My Tribal Rule Said Marry Or Matchmake novel · Chapter 27 of 32

Chapter 27: Third Supper

Jeb wore a tie.

It was dark green and about twenty years old, and his mama had tied it for him in the elder's kitchen.

He came out into the front room tugging at the knot.

"Leave it," I said.

"It's choking me."

"It's your one note tonight. Leave it."

He left it.

I was in Granny's pick for the night, a blue cotton dress with short sleeves.

The elder's long walnut table was back in its own house, pegged together and polished.

Every chair was full again. Easterly aunts and uncles, cousins, the kids on their bench.

Granny sat at the elder's right hand with her oxygen cart beside her chair.

Sheree had driven down again. She sat between two uncles and was teaching them a card game I hoped was legal.

At the end of the table sat a cake.

Three layers. Pink frosting. THIRTY in green gel, a little crooked.

"The kids did the writing," Jeb's mama said. "Don't say a word about the R."

The R was backward.

I didn't say a word.

The food came, and the noise came with it, and for an hour nobody mentioned what the night was for.

Then the little girl on the bench put up her hand.

"Is this the last supper?"

"Third supper," said the elder. "The last supper was somebody else's."

The table laughed.

The elder set down his fork.

The laughing stopped.

"Torrie Sadler," he said. "You came home under the old custom."

"You sat three suppers at my table with the match I picked."

"You're thirty years old today."

"So it's your choice now, and nobody else's. Marry, or walk away free."

Twenty faces turned to me.

Granny had her hand pressed flat on the table.

Jeb didn't look at me.

He looked at his plate, with his ears already red, and waited.

He always waited.

I pushed my chair back.

I stood up.

My knees were shaking under my dress, so I locked them.

"I waited eight years for a man to ask me."

"When he finally took out a ring, he handed it to somebody else."

"So I'm not waiting anymore."

I turned to Jeb.

"Jeb Easterly. Stand up."

His head came up.

The whole table went so quiet I heard the clock in the kitchen.

He stood.

The tie was crooked. He had a crumb of cornbread on his shirt.

He looked at me the way he had in the church, the day he said no.

"Will you marry me?" I said. "Out loud. In front of everybody."

He didn't answer right away.

Somebody's chair creaked.

"I already asked you," he said. "In the hospital. At three in the morning."

The table gasped.

Granny put both hands over her mouth.

"I know," I said. "I told you the next time I said yes to a man, I wanted to do it standing up."

"So I'm standing up. And I'm asking you back."

He reached into the pocket of his good shirt.

He took out a ring.

It was a plain band of white oak, sanded until it shone like honey.

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