said yes at first. Phil Macomb had to truly beg her, sure as she was that she was doomed to suffer in marriage. Why, she asked him, can’t we just live together?
    â€œWe can live together,” he said. “We can do that. But what I really want, more than I want food or air, is to have you with me in every way possible. I’ve been waiting my whole life for you, and I don’t want to cheapen it, don’t want to cheapen you.”
    Georgia thought the whole idea of cheapening anything was quaint, after everything that had gone before, but she came to see that he wanted her so much, that he wanted to always be there, that he would always be there. By the time she agreed, two weeks before the wedding, she was sure that he always would be.
    She pulls into Forsythia Crumpler’s driveway right on time and walks with no little trepidation toward the house.
    Her old teacher answers the door on the third ring and lets her in.
    â€œI’m sorry to disturb you like this,” Georgia says, “but there’s something I have to ask you.”
    â€œBefore you do,” the older woman says, holding up her hand, “I’ve got to say something. I was wrong the other day, raking you over the coals and all, especially after all you’ve been through this year.”
    â€œIt’s …”
    â€œNo, I’ve always had a bad habit of butting into other people’s business. I don’t think you did Jenny wrong. I know you’d have helped her if you’d known. I ought to have told you. I was just so upset.”
    Forsythia Crumpler seems to be near tears, something Georgia hasn’t seen before.
    â€œNo,” she says, putting a hand on Forsythia’s shoulder, “you were right. I’ve been thinking about it. I asked myself what Daddy or Mom would have done, and they wouldn’t have let this happen.”
    â€œPeople are busier today, get distracted more. They don’t live in the same town.”
    The old woman grows silent.
    â€œThank you,” Georgia tells her. “Thank you for your forgiveness. It means a lot to me.”
    They go inside and sit down to teacakes and coffee. They talk about old times, former teacher and star student again. Forsythia tells her how sorry she was to learn about her husband.
    â€œI heard about it from Jenny,” she says. “I should have sent a card.”
    â€œLucky in something, unlucky in love,” Georgia says with a shrug. “I can’t remember what it is I’m supposed to be lucky in, though. Maybe I ought to start playing the lottery.”
    â€œLottery!” her host says, some of her old vinegar returning. “They’re trying to get it down here. A tax on morons.
    â€œWell, what was it you wanted to ask me about?”
    So Georgia tells her about the ring.
    Jenny McLaurin didn’t have much that the world might have called valuable. The house and land were about all she and Harold ever possessed. There was one thing, though. Harold had given her a wedding ring that was her pride and joy.
    He’d won it, she would find out later, off a rich young man in one of the Saturday night poker games that were held in the back of Dawson Autry’s store. The games were very egalitarian affairs, a chance for the dirt farmers and laborers to rub shoulders with lawyers and prosperous businessmen trying to show they had the common touch.
    They way it usually worked out, the rich got richer. It was much easier for a man with $200 in his pocket to bluff than it was for one with twenty that he really needed to turn into forty. If one was a politician or wished to be one, it was wise to lose a little back at the end, though, a gesture as