She glanced at it curiously but said nothing. I said solemnly, “Tragedies cannot be undone but this will help. The kid’s education, you know.”
She refused a fee and went back into the office. I turned back to Picky and said, “Give this to your grandmother. Tell her to take it to a branch of the Bank of America in Brawley. They’ll do everything else.” I laid it in front of her.
She did not touch it. “That’s worth a lot of money, isn’t it?”
“Quite a bit. It will be worth more.”
“I don’t want it.”
“But, Picky, I want you to have it.”
“I don’t want it. I won’t take it.” Her eyes filled with tears and her voice got unsteady. “You’re going away forever and. . . and you don’t care about me any more.” She sniffed. “Just like when you got engaged to her. When you could just as easily bring Pete and come live with Grandma and me. I don’t want your money!”
“Picky. Listen to me, Picky. It’s too late. I couldn’t take it back now if I wanted to. It’s already yours.”
“I don’t care. I won’t ever touch it.” She reached out and stroked Pete. “Pete wouldn’t go away and leave me . . . only you’re going to make him. Now I won’t even have Pete.”
I answered unsteadily, “Picky? Rikki-tikki-tavi? You want to see Pete. . . and me again?”
I could hardly hear her. “Of course I do. But I won’t.”
“But you can.”
“Huh? How? You said you were going to take the Long Sleep thirty years, you said.”
“And I am. I have to. But, Picky, here is what you can do. Be a good girl, go live with your grandmama, go to school-and just let this money pile up. When you are twenty-one-if you still want to see us-you’ll have enough money to take the Long Sleep yourself. When you wake up I’ll be there waiting for you. Pete and I will both be waiting for you. That’s a solemn promise.”
Her expression changed but she did not smile. She thought about it quite a long time, then said, “You’ll really be there?”
“Yes. But we’ll have to make a date. If you do it, Ricky, do it just the way I ten you. You arrange it with the Cosmopolitan Insurance Company and you make sure that you take your Sleep in the Riverside Sanctuary in Riverside. . . and you make very sure that they have orders to wake you up on the first day of May, 2001, exactly. I’ll be there that day, waiting for you. If you want me to be there when you first open your eyes, you’ll have to leave word for that, too, or they won’t let me farther than the waiting room-I know that sanctuary; they’re very fussy.” I took out an envelope which I had prepared before I left Denver. “You don’t have to remember this; I’ve got it all written out for you. Just save it, and on your twenty-first birthday you can make up your mind. But you can be sure that Pete and I will be there waiting for you, whether you show up or not.” I laid the prepared instructions on the stock certificate.
I thought that I had her convinced but she did not touch either of them. She stared at them, then presently said, “Danny?”
“Yes, Ricky?”
She would not look up and her voice was so low that I could barely hear her. But I did hear her. “If I do. . . will you marry me?”
My ears roared and the lights flickered. But I answered steadily and much louder than she had spoken. “Yes, Picky. That’s what I want. That’s why I’m doing this.”
I had just one more thing to leave with her: a prepared envelope marked “To Be Opened in the Event of the Death of Miles Gentry.” I did not explain it to her; I just told her to keep it. It contained proof of Belle’s varied career, matrimonial and otherwise. In the hands of a lawyer it should make a court fight over his will no contest at all.