It had not been Ann’s intention to relive all of this on the weekend of her son’s wedding. But since she’d made the ill-advised decision to invite Helen, it now seemed inevitable that this would be exactly what she was thinking about.
Ann knocked on the last door on the left, which was the room where Stuart was staying. “Sweetie?” she said. “It’s Mom.”
No response. She pressed her ear against the door, then tried the knob. It was unlocked, but she couldn’t bring herself to open the door. One of the things she had learned when the boys were teenagers was that she should never enter their rooms uninvited.
“Stuart, honey?” she said. “I made breakfast. There’s still some left, but you’d better hurry or H.W. will finish it.”
No response.
“Stuart?” Ann said.
The door opened, and there stood Stuart in wrinkled madras shorts and a white undershirt. His hair was sticking up; his eyes were puffy. It had been years since Ann had seen Stuart look anything but pressed and professional. Right now, he seemed far younger than he was. Ann was again reminded of visiting Stuart at the Sig Ep house at Vanderbilt.
“Darling,” she said. “Are you okay?”
He shrugged. “Jenna’s upset.”
Ann nodded. “I heard something about that.”
“She found out about Crissy,” he said.
“What about Crissy?” Ann said. Had Stuart seen She Who Shall Not Be Named? Had he suffered a Crissy relapse? Oh, God. Ann had prayed nightly that infidelity wasn’t a behavior Jim had passed on to the boys. “What about Crissy, Stuart?”
“Just that we were… you know… engaged…” He swallowed. “And, um, that she has Grand-mère’s ring.”
“Oh, dear,” Ann said. “You never told her that?”
Stuart shook his head. “I didn’t see the point. I can’t stand talking about it.”
Well, yes, Ann thought; the entire family shared this sentiment.
“So she knew nothing about it?” Ann said. “Nothing at all?”
“She knew Crissy was my girlfriend. She didn’t know about the engaged part. Or the ring part.”
As a state senator, Ann had had plenty of lessons in damage control. She tried to assess how bad this was. Why oh why hadn’t Stuart just told Jenna about Crissy on their first few dates, during the information-gathering period? The engagement had been brief, a matter of weeks. Ill conceived from the start! Ann had never uttered an “I told you so,” but she had been very reluctant to hand over her grandmother’s ring, even though she had always planned on giving it to the first son ready to propose. She hadn’t thought Crissy Pine worthy of the ring; Ann had been certain the marriage wouldn’t last. Crissy was a complainer (she sent back food in restaurants, she criticized Stuart’s taste in clothing, and she mimicked his accent), and she was a spendthrift (she had a weakness for anything French—champagne, soap, perfume, antiques). Ann vividly remembered the day that Stuart broke off the engagement. He came home smiling for the first time in months, and the eczema that had been plaguing him for just as long stopped itching, he said, the instant Crissy drove away. The only problem was the ring. Stuart felt too guilty for breaking off the engagement to ask for it back.
Ann had said, Well, it’s a family heirloom, a two-and-a-half-carat diamond in a platinum Tiffany setting. It’s valuable, Stuart. We sure as hell better get it back.
But the ring had never been returned. Jim had made a gentleman’s phone call to Thaddeus Pine, Crissy’s father. Thaddeus had listened considerately and then called Stuart an “Indian giver.” Next, Ann and Jim had contacted an attorney. They had spent nearly a third of the ring’s value trying to force Crissy to return the ring, but their legal recourse was limited, and Ann’s high-profile career made her hesitant to pursue the lawsuit.
Now, Ann shuddered every time she thought of Crissy Pine. Who would want to keep a diamond ring after the engagement had been broken? No one! For a while, Ann checked on eBay, hoping the ring would turn up, but it never did, leaving Ann with the disturbing vision of her grandmother’s ring on Crissy’s finger.
“Oh, dear,” Ann said. “How upset is she?”
“Really upset,” Stuart said. “Like, really.”
“As in…” Ann said. Suddenly she imagined the wedding weekend going up in flames as dramatic as the ones that had swallowed Atlanta in 1864. Jenna would call the wedding off; Ann would watch her marriage to Jim fail again, she would lose him to Helen again. It was too hideous to contemplate; Ann felt light-headed. Quaalude! she thought. Please!