Chapter Seventeen
Cora quickly dropped Roy’s hands as soon as she saw her father watching them, but it was too late. The damage had been done. She could practically see his nostrils flaring even from the distance she was standing, and his face was bright red. Sheriff Williams was marching toward her, grabbing her by the wrist and yanking her away from Roy.
“Sheriff Williams, Cora was just—” Roy tried to explain, but the sheriff abruptly whipped around, shoving his finger in Roy’s face. Roy flinched and took two steps backward.
“I don’t want to hear a word out of you, son! My daughter has never been any trouble until you came around, and now every time I turn my head, Cora is getting into some kind of unladylike mischief, and you are always in the center of it. So now we are leaving. I’m taking my daughter home—my daughter who happens to be engaged to be married, as if you didn’t already know—and you can plan on staying away from her from here on out!”
“Pa!” Cora protested, furious that he had spoken to Roy in such a way and was now dragging her by the wrist toward their wagon like she was a child. “What you saw is not what you think. Roy and I are just friends. Today was his first time back at church in a while, and he got overwhelmed. I was just comforting him, trying to calm him down.”
“Oh, you were ‘comforting him,’ all right,” the sheriff growled as he released her hand and climbed into the wagon behind the reins. Cora didn’t follow him, keeping her feet planted firmly on the ground.
“Why does he not get any credit for his efforts?” Cora asked, her voice quivering as she tried to hold back tears of frustration. “He came today after being away from church for so long, and this is how you welcome him back? I don’t understand it!”
The muscle in Sheriff Williams’ jaw flexed. “I’m not worried about Roy Burns or the state of his soul. I am worried about you, my daughter, and making sure you stay out of trouble. And he’s been trouble for you ever since he came back. Now stop arguing with me and get in this wagon.”
Cora grudgingly climbed into her seat, and they rode back to Lakewood in silence. Cora knew this was a sign that her father was more mad than usual. When he was frustrated, he tended to raise his voice, but when he was furious, he stewed quietly as if he was trying to keep a lid on his temper.
Once they arrived back at the house, Cora tried to reason with her father once again.
“Pa, please listen. I invited Roy to come to church, because he hadn’t been in a while, and I thought it might be good for him to feel close to God again. But he got overwhelmed by all the people asking him if he was going to take Pastor Burns’ place. It brought back all these stressful memories of when his father was alive and everyone expected him to fill his father’s shoes. That’s why he was upset, and that’s why I was trying to calm him down. That’s all that you saw.”
“Cora…” Sheriff Williams started. His head was bowed and eyes closed, and he was squeezing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Do you have any idea what kind of a precarious situation you just put yourself in?”
Cora didn’t reply. She wasn’t ignorant of how it looked from an outsider’s perspective for her to be holding Roy’s hands at the side of the church while no one else was around, but the entire situation had been taken out of context. She just wanted her father to listen to her explanation and try to understand.
“You are just fortunate that it wasmewho caught you and not someone else. You do realize that if word were to get back to Alfred Mills that you have been spending time with Roy Burns—yes, I know about your little lunch excursions—and that you were holding hands after church, that he may very well decide against marrying you?”
“Well, that sounds just perfect to me, because, like I’ve already told you, I don’t want to marry Alfred!” Cora lost her temper and shot back, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “I don’t know why you insist on me marrying him—him of all people!”
The sheriff’s hand shook, as if he were about to wag his finger at her but decided it was pointless. “And I don’t know how I managed to raise such a stubborn and ungrateful daughter. Do you know how many young ladies would jump at the chance to marry someone like Alfred and everything that he has to offer?”
“You think I’m stubborn and ungrateful because I don’t want to marry someone who I don’t love?” Cora yelled back, pacing the living room, where they had meandered over the course of their argument, in frustrated circles. “Why can’t I decide who I marry? It’smylife. And I happen to find Alfred Mills repulsive. Do you remember when he was here, how he spent the entire time talking to you without ever acknowledging me? He doesn’t care about me or what I think about anything! He just thinks I’m pretty—he views me as a brood mare!”Unlike Roy, who always seems interested in what I have to say, Cora thought, but didn’t dare say, that last part.
“He may be repulsive to you, but he is a repulsive man who is going to be able to provide you with everything you need to secure your future. Financial security is a perfectly acceptable reason on its own to marry someone.”
“He can’t provide me with love! I don’t love him, Pa. And isn’t that the most important thing?” Cora’s frustration had de-escalated to despair, and she let herself fall backward into one of the living room chairs, her body shrinking in on itself.
“Do you think your mother was head over heels in love with me when we first got married?” Sheriff Williams asked, his voice lower now, raspier, as he stood over Cora. “I can tell you that no, she wasn’t. I wasn’t her first choice of a husband. She had the same arguments with her father that you’re having with me right now. She didn’t think she loved me or that she could have a happy life with me.”
His voice was shaking now, holding back his own emotion at the shaky start of his own marriage. “But it was a practical arrangement. Your grandfather had fallen on hard times when his business went under and I had a stable, noble career in policework. So, he gave me his blessing, and over time, she grew to love me. And you know what? Had all of that not happened, you wouldn’t be here right now to have this argument with me. You wouldn’t exist.”
Cora’s head was spinning now as she processed this revelation. She had never heard this story before. She had always assumed that her parents had married for love rather than convenience.
“Marriage for love makes for great storytelling,” her father continued. “The fairytales are lovely. But they are just that—tales, not reality. In the real world, people get married for all sorts of reasons, and more often than not those reasons are for practicality’s sake. They go on to live happy and fulfilling lives. And you will, too.”
Cora glared obstinately up her father. “That may be true for other people, but I know what I want for my life, and I believe it’s what God wants for me, too. I want to wait to marry a man I love. I don’t want to rush into a loveless marriage just because you don’t want to be burdened by providing for me anymore.”
Sheriff Williams threw his hands in the air in resignation and headed toward his bedroom. He paused in the doorway with one hand on the frame and his head bowed before he spoke again.
“I’m not having this marriage argument with you anymore, Cora. My decision is final. You are to marry Alfred Mills, and you are forbidden from spending any more time with Roy Burns.”
Chapter Eighteen
Throughout that following week, Roy would do his work repairing the church, and once the sun was high in the sky, he would look toward the clearing in the trees that led to the path back to town, expecting to see Cora emerge with the lunch pail, flask, and bright smile. Each new day that she didn’t show, Roy grew more disappointed. Not because of the lunch she brought—she could show up empty-handed, and he would be just as happy to see her. The truth was simply that he missed spending time with her each day.
He thought back to the last time he saw her, after the church service in Magnolia Grove, when she had taken his hands to calm his racing thoughts. He hoped that she didn’t get into too much trouble with her father, but each day that she didn’t show up for lunch, the more worried he became. He felt guilty, too; had he not been spiraling, unable to handle the pressure of the community, then she would not have been put in the situation to comfort him in the first place.
Nevertheless, he was glad he accepted Cora’s offer to come to church that day, because it had given him a lot to think about. Between the assault of questions from the fellow churchgoers and Cora’s words just before her father caught them—however you feel God is calling you to serve Him, that is what you should set your heart and mind to doing—Roy had a newfound peace about his future trajectory.
