She doesn’t have one. She is looking at the box on the table, like it is a snake that might bite her.
David picks it up, handling it with ease.
“I have spoken with your father. I have spoken with God. Emma, you are to be my wife.”
David opens the box, revealing a small gold band with a diamond sliver on it. He takes it out of the box, holding it in front of her.
“This is for you to have for our engagement. We will be married in the spring. You and your mother will set the date. Sometime in March.”
Emma doesn’t respond. She looks at the ring.
“Do you have anything to say? Emma, do you have anything to say.”
“Sure,” she says.
“Sure what?”
“Sure, okay.”
“Okay!” David says, smiling broadly. “We will be married!”
She takes the ring, and holds it in the palm of her right hand. And keeps it there.
“You will be a good wife. I know you will. You are ready. Emma, you are so beautiful. You can sew. You can cook. You can tend the garden. And you have been raised in God’s word. You will be a good mother and wife.”
Emma sits silent.
A mother. Goodness. She doesn’t want to bear a child with David.
Her parents come into the room.
“This is so exciting,” her mother says, clutching her face. “A wedding!”
“You were meant to be together,” her father says.
David stands up. He shakes her father’s hand.
“Son-in-law,” her father says.
“Not yet,” David says. “Not yet.”
They both laugh.
“Soon,” her father says.
“Well,” says David. “I best get going. We have much to celebrate tomorrow. I feel the spirit like I’ve never felt the spirit before.
“God is good.”
“Yes,” Jeremiah says, “God is good.”
David walks to Emma. He takes her hand, looks her in the eyes. She is looking at the floor. He touches her chin, lifts it up.
She quivers, and turns her head away to the side.
“She never did know how to act excited,” her father says.
“Nervous, I suppose,” David says.
“Yes,” Emma says, trying to recover. “I’m just nervous. That’s all. Give a girl a break. Marriage is a big deal.”
David takes her chin again, with a stronger grip this time, twisting it up so that she’s looking at him. He leans forward, purses his lips, and kisses her lips, which are clinched.
Emma’s lost memory of the snake biting her comes back to life. She sees the snake flaring its poison-laced fangs and snapping at her.
Strike!
Emma recoils from David’s coinciding touch, and shudders.
Emma reaches for her neck, touching her mark.
“He isn’t going to bite,” Emma’s father says, laughing.
David stands upright, and exhales.
“Nobody can doubt her purity,” her father says. “Nerves can’t hide that.”
Emma blushes.
“Practice will make perfect,” David says. “But only at the right time.”
Her parents laugh.
Emma fights back tears. Her temples hurt, but she doesn’t shed a drop.
“We will see you tomorrow?” Emma asks David.
“Tomorrow. Yes! Tomorrow is Christmas, the holiest of days. After this Christmas we will be together. Tomorrow, however, we will spend rejoicing with our own families. So no, tonight is our time together. Tomorrow is our time to rejoice with God and our families.”
“Oh, Emma, dear,” her mother says. “You didn’t put your ring on, dear. Put it on, so I can see it. So David can see it before he leaves.”
Emma opens her clutched hand, revealing the ring and redness in her palm where she has buried it deeply.
“Well, put it on,” her mother says. “So we can see it.”
Emma takes the ring into her left hand, sliding it onto the ring finger on her right hand. She holds the hand out for them to see.
But she looks away.
“My goodness,” her mother says. “I might cry. My baby is engaged.”
“A wedding in March,” David says. “Well, I must be going. Merry Christmas to all, and thanks be to God for the birth of Christ.”
“Amen to that,” Emma’s father says.
David walks to the door. He turns back to Emma.
“This is an honor,” he says, before opening the door and walking out.
Emma turns back looks at her mother and father. She looks at the Christmas tree.
DING.
“Oh,” Emma says, moving toward the kitchen. “The pumpkin bread is ready.”
The Christmas Eve dinner at the Mays house is the same menu they have every year anchored by roasted turkey, made by her mother. Her father makes the cornbread dressing from bread scraps saved throughout the year which are frozen until Christmas. Emma makes sweet potato casserole sweetened by orange juice and topped with browned marshmallows, green beans flavored with bacon and vinegar, and homemade yeast rolls.