In our mountain town we follow the courtship-marriage custom. Any woman who reaches twenty-three without a man coming to her door is driven out of the village, counted as a disgrace to her family.
I waited three years for Jason Cox.
The first year, he was in the city celebrating his childhood sweetheart's birthday, and the window for the courtship passed.
The second year, he was nearly at my door when she called him back, scared of the thunder in the middle of the night, and I waited out another night for nothing.
The third year, his sweetheart was getting married and he was too heartbroken to come. Not a word to me. He simply broke his promise again.
This year was the last year.
Jason swore to the heavens that he would come to my door before the courtship deadline.
There were only three hours left before this year's courtship window closed.
The sky had gone dark, and still there was no sign of him.
I panicked. I slipped out of the loft and went to find Jason and demand the truth.
But the moment I reached the local tavern in town, I heard him laughing with his friends.
"Jason, there's less than three hours left. Shouldn't you hurry over to Constance Glass's place for the courtship? If you miss the hour, you'll ruin Constance's whole life!"
Jason's voice drifted out from the courtyard, thick with drink.
"I'm doing it on purpose. Every year she nags me, and it grates on me. Especially last year, with Laurel's wedding tearing me up, and she still nagged. That's when I decided. This year I'm going to teach her a lesson."
"Jason, a woman past twenty-three with no one to propose gets driven out of town!"
"So I drive her out and then I bring her back. Nobody wants her, I pick her up off the ground, and after the wedding she'll treat me like the man who saved her life. She'll wait on me, sweet and obedient. That's how you break a woman in."
The branch I'd snatched up off the roadside bit raw into my palm.
I stumbled the whole way home and dropped to my knees in front of my parents.
"Dad, Mom, the man who's proposed three years running, I've said yes."
"…"
My mother froze for a moment.
The next second, tears slid down from the corners of her eyes.
She bent down, gripping my hands hard, her voice shaking.
"Good. Good. You've finally seen it. That Jason boy, nine parts of his heart belong to the Simmons girl, and only one part to you…"
She pulled me up with one hand and shoved at my father with the other.
"Go, quickly, there's still two hours, there's still time. Get to the city, sign the marriage contract, and take it to the old town chief."
The sun had just climbed up over the ridge when my father pushed the door open, out of breath.
He drew the contract from inside his coat, still warm, and pressed it into my hands.
"I've already told the old town chief. We made the final hour, just barely. The marriage is settled at last."
With trembling hands I lifted the bright red contract and slowly unfolded it.
By the custom of our town, the groom's name on the contract must be written in the gold powder the bride has prepared.
Three years ago, I spent every last bit of my own savings to prepare the gold powder for Jason.
What I'd been waiting for was this: that before I married, he would use the powder I'd prepared to write his name on the contract.
Now the groom's name was filled in, written in the very gold powder I had prepared.
But it was a stranger's name.
Roderick Sanchez, the only son of the richest family in the city. Three years ago he'd come to town on a sketching trip, got lost in the mountains, and I was the one who led him back out.
From that day on, the proposal invitations stacked up to a man's height every year.
I never answered them. I never even looked.
My heart was set on waiting for Jason.
But in the end he never came…
The thought of Jason stung at my nose, and tears welled up all at once.
"Constance, don't cry."
My father's rough, broad hand clasped my shoulder.
"No tears can fall on this contract. The Sanchez family are good people. The moment that Roderick boy saw the contract, he wrote his own name without a word."
"It all happened so fast. The Sanchez family says they want to bring you home in grand style, so you'll just have to bear with staying here one more day."
"That young man says it himself—if anyone dares talk behind your back this one day, when he comes tomorrow, he'll set it right for you."
There was worry in my father's eyes, but relief mixed in with it too.
For hundreds of years,
no woman in our mountain town had ever failed to marry into her husband's family before twenty-three.
I might be the first.
At least I was leaving tomorrow. In the end I hadn't become my parents' shame.
I wiped my tears and was just about to tuck the marriage contract carefully into the red cloth wrap,
when Jason came rushing in, breathless,
drenched in sweat, gasping for air.
"I'm sorry, Constance."
"I was up all night getting things ready for our wedding day, I slept late, and only just got up. Am I too late...?"
I looked at him, caught the faint smell of liquor on him, and spoke flatly.
"You're late."
At the cold edge in my voice,
Jason's smile faded.
He raised a hand and wiped the sweat from his forehead, glancing at my father standing stern-faced to one side.
"Constance, my mother said she saw your father come out from the old town chief's place early this morning, out of breath. Is it because I held things up past the final hour, and the chief gave your father a hard time over it?"
So he'd seen it.
And he'd still let the deadline pass on purpose before coming.
The words I'd heard outside his door three hours ago ran through my mind like a film reel.
"All that nagging gets on my nerves. I want to wait until no one else wants her. Marry her then, and she'll do as she's told."
My heart felt clamped in a great hand, dull and aching, too tight to breathe.
Thinking that I'd be leaving this place tomorrow,
I had no wish to tangle with Jason any longer.
So I stepped back, pointed at the door, looked at him, and said coldly,
"Jason, I told you. This year was the last year I'd wait for you. You came too late, so there's nothing left between us."
"Go. I can't marry you now."
Jason froze for a moment,
then quickly stepped forward and seized my wrist.
He gripped so hard
that my hand loosened, and the marriage contract slipped straight to the floor.
Looking at it lying there,
Jason let out a short laugh.
"Look at you. A grown woman, still throwing childish fits."
"Saying you won't marry me, when you've had the marriage contract ready all along."
"All right, no more sulking. I said I'd marry you this year, and I will. I'll write my name on this contract right now."
I bent at once to pick it up,
but Jason got to it first and had it in his hand.
Just as he was about to open the contract, a voice outside suddenly called for him.
"Jason, what are you dawdling for? Laurel says there's a mouse in the house, she's crying scared, she wants you over there!"
In the moment he turned his head,
Jason had already unfolded the contract.
The name "Roderick Sanchez" glinted in the sunlight,
but Jason, with his mind only on Laurel, never noticed.
He lifted his hand to shade his eyes from the glare, casually folded the contract again, and tossed it onto the coffee table in front of him.
"Constance..."
He turned to look at me, his face all worry.
"Something urgent's come up with Laurel, I have to go. I'll sign this contract when I'm back, after I've dealt with it. You just wait at home like a good girl for me to marry you."
"It's already this late anyway, so there's no need to rush."
Jason jogged off out the door,
and when he reached the yard, he suddenly stopped, turned, and looked at me.
"Constance, look, you're already past the age. About the bride-price we discussed before, maybe…?"
I stared at those bright, clear eyes I'd longed for through my entire youth,
and in a single instant, I was simply tired of them.
So I answered him flatly,
"There's no need."
A flicker of triumph crossed Jason's face, the look of a man whose scheme had paid off, and he smiled.
"Good, Constance. You've always been the sensible one."
"Don't worry. Once you're married in, I'll treat you right."
Jason left with his buddies, all of them laughing and talking,
their chatter drifting into the courtyard.
"Jason, you're really something. You just wore Constance down a few hours and saved the whole bride-price!"
"Jason, you've got nerve. Weren't you afraid she'd get hurt and actually marry someone else?"
His voice carried into the courtyard on the cool morning breeze.
"Afraid of what?"
"Everyone in town knows Constance only ever thinks about me."
"Besides, once she's past the age, she's the kind of woman even the dogs in town turn their noses up at. Other than me, what man here would take her?"
He waved a hand as he spoke.
"All right, enough about Constance. She doesn't matter."
"Hurry up and tell me, how's Laurel Simmons doing? I just fixed up her house earlier this year, so how could there be rats in it? She must be scared out of her mind!"
A boundless bitterness rose from somewhere deep and filled my chest.
Yes,
I didn't matter.
But it didn't matter anymore. Jason, you don't matter to me anymore either.
When a woman in town married,
she had to climb to the mountain shrine at the summit and pray for an early pregnancy.
It was something you were supposed to do together with your husband,
but I worried the Sanchez family in the city had no such custom.
Agreeing to the marriage at the last minute, right before the wedding date, was already trouble enough for him.
So I gathered up my whole dowry and went up the mountain alone.
The moment I reached the shrine, I saw two familiar backs.
Laurel was kneeling on the ground, her shoulders rising and falling, weeping bitterly.
"I don't want to pray to the mountain god for a child, Jason. He doesn't treat me well…"
"You saw it yourself. On our wedding day, he wouldn't even prepare a decent veil for me…"
Jason looked at her with his eyes full of heartache, at a complete loss for what to do,
and then, at last,
he dropped to his knees before the mountain god with a heavy thud.
In this town, a man was allowed to kneel only twice in his whole life.
Once, to pray for his parents' blessing,
and once, to pray to spend his life with the one he loved.
Three years ago, the day Jason and I confessed our feelings, I pulled him to this very shrine,
wanting to kneel with him and pray to the mountain god that we'd be together for life.
Jason hemmed and hawed and never would.
In three years, we came here countless times, and countless times he found an excuse.
But today, just like that, he knelt without a second's hesitation.
"Laurel, it's all right. I'll always treat you well. For the rest of my life."
"But you're married now…"
"What does being married have to do with anything?!"
Jason suddenly grew agitated.
"Even married, I'll treat you exactly the same. The moment Constance dares say a single word against it, I'll divorce her on the spot!"
As he spoke, Jason seized Laurel's shoulders and pulled her into his arms.
In the gap as he turned, Laurel's eyes met mine,
and those soft, tear-brimmed eyes, when they looked at me, held nothing but triumph…
"Constance, you came…?"
Jason's head snapped around,
and the instant he saw me,
his whole body went rigid.
