The Wedding

  "I've come to ask you something," I said.

  "Yes?" As he spoke, Noah tore off a piece of bread and tossed it into the water. The swan bobbed its beak toward it and straightened its neck to swallow.

  "It's about Jane," I added.

  "Jane," he murmured. "How is she?"

  "Good." I nodded, shifting awkwardly. "She'll be coming by later, I suppose." This was true. For the past few years, we've visited him frequently, sometimes together, sometimes alone. I wondered if they spoke of me in my absence.

  "And the kids?"

  "They're doing well, too. Anna's writing features now, and Joseph finally found a new apartment. It's in Queens, I think, but right near the subway. Leslie's going camping in the mountains with friends this weekend. She told us she aced her midterms."

  He nodded, his eyes never leaving the swan. "You're very lucky, Wilson," he said. "I hope you realize how fortunate you are that they've become such wonderful adults."

  "I do," I said.

  We fell into silence. Up close, the lines in his face formed crevices, and I could see the veins pulsing below the thinning skin of his hands. Behind us, the grounds were empty, the chilly air keeping people inside.

  "I forgot our anniversary," I said.

  "Oh?"

  "Twenty-nine years," I added.

  "Mmm."

  Behind us, I could hear dried leaves rattling in the breeze.

  "I'm worried about us," I finally admitted.

  Noah glanced at me. At first I thought he would ask me why I was worried, but instead he squinted, trying to read my face. Then, turning away, he tossed another piece of bread to the swan. When he spoke, his voice was soft and low, an aging baritone tempered by a southern accent.

  "Do you remember when Allie got sick? When I used to read to her?"

  "Yes," I answered, feeling the memory pull at me. He used to read to her from a notebook that he'd written before they moved to Creekside. The notebook held the story of how he and Allie had fallen in love, and sometimes after he read it aloud to her, Allie would become momentarily lucid, despite the ravages of Alzheimer's. The lucidity never lasted long--and as the disease progressed further, it ceased completely--but when it happened, Allie's improvement was dramatic enough for specialists to travel from Chapel Hill to Creekside in the hopes of understanding it. That reading to Allie sometimes worked, there was no doubt. Why it worked, however, was something the specialists were never able to figure out.

  "Do you know why I did that?" he asked.

  I brought my hands to my lap. "I believe so," I answered. "It helped Allie. And because she made you promise you would."

  "Yes," he said, "that's true." He paused, and I could hear him wheezing, the sound like air through an old accordion. "But that wasn't the only reason I did it. I also did it for me. A lot of folks didn't understand that."

  Though he trailed off, I knew he wasn't finished, and I said nothing. In the silence, the swan stopped circling and moved closer. Except for a black spot the size of a silver dollar on its chest, the swan was the color of ivory. It seemed to hover in place when Noah began speaking again.

  "Do you know what I most remember about the good days?" he asked.

  I knew he was referring to those rare days when Allie recognized him, and I shook my head. "No," I answered.

  "Falling in love," he said. "That's what I remember. On her good days, it was like we were just starting out all over again."

  He smiled. "That's what I mean when I say that I did it for me. Every time I read to her, it was like I was courting her, because sometimes, just sometimes, she would fall in love with me again, just like she had a long time ago. And that's the most wonderful feeling in the world. How many people are ever given that chance? To have someone you love fall in love with you over and over?"

  Noah didn't seem to expect an answer, and I didn't offer one.

  Instead, we spent the next hour discussing the children and his health. We did not speak of Jane or Allie again. After I left, however, I thought about our visit. Despite the doctors' worries, Noah seemed as sharp as ever. He had not only known that I would be coming to see him, I realized, but had anticipated the reason for my visit. And in typical southern fashion, he'd given me the answer to my problem, without my ever having had to ask him directly.

  It was then that I knew what I had to do.

  Chapter Two

  I had to court my wife again.

  It sounds so simple, doesn't it? What could be easier? There were, after all, certain advantages to a situation like ours. For one thing, Jane and I live in the same house, and after three decades together, it's not as though we had to start over. We could dispense with the family histories, the humorous anecdotes from our childhoods, the questions of what we did for a living and whether or not our goals were compatible. Furthermore, the surprises that individuals tend to keep hidden in the early stages of a relationship were already out in the open. My wife, for instance, already knew that I snore, so there was no reason to hide something like that from her. For my part, I've seen her when she's been sick with the flu, and it makes no difference to me how her hair looks when she gets up in the morning.

  Given those practical realities, I assumed that winning Jane's love again would be relatively easy. I would simply try to re-create what we had had in our early years together--as Noah had done for Allie by reading to her. Yet upon further reflection, I slowly came to the realization that I'd never really understood what she saw in me in the first place. Though I think of myself as responsible, this was not the sort of trait women considered attractive back then. I was, after all, a baby boomer, a child of the hang-loose, me-first generation.

  It was 1971 when I saw Jane for the first time. I was twenty-four, in my second year of law school at Duke University, and most people would have considered me a serious student, even as an undergraduate. I never had a roommate for more than a single term, since I often studied late into the evenings with the lamp blazing. Most of my former roommates seemed to view college as a world of weekends separated by boring classes, while I viewed college as preparation for the future.

  While I'll admit that I was serious, Jane was the first to call me shy. We met one Saturday morning at a coffee shop downtown. It was early November, and due to my responsibilities at the Law Review, my classes seemed particularly challenging. Anxious about falling behind in my studies, I'd driven to a coffee shop, hoping to find a place to study where I wouldn't be recognized or interrupted.

  It was Jane who approached the table and took my order, and even now, I can recall that moment vividly. She wore her dark hair in a ponytail, and her chocolate eyes were set off by the hint of olive in her skin. She was wearing a dark blue apron over a sky blue dress, and I was struck by the easy way she smiled at me, as if she were pleased that I had chosen to sit in her section. When she asked for my order, I heard the southern drawl characteristic of eastern North Carolina.

  I didn't know then that we would eventually have dinner together, but I remember going back the following day and requesting the same table. She smiled when I sat down, and I can't deny that I was pleased that she seemed to remember me. These weekend visits went on for about a month, during which we never struck up a conversation or asked each other's names, but I soon noticed that my mind began to wander every time she approached the table to refill my coffee. For a reason I can't quite explain, she seemed always to smell of cinnamon.

  To be honest, I wasn't completely comfortable as a young man with those of the opposite sex. In high school, I was neither an athlete nor a member of the student council, the two most popular groups. I was, however, quite fond of chess and started a club that eventually grew to eleven members. Unfortunately, none of them were female. Despite my lack of experience, I had managed to go out with about half a dozen women during my undergraduate years and enjoyed their company on those evenings out. But because I'd made the decision not to pursue a relationship until I was financially ready to do so, I didn't get to k
now any of these women well and they quickly slipped from my mind.

  Yet frequently after leaving the coffee shop, I found myself thinking of the ponytailed waitress, often when I least expected it. More than once, my mind drifted during class, and I would imagine her moving through the lecture hall, wearing her blue apron and offering menus. These images embarrassed me, but even so, I was unable to prevent them from recurring.

  I have no idea where all of this would have led had she not finally taken the initiative. I had spent most of the morning studying amid the clouds of cigarette smoke that drifted from other booths in the diner when it began to pour. It was a cold, driving rain, a storm that had drifted in from the mountains. I had, of course, brought an umbrella with me in anticipation of such an event.

  When she approached the table I looked up, expecting a refill for my coffee, but noticed instead that her apron was tucked beneath her arm. She removed the ribbon from her ponytail, and her hair cascaded to her shoulders.

  "Would you mind walking me to my car?" she asked. "I noticed your umbrella and I'd rather not get wet."

  It was impossible to refuse her request, so I collected my things, then held the door open for her, and together we walked through puddles as deep as pie tins. Her shoulder brushed my own, and as we splashed across the street in the pouring rain, she shouted her name and mentioned the fact that she was attending Meredith, a college for women. She was majoring in English, she added, and hoped to teach school after she graduated. I didn't offer much in response, concentrating as I was on keeping her dry. When we reached her car, I expected her to get in immediately, but instead she turned to face me.

  "You're kind of shy, aren't you," she said.

  I wasn't quite sure how to respond, and I think she saw this in my expression, for she laughed almost immediately.

  "It's okay, Wilson. I happen to like shy."

  That she had somehow taken the initiative to learn my name should have struck me then, but it did not. Instead, as she stood on the street with the rain coming down and mascara running onto her cheeks, all I could think was that I'd never seen anyone more beautiful.

  My wife is still beautiful.

  Of course, it's a softer beauty now, one that has deepened with age. Her skin is delicate to the touch, and there are wrinkles where it once was smooth. Her hips have become rounder, her stomach a little fuller, but I still find myself filled with longing when I see her undressing in the bedroom.

  We've made love infrequently these last few years, and when we did, it lacked the spontaneity and excitement we'd enjoyed in the past. But it wasn't the lovemaking itself I missed most. What I craved was the long-absent look of desire in Jane's eyes or a simple touch or gesture that let me know she wanted me as much as I longed for her. Something, anything, that would signal I was still special to her.

  But how, I wondered, was I supposed to make this happen? Yes, I knew that I had to court Jane again, but I realized that this was not as easy as I'd originally thought it would be. Our thorough familiarity, which I first imagined would simplify things, actually made things more challenging. Our dinner conversations, for instance, were stilted by routine. For a few weeks after talking to Noah, I actually spent part of my afternoons at the office coming up with new topics for later discussion, but when I brought them up, they always seemed forced and would soon fizzle out. As always, we returned to discussions of the children or my law firm's clients and employees.

  Our life together, I began to realize, had settled into a pattern that was not conducive to renewing any kind of passion. For years we'd adopted separate schedules to accommodate our mostly separate duties. In the early years of our family's life, I spent long hours at the firm--including evenings and weekends--making sure that I would be viewed as a worthy partner when the time came. I never used all my allotted vacation time. Perhaps I was overzealous in my determination to impress Ambry and Saxon, but with a growing family to provide for, I didn't want to take any chances. I now realize that the pursuit of success at work combined with my natural reticence kept me at arm's length from the rest of the family, and I've come to believe that I've always been something of an outsider in my own house.

  While I was busy in my own world, Jane had her hands full with the children. As their activities and demands grew more numerous, it sometimes seemed that she was a blur of harried activity who merely rushed past me in the hallways. There were years, I had to admit, in which we ate dinner separately more often than together, and though occasionally it struck me as odd, I did nothing to change this.

  Perhaps we became used to this way of life, but once the children were no longer there to govern our lives, we seemed powerless to fill in the empty spaces between us. And despite my concern about the state of our relationship, the sudden attempt to change our routines was akin to tunneling through limestone with a spoon.

  This is not to say I didn't try. In January, for instance, I bought a cookbook and took to preparing meals on Saturday evenings for the two of us; some of them, I might add, were quite original and delicious. In addition to my regular golf game, I began walking through our neighborhood three mornings a week, hoping to lose a bit of weight. I even spent a few afternoons in the bookstore, browsing the self-help section, hoping to learn what else I could do. The experts' advice on improving a marriage? To focus on the four As--attention, appreciation, affection, and attraction. Yes, I remember thinking, that makes perfect sense, so I turned my efforts in those directions. I spent more time with Jane in the evenings instead of working in my den, I complimented her frequently, and when she spoke of her daily activities, I listened carefully and nodded when appropriate to let her know she had my full attention.

  I was under no illusions that any of these remedies would magically restore Jane's passion for me, nor did I take a short-term view of the matter. If it had taken twenty-nine years to drift apart, I knew that a few weeks of effort was simply the beginning of a long process of rapprochement. Yet even if things were improving slightly, the progress was slower than I'd hoped. By late spring, I came to the conclusion that in addition to these daily changes, I needed to do something else, something dramatic, something to show Jane that she was still, and always would be, the most important person in my life. Then, late one evening, as I found myself glancing through our family albums, an idea began to take hold.

  I awoke the next day filled with energy and good intentions. I knew my plan would have to be carried out secretly and methodically, and the first thing I did was to rent a post office box. I didn't progress much further on my plans right away, however, for it was around this time that Noah had a stroke.

  It was not the first stroke he'd had, but it was his most serious. He was in the hospital for nearly eight weeks, during which time my wife's attention was devoted fully to his care. She spent every day at the hospital, and in the evenings she was too tired and upset to notice my efforts to renew our relationship. Noah was eventually able to return to Creekside and was soon feeding the swan at the pond again, but I think it drove home the point that he wouldn't be around much longer. I spent many hours quietly soothing Jane's tears and simply comforting her.

  Of all I did during that year, it was this, I think, that she appreciated most of all. Perhaps it was the steadiness I provided, or maybe it really was the result of my efforts over the last few months, but whatever it was, I began to notice occasional displays of newfound warmth from Jane. Though they were infrequent, I savored them desperately, hoping that our relationship was somehow back on track.

  Thankfully, Noah continued to improve, and by early August, the year of the forgotten anniversary was coming to a close. I'd lost nearly twenty pounds since I'd begun my neighborhood strolls, and I'd developed the habit of swinging by the post office box daily to collect items I'd solicited from others. I worked on my special project while I was at the office to keep it a secret from Jane. Additionally, I'd decided to take off the two weeks surrounding our thirtieth anniversary--the longest vacation I'd ev
er taken from work--with the intention of spending time with Jane. Considering what I'd done the year before, I wanted this anniversary to be as memorable as possible.

  Then, on the evening of Friday, August 15--my first night of vacation and exactly eight days before our anniversary--something happened that neither Jane nor I would ever forget.

  We were both relaxing in the living room. I was seated in my favorite armchair, reading a biography of Theodore Roosevelt, while my wife was leafing through the pages of a catalog. Suddenly Anna burst through the front door. At the time, she was still living in New Bern, but she had recently put down a deposit on an apartment in Raleigh and would be moving in a couple of weeks to join Keith for the first year of his residency at Duke Medical School.

  Despite the heat, Anna was wearing black. Both ears were double pierced, and her lipstick seemed at least a few shades too dark. By this time, I had grown used to the gothic flairs of her personality, but when she sat across from us, I saw again how much she resembled her mother. Her face was flushed, and she brought her hands together as if trying to steady herself.

  "Mom and Dad," she said, "I have something to tell you."

  Jane sat up and set the catalog aside. I knew she could tell from Anna's voice that something serious was coming. The last time Anna had acted like this, she'd informed us that she would be moving in with Keith.

  I know, I know. But she was an adult, and what could I do?

  "What is it, honey?" Jane asked.

  Anna looked from Jane to me and back to Jane again before taking a deep breath.

  "I'm getting married," she said.

  I've come to believe that children live for the satisfaction of surprising their parents, and Anna's announcement was no exception.

  In fact, everything associated with having children has been surprising. There's a common lament that the first year of marriage is the hardest, but for Jane and myself, this was not true. Nor was the seventh year, the year of the supposed itch, the most difficult.

  No, for us--aside from the past few years, perhaps--the most challenging years were those that followed the births of our children. There seems to be a misconception, especially among those couples who've yet to have kids, that the first year of a child's life resembles a Hallmark commercial, complete with cooing babies and smiling, calm parents.