The People Who Count

Celia dug her phone out of her jacket pocket, and her mother answered on the second ring with the television going somewhere behind her.

"Sweetheart? Isn't it dinnertime up there?"

"Almost. Mom, Colin asked me to marry him."

The pause on the line went on long enough that Celia started to say it again, and then she heard a sound that was half a laugh and half something else. The television went off.

"Oh, sweetheart. Oh, I'm so happy. Is he there? Put him on."

Celia handed the phone over, and Colin took it as easily as if he talked to her mother every week, which by then he more or less did. "Hi, Elaine."

"Don't you 'hi, Elaine' me. You never asked my permission."

"I meant to. I got nervous and forgot."

"You did not forget. You were afraid I'd tell her."

"That too."

Elaine laughed properly then, in a way Celia had not heard in a long time. Colin got up and wandered a few steps toward the creek, describing the ring, and since her mother had never been able to talk quietly when she was excited, Celia could follow both halves of the conversation from where she sat. When he finally handed the phone back, she filled in the rest: the run, the mill, how quiet he had gone beforehand. Her mother listened to all of it, even the part about the roof, which she knew by heart.

Elaine's voice had softened. "Your father would have been so happy to see this."

Celia touched the ring. "I know."

"He'd have wanted to walk you down the aisle, and then sit right up front and cry through the whole thing. I'm sorry he won't be there."

"I know, Mom." She pressed her free hand against the cold granite and waited until she could trust her voice. "We'll find a way to have him there anyway."

"I know you will." Her mother hesitated, and when she went on, she sounded careful, as though she had been holding on to the question for some time. "My dress is still hanging in the back closet. I'm not going to push you. I know you'll want to pick your own. But if you ever wanted to try it on, it's there."

"Mom. I was always going to wear it."

This silence was a different kind, and Celia heard the creak of a chair on the other end. "Well," Elaine managed, not very steadily, "then I suppose I'd better have it cleaned."

They talked a while longer about nothing in particular, about whether it was too early to pick a date and whether Celia had eaten, and by the time the call ended the trees had gone dark and the creek was the only sound left.

Colin already had his own phone out. The call connected before it had properly rung.

"Well?"

"She said yes, Mother."

Celia could hear Caroline Merrill without even trying. Colin's father, Frederick, was asking in the background what had happened, and Caroline told him to hush, then told him anyway. She asked for Celia next, and the first thing she did was call her the best news this family had had in years. It was hard not to believe her.

"You'll both come to dinner. Saturday, here. Nothing big, just family and the people who count, and your mother has to come up for it, Celia. I won't hear otherwise."

"I'll ask her tonight."

"Don't ask. Tell her."

They walked back instead of shifting, since it was too dark now to enjoy a run and neither of them was in any hurry to arrive anywhere. The ridge path was pale enough to follow. Halfway down, Celia caught herself turning the ring with her thumb, getting used to the shape of it.

"Who counts?"

"For Saturday?" Colin thought about it. "My parents. Your mother. June, obviously. Bennett and Iris, if I want to keep my Beta and my Gamma. Paige." He gave the last name the same easy weight he always did, the name of someone who had been in every story of his since he was six years old. "She'll cry. Fair warning."

"She's allowed."

His car was where they had left it at the bottom of the trail, and his phone buzzed while he was digging out the keys. He glanced at the screen, grinned, and turned it toward her.

WELL??? Did she say yes???

"I may have told a few people," he admitted.

"How few?"

"My parents knew there was a ring. Bennett and Iris. Paige helped me find a weekend the council wasn't meeting." He looked a little sheepish. "I needed backup. I'd been nervous for a month."

Celia leaned against the car and looked at him, this man who ran a pack and held his own in front of a council and had still needed his friends to get him up a ridge to ask. She could not think of anything she liked better about him.

"Tell her yes."