CHAPTER SIX

In the next scene, Estelle moves out of the town while Marilyn is left alone weeping and unable to make sense of what happened to their friend. At that point, the play announces a brief intermission.

“We should go,” John says to Eloise as the recess starts.

“Why?” Eloise asks. “This is for you. Does the play make you uncomfortable?”

“No!” John says quickly. “I am just tired.”

“Well, I think it will come to an end soon. Besides, I think it would really mean a lot to the actors if you stayed for the whole thing,” Eloise says to her father even though she really just wants to see the end of the show and see if Mary Lou’s promise of everything making sense would come to pass.

“Fine.” John relaxes into his seat, defeated.

The play resumes after ten minutes and announces a six-year jump in time. Estelle is back in town and she wants to take care of her father who has just broken his hip. It takes all of Eloise’s self-control to not leap off her seat and run to the stage when the next scene comes on. She is not alone, though. The entire audience gasp and scream at the sudden reveal; the same white-haired man is Estelle’s father.

Eloise summons all the courage in her to look at her father. If looks could kill, John would have set the entire cast and crew ablaze on the stage with just his eyes. Eloise cannot make sense of all that is happening just yet so she waits, settles in her seat and watches the play with rapt attention. If this play is truly carrying a mirror to real life, surely it must end now. Otherwise, what do they have left to say?

But the play does not end. Instead, it continues into what Eloise no longer recognizes because she has never seen it happen. Eloise watches as Marilyn tells Estelle of her father’s crime and they both cry out their eyes, earning more than a few sobs from members of the audience. As if things are not already strange enough, Eloise watches as Estelle wheels her father to the top of the hill while the helpless man begs. The audience cheers her on as she says her final words to him and pushes him down to his death.

The entire theater erupts in applause. Everyone is more than happy with the arc of the story’s heroine who has taken matters into her own hands and killed her father who assaulted and murdered her best friend. Everyone is clapping and cheering, except Eloise and her father.

Eloise cannot leave the theater fast enough. She gets up so fast that she does not even pay her father a second glance. She just wants to get far away from people to a place where she can breathe.

“Eloise.” The silky-smooth voice is so sudden and unexpected that Eloise feels like she imagined it until she turns to the direction it came from.

“Stanley?” Stanley is standing just a few feet from her by a carriage. He looks just as dashing as he always does and he has an unsure expression on her face, as though he is gauging her reaction to know what to do next. “What are you doing here?”

“I know that you said you wanted to come here alone but I just could not stay away,” he says as he closes the distance between them. “I want to know you, Eloise. I want to know all of you; your story and your origin. That is why I am here.”

Stanley’s words are like a pin made to burst the balloons of pent-up emotions that Eloise has kept sealed for such a long time. Right in front of him, she breaks down in tears, unable to control herself. Stanley is confused for a few seconds, worried that he has said something wrong but he quickly put his arms around her and directs her away from the crowd now emerging from the theater. He takes her underneath a tree where he rubs her back gently and tries to get her to stop crying.

“Eloise,” he says. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” Eloise chokes out. “It is not you. It is this town and my father and me?”

“What’s wrong?” he asks the quickly adds “But if you are not ready to tell me, that is alright.”

“I think I am finally ready to tell you; all of it.”

So, Eloise tells Stanley all about her childhood. She starts right from the beginning. She tells him about the death of her mother and being raised by just her father. She tells him about her friends, Mary Lou and Moira. When she tells him of what happened to Moira that night in the woods, Stanley’s expression stiffens and it gets even stiffer when he finds out who is the culprit. By the time she finishes talking, Eloise is spent but relieved. She does not feel like she has spoken at such length before but she is happy that she has finally let this story out of her mouth to the ears of the man that she loves.

“Now,” Stanley says. “What do you want to do?”

Eloise takes in a deep breath before she responds. “This might sound a little unlike me but I think that I want to stay back. I think that I could help Mary Lou and together we could make sure that my father gets what he deserves.”

“Eloise…”

“I know it sounds absolutely mad but I think that this something that I must do.”

“And you are right to feel that way,” Stanley says. “But do you really think that serving him that justice is up to you?’

“Somebody has to do something.”

“And Mary Lou has already done so much without you here. She is not going to stop now if you leave.”

“I have to stay.”

Stanley gives a frustrated sigh. “Eloise, I think that you need to ask yourself what you really stand to benefit by inserting yourself back into a story from the past that you have only just escaped from after running for six years when you can just choose to move forward.”

“Forward?”

“I want to marry you, Eloise,” he says simply. “And I know that once my family hears a definite history of you, they will have no problems with us marrying. I want you to move forward into the future with me. It is the best thing for you, for us.”

In the two years that she has met him, Eloise has dreamed about this very moment at least a million times. This moment when Stanley asks her to marry him. Yet, he has chosen to ask it at a time when the next step into her future remains unsure. Eloise still wants more than anything to marry this handsome man of nobility but she also wants to seek some justice for her friend, Moira, and get some closure in that regard.

“I want to be your wife, Stanley. I really do,” Eloise says. “But I must sort this out. Can you give me some time?”

“Of course,” Stanley says. “But I will not wait forever. I will be at the local inn until tomorrow morning. If you’re ready to be with me, join me at the inn so that we can leave for New York together. Otherwise, I think it’s best that we both move on.”

Eloise stays under that tree for one more hour after Stanley leaves thinking about what the future holds for her. She walks back home solemnly. Mary Lou was right; the play had explained everything but it had only thrown her into more disarray.

John is in the house when she gets home. She does not know how he got home by himself and she does not care. He watches her intently as she walks around the house, picking up food items and getting ready to prepare dinner.

Although Eloise does not do it as intently, she is also watching her father. She is wondering whether to take the step to let art imitate life and take matters into her own hands, after all, she is the one who cooks John’s foods and gives him his medicine or she could leave him be and move into her own future with Stanley. She places a pot of water on the stove and watches it as it boils, the clearness of the liquid reminding her of the sky in the morning, when she would have to make the decision that will determine her future.