A Wedding in December

by Anita Shreve

  Nora fetched two glasses from the shelves, turned the faucet on, and let it run. She fingered the water to test its temperature and filled the glasses.

  "If Jerry had said one more word about Stephen, I swear I'd have decked him," Harrison said.

  Nora laughed as she set the glasses on the counter.

  "Don't laugh. I would have."

  "I'd faint if I ever saw you hit someone. I don't doubt you have other ways of eviscerating opponents. But decking isn't one of them."

  "How does Julie stand him?"

  "She was a good sport to stay as long as she did. To put up with all our stories. It must have been mind-numbing for her."

  "How old do you think she is?"

  "Thirty-six? Forty? I enjoyed Josh. I'm . . . I'm happy for Rob."

  "I don't think any of us knew. At school."

  "He may not really have known himself," Nora said, taking a sip of coffee. "He's very elegant, very polished, isn't he?"

  "It must be the European influence," Harrison said. "What hap­pened exactly? He just discovered this talent out of the blue?"

  "No. No," Nora said. "He'd taken lessons since he was a boy. They discovered his talent early. He just decided he wanted no part of it — through high school. The first time he tried out for Juilliard, he got turned down. That's when he started to take it seriously."

  "I always loved Rob," Harrison said.

  "Oh, I think we all did."

  "What I don't get is how Bill and Jerry have stayed friends."

  "There's more to Jerry than all that posturing," Nora said. "He gives away millions — and I do mean millions — to charity."

  "He does?"

  "Doctors Without Borders is his particular interest. Julie was telling me."

  "I didn't know that."

  "You and he are going to have to come to some kind of truce be­fore the wedding," Nora said. "Jerry might be willing to upstage Bridget, but I don't think you are."

  "No, of course not," Harrison said, chastened.

  "Would you like some cake? We have a lot of it left over from the Jungbacker lunch. It's delicious. You don't mind coconut, do you?"

  "I love coconut."

  Nora walked into the murk of the pantry and emerged with a partly cut cake on a glass pedestal.

  "That was interesting," Harrison said, "what Agnes was saying about having to switch from teaching English to teaching history when she got the job at Kidd. That it was all stories anyway, so it didn't matter much. I imagine she's a great teacher."

  "Her field hockey team won a big conference," Nora said, lifting two cake plates from a shelf. "You should ask her about it sometime."

  "She was telling me about the Halifax disaster. Do you know about it?"

  "No."

  "Apparently, during World War I, there was a fire on a ship in Halifax Harbor. The sight drew everyone in the city to his or her window to look at it. Seconds later, the ship exploded — the biggest man-made explosion in history until the atomic bomb — and everyone standing at the windows was blinded by flying glass. Well, not everyone, but many."

  Nora cut two generous slices and handed one to Harrison.

  "Is she gay?" Harrison asked.

  "Agnes?" Nora asked, opening the silverware drawer. "No."

  "How do you know?"

  "The way she talks about men," Nora said, handing Harrison a fork.

  "Has she ever had a relationship?"

  "I think she has," Nora said. "I think it might have been with a married man. She sometimes refers to it obliquely."

  Harrison bit into the rich cake. The frosting was a kind of whipped cream with flakes of coconut contained within. "This is delicious," he said.

  "I've found a wonderful baker in town. She's seventy-three. She's been making cakes for her family for years. I heard about her from her daughter-in-law. So I asked her if she'd like to make them for us. She's been terrific to work with. Each cake has been better than the last."

  "Nice arrangement for both of you," Harrison said.

  "The boys are certainly good eaters."

  "I like Bridget's son. His friend, too. The boy's a hustler, though. Beat me at pool after suckering me into a game. Lost ten bucks."

  Nora smiled.

  "Are you capable of remembering," Harrison asked, "who you thought you'd be when you were seventeen? Who you imagined you'd be in twenty-seven years' time?"

  Nora turned her head to the windows. There was a smudge of something white on the sleeve of her black dress, flour maybe. Once inside the kitchen, she had raked her hair, as if letting go for the night, and as a consequence, it looked mussed, as if she'd just woken up. "I suppose ... I suppose I thought I'd be a teacher," she said. "I think that was the plan. What about you?"

  "I thought I'd be a chemical engineer," Harrison said. "I went to Northeastern for their work-study program."

  "You were on scholarship at Kidd."

  "Yes," he said, watching Nora lick her fork clean.

  "What happened at Northeastern?"

  "The old story. I had a wonderful teacher for freshman English, realized I hated math, and that was that. I went to graduate school at McGill."

  "Why Canada?"

  "Cheaper."

  "And that's how you met your wife?" Nora asked, scraping the last of the frosting from the plate with her fork.

  "You really like that cake," Harrison said.

  Nora looked up and smiled. "I do, as a matter of fact."

  "Yes, it's where I met Evelyn."

  There was a silence in the kitchen. Harrison could hear the big wooden clock ticking the seconds. He wanted to tell Nora that when he was seventeen, he'd thought he and she would end up to­gether. More drunk than he should be, he said it aloud. "Actually, I thought you and I would end up together."

  Nora said nothing.

  "You remember that night in the kitchen of the beach house?"

  "Of course I remember," she said.

  "It was just a matter of time," Harrison said.

  Nora walked her plate to the sink. "I never saw Stephen after that," she said.

  "No."

  "This . . . this does us no good," Nora said.

  "I wonder if that's the purpose of these reunions," Harrison said. "To unburden ourselves of secrets. To say what couldn't be said then."

  "If it keeps snowing at this rate," Nora said, "we'll have at least three or four inches by morning. They say four."

  "You knew about the snow?"

  Nora nodded.

  "Even this morning, when we were talking about how beautiful the day was, you knew the forecast?"

  "Front coming down from Canada."

  "Oh, go ahead," Harrison said, "blame Canada."

  Nora laughed. Harrison walked to the sink and stood behind her. He wanted to kiss the back of her neck. It seemed to Harrison that every moment of the day had been leading to this one. That it would be the end of one particular narrative. Possibly the begin­ning of another one.

  "This is none of my business, but was Carl faithful to you?" Harrison asked.

  "In reality, yes," she said quickly. "In his imagination, no."

  Harrison was silenced by her answer.

  "It's quarter to two," Nora said. Noticing the smudge of flour on her sleeve, she tried to brush it off.

  Harrison sensed that Nora might be free now to let him touch her. That power, and his understanding of the consequences — for him, for her, for Evelyn — made him slightly lightheaded. His de­sire, apparent from the moment he'd first seen her in the lobby, had been, throughout the day, both sharpened by proximity and mem­ory and dulled by alcohol and experience. If he let her go, he knew that he would regret it. For months. Possibly for years. If he kissed her, he would also regret it. Perhaps for years.

  She squirted dishwashing liquid onto a plate and took up a sponge. He put a hand on her shoulder. "You go to bed," he said. "I'll take care of these."

  They might have been married for years. A recompense of sorts.

&n
bsp; Nora slid away from him. She tore off a sheet of paper towel from a roll and dried her hands. "You should sleep, too," she said.

  In his jacket and dress shoes, Harrison walked out into the snow. Should anyone be looking from an upstairs window, he was a man who'd left his briefcase in his car. It couldn't wait until morning. What Harrison couldn't wait for was the medicinal air, the pinging frost on his face. He felt his vision clearing. The cold air punished his lungs. Nora had been right when she'd spoken of the stick and the pond, the muck disturbed and eddying up into the water. It had been dangerous to come here, he who had avoided danger for years. He slipped a little on the accumulating snow. An inch, two inches already. He opened the back door of the rented Taurus and took out his briefcase. In it, there was a manuscript by an English novelist that was absorbing and superbly written. Harrison already knew the work was good. He'd read the British reviews. He could have published it without giving it a glance, but tonight, with any luck, the book would be his ticket to a world away from the Berk-shires. With any luck, it would be his ticket to sleep.

  Harrison stepped away from the car. In his shoes with their leather soles, the walking was treacherous. He made his way past the front steps of the inn and across a lawn that had only this after­noon been green. Should his fellow insomniac be watching from the window, Harrison’s footprints in the snow would give away his trajectory. Harrison moved until he could see around the corner of the inn itself to the little annex in which Nora had her apartment. The lights were still on. He thought of the veranda door to her room, of a possibly theatrical entrance, the odds that she might allow him in. He believed that they were high.

  He had no gloves on. His jacket was made for fall. His head was bare, wet now with melted snow. Harrison didn't want a life filled with regret. He believed himself too old for romance. What he wanted was a second chance, an opportunity to turn back the clock. But almost instantly, he took that wish back, for to have it would be to erase the lives of his sons, Charlie and Tom. One could never regret anything that had led to the births of one's children: it was as axiomatic as any mathematical formula. But that truth, as pure and as stark as it was, didn't muffle desire. What Harrison wanted to­night was to live in two parallel universes: one in Toronto with his boys, one with Nora inside her room.

  But only one life could be experienced. The other had to be imagined. Harrison brushed the snow off his head and retraced his footsteps in the snow. He glanced up at the rooms of the inn. On the second floor, there was a light but no one standing at the window.

  Saturday

  Innes woke cold and hungry. For an instant, before he had his bearings, he thought himself back at medical school. He raised his head and remembered that he was in his room at the top of the Fraser house in the Richmond neighborhood of Halifax. When he looked at his watch, he discovered that he had over­slept. He had meant to be up by seven at the latest to read over the papers that Dr. Fraser had given him. At best, Innes would be able only to glance at them.

  Shivering, Innes washed himself and dressed in his sole suit, the shirt clean, not the one he'd worn yesterday. He must ask about the laundry arrangements. He must also find a decent tai­lor. Mrs. Fraser would know of both. Unable to locate his socks on the carpet, Innes walked to the window and drew back the heavy blackout drapes. The view, coruscating and harsh, was of the harbor. The water scintillated between freighters, transport ships, and fishing boats. Despite the steam and smoke from dozens of boilers and furnaces, the morning was a fine one. Across the street, the breath of a warm house evaporated through a tin chimney into the cold, dry air.

  Innes thought the harbor ugly, made so by war and com­merce — by fuel tankers, textile mills, railroad yards, and busy wharves — and tried to imagine the land as it might have been a thousand years ago: the natural harbor sparkling, the shores of Dartmouth across the way forested. Two large ships in the har­bor, Innes noted, were on the move.

  Innes left his room and followed his nose to the dining room. Mrs. Fraser and Louise were seated at the table, each at a differ­ent stage in her breakfast. Her plate yet to be collected, Mrs. Fraser was making a list with pen and paper, a cup of tea beside her. Louise had just tucked into a substantial plate of steaming food. Innes reflected that even the dress of the women was vaguely military these days. Mrs. Fraser's blouse had a wide sailor collar. Louise's had epaulets with brass buttons. Innes said good morning and made his way to the mahogany buffet table on which sat several silver chafing dishes. Lifting the lids, Innes found Scotch eggs in one, kippers in another, a kind of porridge in a third. In a silver toast rack were thick slices of brown bread. An array of jams and condiments had been arranged on a platter.

  Innes filled his plate with eggs and kippers (the kippers a deli­cacy) and two slices of toast. Not wishing to presume upon the chairs at either end of the table, Innes sat across from the women. He snapped open his linen napkin.

  Louise and Mrs. Fraser had seated themselves so as to allow their guest the view of the harbor. Four arched and paned win­dows flanked the harborside wall, built especially, Innes imag­ined, for this view, which might, in peacetime, be more appealing. As a consequence of this arrangement, however, Mrs. Fraser and her daughter were in deep shadow because of the glare. Innes wondered if household etiquette required breakfast con­versation.

  "Mr. Finch," Louise said finally, "you have a fine day with which to begin your apprenticeship in Halifax."

  "I do," Innes said. "The skies are very clear." He paused. "Last night, I asked your sister if she would call me by my first name, and I wonder if I might ask you to do the same."

  Mrs. Fraser looked up sharply from her list, and Innes at once regretted the remark. Doubtless, Mrs. Fraser was wondering as to the circumstances in which Innes felt free enough to issue a personal invitation to her eldest daughter.

  "If it suits," Innes added.

  Louise, who was pleased and who had possibly misread Innes's intent, smiled in his direction. "It would suit me just fine," she said. "Are you at all nervous? Your first day?"

  The idea of being nervous had not yet occurred to Innes. Per­haps it should have. "I hope to do well," he said.

  "Oh, I know you'll do well," Louise said, unaware that a crumb of toast had lodged on her lower lip. "But if it were me . . . I've never been able to imagine cutting into someone's eyeball." She gave a kind of shiver to emphasize her distaste, and Innes was surprised by the remark. Surely Louise, as Dr. Fraser's daughter, had had ample time to get used to the idea of eye surgery.

  The door to the dining room swung open. Innes hoped for Hazel and was rewarded. He stood, but Hazel waved him down. Hazel's dress was decidedly not military. She wore a pale peach silk blouse with ivory lace in the neckline. Her hair was pulled more severely off her face this morning. There was no graceful sweep across the brow. All of Innes's senses were attuned to her presence. For her part, Hazel gave no sign of what Innes took last night to be a kind of intimacy. He forced himself to eat slowly (trying to break his medical-school habit of wolfing down his meal), though he still had to read the papers Dr. Fraser had given him. A clock on the buffet table read 8:36.

  Hazel, who selected dry toast and tea only, sat near her mother with the instincts of a chess master. Did she mean only to appear to distance herself from Innes, or was it a genuinely protective gesture? Might it be a generous one, leaving Innes to Louise? (Or might it simply reflect a desire not to be seen so early in the morning?)

  "Good morning, Mr. Finch," Hazel said, inadvertently mak­ing a mockery of his earlier invitation to Louise.

  "Good morning," Innes forced back.

  So there were to be no first names at breakfast.

  "Mother, I left the clothes for Ellen on the bed," Louise said from her end of what was really quite a long table.

  "Perhaps today you will have had a letter, Hazel," Mrs. Fraser said to her eldest daughter, ignoring Louise altogether.

  There could be no doubt what was meant by a letter.
r />   "We need soap in the bathroom," Louise added.

  "Ellen could fetch that," Mrs. Fraser said. "Hazel, is this your day at the clinic?"

  "Yes, I'll be there until one o'clock," she said.

  "I can't remember if this is your father's day for surgery," Mrs. Fraser said.

  "I can't find my fawn scarf," Louise said.

  "Perhaps you lost it on the way home from the shops yester­day," Hazel offered.

  "Oh, I hope not," Louise said. "It's a favorite of mine."

  Though the homely banter had the unintentional effect of encompassing Innes into the Frasers' household, he didn't think it the right moment to mention either his laundry or his need for a tailor. The door was once more pushed open, and Dr. Fraser, in high collar and bow tie, seemed to swing into the dining room. "Finch," he said, rubbing his hands together vigorously. "Tang in the air. Stings the face. Good for the lungs."

  Dr. Fraser's cheeks were pink, and his nose was running. Morning exercise had not occurred to Innes.

  "Four miles," Dr. Fraser announced, fingering his mustache and examining the fare on the buffet table. "You have a decent coat, I take it," he added, as if there were no one in the room but he and Innes.

  "Passable," Innes answered.

  "Good. We walk, of course, to hospital."

  Dr. Fraser took his place at the head of the table. "New wounds from France," he added with startling relish and seem­ingly no memory of having uttered the phrase the evening be­fore. The words had less power, however, in the sunshine; no low gas seeped across the table. Hazel calmly ate a bite of toast. Per­haps she was protected by the thought of a letter.

  A massive plume of smoke, topped by a ball of fire, rose above the windowsill.

  "There's a fire," Innes said, half standing.

  Dr. Fraser turned in his chair. "What on earth . . . ?"

  Innes moved to one of the four arched windows. "There seems to have been a collision in the harbor," he announced.

  "Good lord," Dr. Fraser said when he had reached Innes.

  The smoke was black and thick, with licks of fire appearing and disappearing. Two massive ships were linked in the harbor waters.