Her eyes flick to Sophie, then back to me. “I’ll be outside.”
Whiskey starts after her.
I say, “Whiskey.”
He pauses.
“Don’t let her leave.”
Twila laughs once. “Good luck.”
Whiskey’s mouth curves, but his eyes stay serious. “I’ll try not to get arrested.”
They go.
Now it’s me and Sophie near the long table full of wedding mess.
Ribbon samples.
Cornbread crumbs.
Bourbon glasses.
A notebook with Pearly Gates written in the margin where flowers should be.
The old jailhouse seems to lean closer around us, bars and brick and ghosts listening like they are waiting for a sentence.
I look at that notebook.
Then at her.
“Were you going to tell me?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
Her mouth opens.
No sound comes.
That is answer enough.
I laugh once, hard and humorless. “After the wedding?”
“No.”
“Before I stood in front of half the town and promised myself to you while your father’s money might be tied to these missing girls they’re trying to hang me for?”
“Legend, stop.”
“Why? Too ugly?”
Her eyes flash. “Yes. It is ugly. It is all ugly. That is why I was trying to understand it before I handed it to you.”
“You don’t hand me the pretty after you sort it, Sophie. That ain’t what this is.”
“I know.”