A Wedding in December

by Anita Shreve

  Harrison wanted both to comfort Nora and to shake her. How could she have been so willing?

  "Once I learned that Carl was sick, I couldn't leave him, could I?" Nora asked. "Well, clearly not. Possibly I was relieved that our whole false marriage would have a finite end. And perhaps Carl sensed that in me, because as the days passed, as he realized he would not get better, even with all the chemo and the radiation, he grew furious. Unspeakably furious." Nora paused. "It's remarkable how fast love can turn to hate," she added.

  "Nora," Harrison said.

  "You cannot imagine how relieved I was when he died. How grateful I was that he'd taken care of it himself."

  A silence in the room stretched to minutes.

  "After the funeral, I went looking for Judy," Nora said. "I think I had an idea of taking the baby and trying to raise it. But she had given him — it was a boy — away to a Catholic charity."

  Harrison could hear, finally, the effort to ward off tears.

  Nora took a long breath and looked up at the ceiling. The loss of the baby, then, had been for Nora the true tragedy.

  "And that was when I conceived of the idea of an inn," she said.

  "You hired Judy," Harrison said.

  "I brought her here to live. And then I trained her."

  "The two of you run the inn."

  "Yes," Nora said. "I pay her well."

  Harrison wished he had one more day. One more week. "I don't want to go back to Toronto," he said. "It's awful to feel that way — it's terrible to feel that way — but it's true. I want to stay here with you."

  Nora got up from the bed and stood in front of him. "This is my fortress," she said. "It is as I want it to be. As I need it to be."

  He stood, and she kissed him.

  "I have to dress," she said.

  Harrison knew now that he and Nora would not see each other again. Not at their thirtieth reunion, in three years, nor at the forti­eth, nor at the fiftieth, should Harrison still be alive for that one. One day, a man — like Harrison but unattached, a man with no shared history — would come to the inn and see Nora and talk to her, and that would be that.

  "Your husband was right," Harrison said. "There are no words to describe a certain kind of pain."

  He walked to the double doors and opened them. He stepped out onto the veranda. His children would never know of their fa­ther's treachery. Harrison would go home and play baseball and skate with his boys, and they would never know that for a period of time — for the duration — he had been willing to leave them.

  The sun was unexpectedly warm on his face. He moved through the slush toward the front of the inn. As he did, he thought about melting glaciers and all those birds flying north.

  Through her window, Agnes saw Innes coming around the corner, walking through the snow in his shirtsleeves. Of course, it wasn't Innes, but rather Harrison Branch in the same shirt and pants he'd had on last night. But it might have been Innes, as Innes would have been at forty-four. The same upright but diffident pos­ture. The slightly thinning hair. Why was Harrison walking in the snow?

  Behind Agnes, on the bed, was her neatly packed duffel bag, her coat lying in folds, her backpack topped up with the free soaps and shampoos the inn (Nora?) had generously provided. She glanced at the letter to Jim Mitchell sitting unfinished on the desk, the one she'd written yesterday before her confession at dinner. Agnes would tear it up and discard it (no need to smuggle home the pieces now). It was possible, Agnes supposed, that Jim would never know of her treachery, that he would imagine that Agnes had sim­ply faded away. And that, she decided, was precisely what would happen. She would fade away. She would return to Kidd, a place from which, physically and in her thoughts, she had rarely left. She would later this afternoon correct a set of papers for her U.S. his­tory class, after which she would attend a meeting with the girls' varsity basketball coach. Agnes was the assistant coach. In the spring, Agnes would be the assistant track coach, and next fall she would coach field hockey, making her girls chase balls and com­plete drills in preparation for what she hoped would be a win­ning season. They had a chance this year. Molly Clapper would be returning. Molly had good cutting and even better drives and had the instinct always to be in the right place at the right time. And so it would go — on and on and on — until what? Agnes died? Re­tired? Her life — her life — which had seemed so full of potential just two days ago, felt frighteningly empty now.

  A white limo made its way up the curved driveway. Jerry and Julie stood at attention at the foot of the front stairs. The car stopped, and a driver emerged. Immediately he opened the rear driver's-side door, and Jerry, with a spring in his step — as if he were delighted to be leaving — rounded the back of the car and slid smartly inside. Julie waited patiently for the driver to open the rear passenger's-side door. Her fur rolled over her arm, she slipped gracefully in. Before the driver closed her door, Agnes could see Julie pushing the fur onto the seat, a small animal separating hus­band and wife.

  Harrison had stopped in the middle of what might be a lawn. What on earth was he doing? Perhaps he didn't want to have to say good-bye to Jerry and Julie as they drove away from the inn. Agnes would say good-bye to Nora. She wanted to thank her for the weekend, for the dinners and the lovely room. But might it be pos­sible to leave without having to see anyone else? Bill and Bridget would know Agnes wished them well. She would write to them when she returned to Kidd. Yes, a good idea. So much more could be said in a letter than in a brief farewell.

  Harrison still had not moved. He seemed poleaxed, just staring out at the Berkshires. Agnes could hear the dripping from the eaves, the occasional slide and thump of snow from the roof. The glare was almost blinding, and Agnes knew it must be warm out. The snow seemed to disappear even as she watched. Was that pos­sible? Could one actually observe snow disappearing — melting and evaporating?

  Harrison — Innes — took a step forward. The doctor wouldn't be at an inn in the Berkshires, however, but he might be in a city. Not Toronto, Agnes decided. New York City. She could see Innes walking along Madison Avenue, pushing Louise in a wheelchair. The year would be — Agnes calculated — 1934. Had the Empire State Building been built then? Agnes changed the venue to Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street, where the tallest building in the world had recently been erected. Perhaps Innes and his wife had come to New York precisely to see this astonishing sight (well, not Louise, of course, who could not see). Louise and Innes were on a small vacation from Toronto, from his practice, from their chil­dren. Or might their children — Angus, fourteen, and Margaret, eight — be with them? Well, not with them, but back at the hotel room with Louise's maid?

  It was a warm day in early December, a day close to the seven­teenth anniversary of the Halifax blast, about which neither Innes nor Louise ever spoke, as if Louise had sprung, fully blind, from the streets of Toronto, to which the couple had emigrated after having been hastily married — much to Louise's delight — in Halifax. Louise needed the wheelchair, not because she was blind, but because she was both blind and lame, her ankle never having healed as it should have. With her husband's attention and a con­siderable amount of help (yes, definitely, a maid back at the hotel), Louise had borne and raised two children, established herself as the wife of a well-known eye surgeon (Innes's reputation preceding him to Toronto), and even, upon occasion, appeared in society, such as it was in the early 1930s in Toronto. (Had the Depression affected that Canadian city as it had American cities? Well, yes, it must have, Agnes decided.)

  Despite these achievements, however, Louise had, upon closer inspection, the look of a woman who couldn't see, who couldn't entirely take care of herself. There were, of course, the sunglasses: two dark circles connected by a thin gold bridge. Her hair was somewhat drier and flatter than it might be on another woman. Her hair clips were affixed slightly askew, and her lipstick had been applied by feel rather than by sight. Could Louise imagine what her green cloth coat looked like on her, the color not entir
ely flat­tering? Did Louise go to department stores in her wheelchair, a friend pushing her through racks of dresses? Did the doctor's wife, who was nearing forty, rely upon her husband to choose her shoes and hats?

  Agnes could see clearly this pair who had been together for sev­enteen years. Dr. Finch in a long brown coat and hat walking be­hind the wooden wheelchair with the rubber wheels, pushing his wife, who had grown heavier with the years, up the slight incline. Innes didn't show the strain. He looked, in fact, almost happy. Not necessarily because he was with his wife, Agnes decided. More be­cause of the adventure of the trip, because of the simple delight of being away from Toronto — from Canada, if Innes were to be en­tirely truthful. There was a vitality in New York City, even in the midst of the Depression, that could not be, and was not, repro­duced in Toronto, however civilized that northern city might be.

  Louise was saying (Agnes listening intently) that they ought to visit Macy's. Joan had told her the department store was marvelous. Did she and Innes have time? When did the concert at Carnegie begin? For Louise, who could not see, a concert was just the ticket.

  Agnes moved toward the desk.

  Innes answered her questions, always unfailingly polite to his disabled wife, even when she spoke in querulous tones, which seemed to Innes to be happening more often lately. He could see and she could not, which she was inclined to remind him of from time to time. Her voice had a touch of the querulous in it today, in fact, despite this lovely trip. Louise was tired. She was often tired. It was such a strain being blind. One had to listen so intently. One had to imagine. As always, Innes felt sorry for his wife, who could not view the breathtakingly beautiful spire of the Empire State Building. Who could only hear the crowds that surrounded them. Who could not admire the holiday window displays, marvelously ornate and detailed.

  Innes stepped carefully through the slush, not only minding where he put his own feet but steering Louise out of the path of the spray from the oncoming buses and taxis. Innes and Louise seldom took taxis. The sheer struggle to get Louise into an auto­mobile made the enterprise a fraught and time-consuming one. They walked when possible. Innes had developed strong arms, a firm upper torso. He was aware, as most were not on this crowded street, of the five-degree incline, which one experi­enced when pushing a 150-pound woman in a wheelchair. Innes did not complain. He minded only when a passerby stared at Louise, at first with distaste and then with pity, the boldness of the stare not only rude but uncomfortably reminding Innes of barely buried feelings of his own.

  Innes idly wondered if Louise and he might have been better off living in New York City, the society less closed, less insular. In Toronto, Louise had her friends and her family, but she was often unoccupied, the unemployment creating a constellation of unpleasant symptoms: boredom, irritability, occasional whining, a tendency to drama. She could not while away the hours the way other middle-class women could, with needlework or with reading. Louise had at first resisted Braille but now understood it about as well as a normal seven-year-old knew how to read.

  But these were thoughts for later, for the return trip by train to Toronto. For now, Innes wanted to enjoy his short vacation. The hotel, with its fascinating model of itself in a glass case in the lobby. The dinners out with Margaret and Angus, Mar­garet in a grown-up dress with a black beaded belt. A lunch with a colleague from medical school followed by a tour of the city in that physician's Buick. Innes especially liked the solitary wander­ing through the city when Louise was resting. The aimless yet dedicated walking with no agenda produced in Innes a sensation close to freedom.

  "I needed the scarf after all," Louise said.

  "You're cold? It seems such a warm day. Unseasonably warm, in fact."

  "Yes, but I am sitting and you are walking. I might be ex­pected to be somewhat colder than you."

  Innes did not answer, having learned years ago that Louise would seldom let a thing go.

  "Talk to me," she insisted.

  "The streets are crowded," he began.

  "Yes, yes, I can hear that. The buildings. The windows."

  "Well, here, let me back up a bit."

  Innes parked in front of a Dickensian diorama and described the "burning" fireplace, a lighted Christmas tree, and the nineteenth-century costumes on the family members gathered around it. He glanced at another window. "There are some pretty robes for sale," he said. "Margaret might like one of them."

  "Describe it."

  "It can't be wool," Innes said, "because it looks too soft. Very plush. I'm not good with fabrics."

  "Can we go inside? Is it manageable? I could feel the fabric for myself."

  "Yes, of course," Innes said, though he did not want to leave the open air, the melting snow, the masses of vehicles on the streets, the words that floated out to him from the crowds. For­bearance. Much at stake. Scandalous.

  Innes shouldered the door, putting his back to it. A young woman with a fur scarf smiled at Innes, a moment that added to the day's sum of unexpected pleasures.

  Innes asked a salesgirl in a green silk suit behind a glove counter where he might find the blue robe in the window.

  "Lingerie on seven," she replied with an indifferent nasal twang.

  Innes negotiated the wide elevator without difficulty and emerged onto seven, a universe of slips and girdles and peignoirs and negligees. He searched for a rack of robes and steered Louise in that direction. He placed the skirt of the robe in her hand.

  "Chenille," she said at once. "What colors?"

  "Pink and white and pale blue and ... let me see . . . yellow."

  "Which would look the best on Margaret?"

  Louise had never seen her daughter.

  "The pale blue, I think," Innes said. "Her eyes."

  "Joan said they'll do a bang-up job with the wrapping. Be sure to get the smallest size."

  Innes waited patiently in line at gift wrapping, his wife parked against a wall, ear cocked to the women around her. The pack­age, when delivered, presented a challenge to Innes, who had to ask Louise to hold it on her lap. He could not maneuver the chair and manage the large box at the same time.

  Negotiating the elevator once again, Innes pushed his wife past the perfume counter and the glove counter and out into the bright sunshine, which Louise could feel on her face. He turned the corner to head up the sidewalk.

  The throng was thicker than it had been just a half hour be­fore. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to experience the warmth of the day. Across from Innes, a crowd of people stood at the curb, waiting for the traffic to pass. Innes stopped short.

  She had stepped off the curb and was crossing the street in his direction. She had on a felt hat with a short brim, a wool coat with a fur collar. She was oblivious to his presence, instead mak­ing her way carefully through the slush. The several seconds Innes watched Hazel come toward him seemed the most in­tensely felt of his life.

  It was the wheelchair that caught her attention, as it did for almost everyone who passed by. The quick glance at the occu­pant. Then another up at the companion. Hazel did the same, her eyes sliding over the woman with dark glasses, once, twice, and then stopping. Innes watched Hazel's expression change from one of mild daydreaming to shock. She glanced up at Innes.

  He hadn't seen Hazel since the day she'd walked away from him in Halifax. Louise, jealous since childhood, had found rea­son to be furious with her sister, who wasn't blind or disabled. Louise would not tolerate even a mention of Hazel's name in the house. In the beginning, there had been letters from Hazel to her sister. After Innes had read the first two aloud to Louise and had endured the resulting tantrums, he'd stopped sharing them with his wife. Eventually, the letters themselves had ceased, and even Innes had stopped writing with word of Louise. Hazel's en­velopes had been postmarked from Boston, which had, for sev­enteen years, remained a magical city for Innes.

  "Why are we stopped?" Louise asked.

  "Traffic," Innes said, barely able to summon sufficient breath to answer her.
"We have to wait for the traffic to clear."

  "Is it really so busy?"

  "Yes, I'm afraid it is."

  He would have known Hazel anywhere. For years, he'd imag­ined her as she'd been at twenty-two. She was thirty-nine now. Was she married? Did she have children? All the questions that had crowded his thoughts for nearly two decades pushed them­selves forward in a rush, and yet he couldn't ask a single one. Indeed, within seconds, he would have to leave her. Louise was nothing if not canny.

  Innes reached out and clasped Hazel's forearm, getting the cloth of her coat. She didn't flinch. He remembered her lustrous eyes.

  "Innes?" Louise was asking with a slight whine. "This box is getting heavy."

  Innes wanted to mouth a word to Hazel. But what word? What word?

  He released Hazel's arm.

  Wait, he said silently.

  With great reluctance, Innes turned and pushed Louise for­ward in the chair.

  He walked, but he didn't know where. His thoughts were chaotic, urgent. The glister of the city blinded him.

  "Innes," Louise said sharply.

  "Yes?"

  "Where are we going?"

  "I have some errands to run," he said. "I'll take you back to your room and let you rest."

  "What sort of errands?" Louise asked.

  "Tobacco," Innes said. "A book I need."

  "Yes. All right," Louise answered, happy to be returning to her temporary nest. She would order tea and pastries, Innes knew. When he returned to the hotel room, there would be flakes dotting the bodice of her dress.

  Hazel was standing precisely where Innes had left her: poised, handbag over her wrist, the brim of her hat hiding her eyes.

  "How long would you have waited?" he asked when he had reached her. His breath was short from running.

  "Perhaps another hour."

  "I could hardly mask my impatience."

  "She looks very different."

  "How so?"

  "Angry, I think. I was sad to see that."

  Innes nodded. Yes, Louise was angry. She always had been. It did a man little good to sacrifice himself for a woman if he couldn't love her enough.