A Wedding in December

by Anita Shreve

  Innes reached the hospital to which he had been directed. He announced himself to a nursing sister in a blue blouse, white pinafore, and headdress. He was greeted with relief. He was shown to a room in which doctors were dressing wounds and performing surgeries. They resembled butchers after a long day. Innes asked for Dr. Fraser but received no satisfactory answer. Innes was asked to remove his overcoat and step in for a man who had been wounded but who had been operating for hours. Sixty eyeballs had been removed, Innes was informed. He did not mention his own wound.

  The number of blind was indeed staggering, the correlation between curiosity and injury striking. Later, Innes would learn that nine thousand from the city had been injured from the blast. Two thousand had died.

  Stretchers came and went. Innes rendered first aid, operated on wounds, administered morphine. The baptism that had begun in the morning turned nightmarish. By evening, all of the anesthetics and antiseptics had run out. For the first time in his life, Innes was forced to operate on a patient without chloroform. If he didn't amputate the girl's mangled left arm, he knew, she would shortly die of her wounds. Giving the most barbaric command of his life, Innes ordered a nurse to lie across the girl's knees. He told another to hold down the girl's free arm. The girl, surprised by the knife, screamed. Mercifully, and as expected, she fainted, allowing Innes to complete the surgery and cauterize the wound.

  The injured were triaged, the worst cases sent to a series of stretchers against a wall. Women volunteers walked among the white iron cots, soothing when they could. If Hazel had been alive, Innes thought, she might be doing much the same.

  On a break, Innes wandered the wards, stepping over cots and bodies as he went. He had never seen so many injured and dead. Even his worst imaginings of France had been less chaotic, less bloody.

  He asked again and again for Dr. Fraser, receiving no answers. Innes thought about leaving the hospital, returning to the place where the Fraser home had once stood, and searching through the wreckage. But he doubted that he could find it in the dark. Through a blown-out window, a high wind had come up, and, with it, snow.

  My God, Innes thought. A blizzard.

  He was fed with bread and water and dried peas, an odd com­bination he gratefully consumed. On the second floor of the hospital, Innes was informed, were the patients who had been treated and who were resting. He climbed the stairs and found, in the stairwell, a nursing sister in uniform, curled into a ball, asleep. He did not wake her.

  Through swinging doors on the second floor was a vast corri­dor with wards to either side. Innes searched the first ward, quiet and dark with a single candle and a white pitcher on each bed­side table. A nursing sister, ashen but efficient, was the only one on duty for what looked to be at least fifty patients. Innes was struck by the number of children.

  From a distant ward, Innes could hear a woman keening.

  He made his way through the wards, searching for any of the Frasers, the only people he had known in Halifax. Some of the patients had their surnames written at the foot of the bed. Others' beds were blank, perhaps indicating patients who could no longer speak or who did not remember who they were. Innes examined faces. He thought of the ten-year-old girl who had taken his hand. Would she have begun to speak by now? Would she have been told the fate of her family?

  The keening grew stronger as Innes approached the end of the corridor. The sound changed to a frantic squabble, a bird in­terrupted and screeching. Something in the tone of the voice made Innes pick up his pace, and he was on a run by the time he swung through the door. A woman, her head bandaged, was sit­ting in a wheelchair, making guttural and frenzied noises and clawing at the air in front of her. Below the bandages that cov­ered both eyes, Innes recognized the fringe of wavy light brown hair, a blouse with epaulets and brass buttons. A nursing sister, in desperation, batted away one of the patient's hands.

  "I'll take over," Innes said, reaching the nursing sister's side.

  "She's off her rocker, this one."

  Innes saw at the nurse's feet a spilled bowl of soup. He crouched and faced the woman in the chair. He caught her hands and brought them together in his own. He could feel the wildness and the panic in her arms as she struggled to break free. "Louise," he said. "It's Innes."

  The woman cocked her head so that her right ear was turned toward him. Innes knew, though Louise did not, that this was her good ear, the one with which she would "see" everyone who spoke to her for the rest of her life.

  A Wedding in December

  "Mr. Finch?" she asked.

  "Yes, Louise. It's Innes."

  "Oh God," she wailed, reaching for him. He allowed Louise to feel his face and hair. Her fingers were blunt, unpracticed. Briefly he closed his eyes.

  "They are all dead!" she cried. "All dead."

  "Who are all dead, Louise?" Innes urged.

  "Mother. Father. Hazel. All dead."

  "How do you know this?" Innes asked, trying to keep his voice calm. Louise could not actually have seen the bodies, he guessed, not to judge from the blood-soaked gauze at her eyes.

  "The man who found me told me. He said they were all dead." Louise began to tremble uncontrollably, and Innes bent forward to hold her. A rank smell rose up from the back of her blouse. She had, in some way, soiled herself.

  "Sister," Innes said. "This woman must be bathed."

  "Now, sir?"

  "Yes, now," Innes said, standing. "In hot water. And then I'll want to remove the bandages."

  "Sir, it is two in the morning."

  "It is of no consequence to me what time it is," Innes said.

  "There is no hot water, sir."

  Louise reached out to Innes. "Don't leave me," she cried. Innes took one of Louise's hands as the nursing sister began to wheel her in the direction of the bathing room. The large wooden wheels were nearly silent on the lino floor.

  "Why can't she walk?" Innes asked the sister.

  "Her anklebone is broken, sir. Crushed."

  Innes bent to lift the blanket from Louise's feet. A hastily con­structed cast was on her lower right leg.

  "I'll be within earshot," he told Louise. "Just outside the door. You'll be able to hear me and talk to me."

  Innes watched as Louise was made to lie on a cot. With some expertise, the nursing sister removed Louise's clothing and bathed her. Innes saw that the cast would have to be remade. He hoped the bones would not have to be reset. He did not turn away from the sight of Louise's nakedness. The small white breasts, the taut stomach, the swollen right leg. From time to time, Louise called out to him, and Innes answered her.

  "Something will have to be found to calm the woman," he said to the nursing sister.

  "There are no medicines," the sister answered.

  When Louise had been bathed and put into a hospital gown, Innes moved closer to her and took her hand. "I'm going to re­move your dressings and have a look at your eyes," he said.

  "They hurt," Louise said, but Innes noted that some of the hysteria had left her voice.

  As gently as he could, and with the nursing sister standing to one side of him with a basin, Innes cradled Louise's head and unwound the gauze. The damage was considerable. In the right eye, most of the external muscles of the ball had been severed, and it protruded from the socket. It would have to be removed. In the left eye, a laceration of substantial depth sliced across the cornea and extended into the skin beyond the eye.

  "I can't see," Louise said.

  Louise, Innes knew, would be blind for life.

  Agnes, sitting against the headboard, put the notebook in her lap. It was snowing outside. Had anyone mentioned snow last night? Agnes got out of bed and padded, in stocking feet, to the window. The snow fell thickly. Four to five inches were already on the ground. How amazing! This would be a winter wedding after all. Agnes crossed her arms over her chest. So Louise was blind.

  Well, it had to be that way, didn't it? Agnes knew that she could, in less time than it took to formulate a sentenc
e, make Louise well again, give her sight. But Agnes thought she would not. The reality of the explosion was doubtless worse than Agnes, with all her read­ing, had been able to imagine. Innes, for example, might easily have found Louise with the glass still protruding from her eyes. Would he then have operated on Louise?

  Oddly satisfying, that: Louise blind for life.

  Immensely satisfying, too, just to be able to write the story of Innes Finch. Last night, it had been all Agnes could do to stop herself from speaking certain words of another story that had squeezed themselves up inside her throat. She had mentioned Jim's name, and that in itself had been thrilling, but it hadn't been enough. Rewarding, though, to discover how much the others had admired their former teacher. What was it that Jerry had said? Mr. Mitchell was the man?

  Yes, Agnes thought. He was the man.

  Her head throbbed at one temple. If she ate, if she had coffee, her hangover might abate. She didn't just yet want to get dressed, however, and she very much didn't want to see the others at break­fast. Perhaps an Advil was what was needed.

  Agnes rummaged through her backpack. She found the bottle of Advil at the bottom, slipped two pills onto her palm, and filled a glass of water at the bathroom sink. Two Advil and forget about it. This was the advice she gave her field hockey girls when they com­plained of minor aches and pains.

  Agnes caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and was not happy with what she saw. Her face looked haggard, her eyes slightly bloodshot. Her hair was matted on one side from sleep. Her breath was foul. She found her toothpaste in her toilet kit and brushed her teeth. She knew she ought to get into the shower and let the water clear her head, but the idea of a shower — washing the body, shampooing the hair, drying it with the hair dryer — seemed like a tremendous amount of effort just now. Instead, she walked to the desk and sat in the chair. She stared at the snow.

  What would she do all day? A baseball game was clearly out of the picture. Visit the outlets? But would the roads be cleared? Sled­ding? Agnes thought she could get mildly interested in coasting down the long hill that sloped away from the inn. But would that activity completely occupy her thoughts the way downhill skiing used to do? Or would she still feel dogged by the ghost of the man who was with her always? With her and not with her. New ac­tivities, new pleasures, must always, by definition, be only half experienced.

  She fingered the blotter on the desk. She could write to Jim. Yes, she could. The activity, by its very nature, suggested a kind of satis­factory completion. Agnes would write from Massachusetts. The letter would travel to Wisconsin. Jim would fetch the letter from his mailbox at school. He would tear open the envelope. He would read the letter. Circuit complete.

  In the desk drawer, Agnes found the leather folder that held the inns stationery. There were three large sheets of writing paper, two envelopes, and one postcard. Of course Agnes would not send a postcard.

  She reached for the ballpoint pen on the desk. Her handwriting was tiny and very neat.

  Dear Jim,

  she began.

  I think I might have written you a few weeks back that Bridget Kennedy (later Rodgers and this evening to be Ricci) is marry­ing Billy Ricci. Do you remember her? She was always with us in our group of friends at Kidd, and I know you and I have talked about her before. Of course, you remember Billy from our Am lit class. Yes, that Am lit class.

  I am here now in Nora's new inn. I'm sorry you never saw the old house. I used to sleep in a guest room under a velvet and silk crazy quilt that was quite worn but very beautiful. Nora has done a brilliant job of converting the old house to an inn, and I imagine it's cost her a lot of money. The inn is luxurious, more European than Country Living, just now I was in bed enjoying the feel of the silky sheets and the down comforter. I was, of course, missing you.

  And there I've already gone and done what I meant not to do. I wanted to write you a chatty letter telling you of our mini-reunion. I wished to keep this light. But I can't. You are with me all the time. Sometimes I feel as though I have a lover who has died, whose memory I keep alive. Being apart from you is a particular sort of agony: the separations painful, the memories delicious.

  The early memories are the most delicious of all. Last night, I was remembering that day before Thanksgiving when I came back from college and drove to Kidd to visit you. I'd been thinking about you ever since graduation, and I believe I went to Kidd with the idea of telling you that. But then, face-to-face with you, I found myself too shy to say much at all. You sat across the desk from me and asked questions, and I answered them, all the time knowing that in a few minutes I would have to get up and leave and that I'd never again have a good enough excuse to visit you. You must have wondered at my bumbling answers, my distracted manner. I was all nerves. Stupidly, I just sat there until finally you said you had a meeting, that you'd walk me to my car.

  It was a kind of death walk for me: those slow steps from your office and along the hallway. I thought of doing something theatrical, turning to you and telling you I loved you. I imagined your shock, the Hollywood kiss, dangerous and thrilling in the corridors of Kidd. But there were people all about, leaving for the weekend. Dean Cropsey came out of his office and said hello and asked me how Mt. Holyoke was, and I thought for one panicked moment that you would excuse yourself and leave me. I was curt with him, but I couldn't help it. And then you and I walked outside, and it was sleeting, the weather delivering that thing we New Englanders like to call a "wintry mix."

  You once said that you thought I had slipped on purpose. You used to tease me about it, remember? But I don't believe I slipped on purpose. In fact, I'm positive I didn 't. My legs were weak and certainly reluctant, and that may have caused the accident. I still have a hard knot in my butt — scar tissue, I imagine —from the fall.

  I don't remember how you got me to your car. I do remember the waiting room of the emergency ward. You held my hand, and I think you meant it to be a kind of paternal and comforting gesture. I was hurting, but the pain seemed somewhere very far away. All of my body was instead concen­trated on our clasped hands. I dared not move my fingers even a millimeter lest you let go of me.

  I was put into a cubicle and then sent down to X-ray. I was sure then that you had left the building, that you had gone home to your wife and daughter. It was, after all, the afternoon before Thanksgiving, an inconvenient time for any accident. I touched my hand where you had held it, hardly aware of the doctor who came in. He said that nothing was broken, that I'd have a nasty bruise that might take months to heal, that I was lucky. He told me to be careful on the ice. And then, behind him, I saw you with your jacket open, your tie loose. You smiled encouragingly. You stood with your hands on your hips, looking at me. You watched the doctor lift up my skirt, lower the elastic of my underwear, and exam­ine the spot that had taken the worst of the fall. I knew that you could see me. You didn't turn away. You helped me into my coat and held me all the way to your car. The weather was filthy by then, icy and cold. The snow stung my face. You put me into your car and then got in yourself. I was shivering — more from shock, I think, than from the cold. You held me to stop the shivering. "I'd better take you back," you said.

  That kiss. Papery and long and admitting everything.

  I remember all of it, Jim. Every plane flight, every drive, every hotel room. I used to be able to remember specific dates as well, but I've forgotten them now. I wish I'd kept a diary (all those precious details lost). Our love affair was an entity with a life of its own. It should have been chronicled. And I, Agnes O'Connor, who makes her living off the chronicles of others, did not write about the one thing that has mattered most to me in my life.

  Yes, I know there have been difficult times. Your own particular agony, which I've never been able to share with you. But I have had agonies of my own. The long months when you 've not called or written. The time you said over drinks in Boston that we couldn't continue the affair. The day you told me Carol was pregnant again. But the very wo
rst for me was the day I drove to Kidd to surprise you with the news of my new job. I would be teaching at my old school, I told you. We would soon be colleagues. I remember your face went hollow, all my lovely news dissipating in an instant. I understand now why you were concerned. Of course I do. I understand your desire to keep our affair separate from your "real" life (as you once called it). But I didn't then. I thought you would be as happy as I was, and when you weren't, I was hurt and angry.

  Mostly, I choose not to remember that day, however. Instead, I remember the cottage we rented in Bar Harbor and the meals you grilled on that tiny barbecue on the deck. You even made a pizza, as I recall. I remember that ratty hotel in Portland and making love on a plaid sofa. Later, I wept for the pure joy of it. I remember our walk through the city on a Sunday night, all the shops closed, the buildings shuttered. It felt as if we were the only two people in the world. I have loved you now for twenty-seven years. In all that time, I have not slept with another man. I am your other wife, your second wife, the one who waits for you at her hut. I cherish your visits and feed off them for months. If others knew, they would pity me. So much invested for seemingly so little reward. But I look at other couples and am convinced that what you and I shared — share — was beyond anything they could ever imagine.

  I didn 't mean to do this, Jim. I know it sometimes angers you when I write of this thing we cannot have. But I can't pretend that I don't long for you. I wish that you were here with me and that we could slip under this duvet cover together. I know that no woman has made love to you as I have. I know that I am still your fantasy.

  Agnes put down the pen. She held her head in her hands. The ache was as fresh and as keen as if Jim had just left the room, not to re­turn for months.

  Agnes got up from the chair and walked into the bathroom for a tissue. She blew her nose. She would not send the letter. She wouldn't even finish it. She would have to take it with her in her backpack.