Poor Howard’s dead and gone,
Left me here to sing his song. …
Panic filled her chest. It’s a mistake, she thought. I don’t love him. He was ugly.
2
All around the room — everywhere but in front of the closed doors and the window where Callie stood — the wedding presents were laid out for show on borrowed card tables covered with linen cloths. With the sunlight streaming in (burning in the great, red, antique bowl from Cousin-Aunt Mary, gleaming on all the silver plate, the silver candlesticks, the cut-glass napkin holders, lacework, china salt and pepper shakers, glass and china bowls, mugs, painted vases, popcorn poppers, TV trays, steak knives, wooden salad forks), the presents seemed too beautiful to be real. Like the gown, they had, to Callie’s mind, a serenity and elegance she could not match. They overwhelmed her — the hours that had gone into the crocheted antimacassars from Aunt Mae, the expense of the candlesticks from Uncle Earle, who had bought them, she knew, without an instant’s hesitation or so much as a fleeting thought of the expense: In all her life she would never crochet as Aunt Mae could, not if she worked at it week in, week out, and she’d never be as rich as Uncle Earle, or as calmly, beamingly confident of all she did. Why had they done it all? Over and over that question had come to her; not a question, really, an exclamation of despair, because she knew the answer, no answer at alclass="underline" They had sent the presents — hardly knowing her, hardly even knowing her parents any more — because it was her wedding. She thought: Because brides are beautiful, and marriage is holy. Again and again she had watched them come down the aisle, transfigured, radiating beauty like Christ on the mountain, lifted out of mere humanness into their perfect eternal instant, the flowers they carried mere feeble decoration, the needless gilding of a lily too beautiful for Nature; and again and again she had seen them later, making their first formal visits as wives, the lines of their faces softened, their eyes grown shrewish or merry. How she had envied them, she the poor virgin, novice, barred from their mystery! She knew well enough what it was, though not in words. She knew it was not the marriage bed, was only feebly symbolized by the bed. They went up the aisle white forms, insubstantial as air, poised in the instant of total freedom like the freedom of angels, between child and adult, between daughter and wife, and they came down transformed to reality, married: in one split second, in a way, grown-up. It was that that the relatives lifted up their offerings to: the common holy ground in all their lives. But that common beauty would not be for her. Her marrying Henry Soames was almost vicious, an act of pure selfishness: she was pregnant, and he — obese and weak, flaccid in his vast, sentimental compassion — he had merely been available.
I’ll run away, she thought, standing motionless, knowing she would not run away. Tears filled her eyes. I’ll run away somewhere — to New York City, yes — and I’ll write to Henry later and explain. It’s the only honest thing to do. She closed her eyes, hurriedly composing.
Dear, Good Henry:
Forgive me for leaving you and causing you so much embarrassment and expense. Please ask all my friends and relatives to forgive me too. I hope I have not hurt anyone, and I know how disappointed. …
Dear Mr. Soames:
Miss Calliope Wells has asked me to tell you (since she is unwell. …
Because of the presents she couldn’t run away. And because Uncle Russel and Aunt Kate had come from Ohio, and Aunt Anna had altered the dress and was going to play the church organ, which she loved doing more than anything (and had once done beautifully, so people said), and Robert Wilkes had come all the way from the Eastman School of Music to sing “Because.” She slipped her hands up inside the veil and covered her face. In fifteen minutes Uncle John would be here.
She remembered sitting in the grass as a child, watching Uncle John at work. He was a carpenter, and the tools were like extensions of himself: He was one with the plane that glided down the pineboard, lifting a long, light curl of white; one with the quick, steady saw, the hammer that sent nails in cleanly at two blows, the wooden rule, the chalk, the brace and bit. When she tried, the nails would bend over cruelly, and Uncle John would smile. She’d fly into a temper, and he would laugh as though he and the old claw hammer knew a secret, and then he’d say kindly, “Be calm. Be patient.” She thought: Uncle John. He was old now, retired. His hands were twisted with arthritis. It was Uncle John who had brought her Prince when she was eleven. He was still just a puppy. He didn’t look at all like a police dog then. Furry as a bear that had not yet been licked.
She thought, fiercely, Of course I’m going to marry him. But Willard Freund was her own age, handsome and gracefuclass="underline" She saw him again in his white suitcoat at the senior dance, smiling at her with his head lowered a little, shy. Somewhere, surely, there was a man who was young and handsome and good as well, someone who would love her as completely as Henry did, and would make her heart race the way Willard did, by nothing but a smile. If she only waited. … The thought made her want to laugh bitterly, or, better yet, die. She would hate the child inside her. How could she help it?
But the maples on the lawn in front said, Be calm. In their heavy shade where the tables were, it would be cool. Always when there were family reunions, funerals, weddings, they would set up the tables there, as they had today, and cover them with bright colored cloths, and all the older women and some of the girls would work in the kitchen, and the men would play softball on the level space at the foot of the steeply sloping back yard, tromping down the clover, using burlap bags full of straw for bases. When Prince was young he would bark and chase them as they ran, or he’d steal the ball. (Uncle John had taught him to sit and stay.) Some of the women would play softball too, the girls and some of the younger wives. Uncle Grant was always the pitcher for both sides (smoking his pipe, wearing calf-manure-colored loafers and white slacks and a light blue cardigan sweater with leather buttons); Uncle Harris would be at third base, his suitcoat off, the striped suspenders tight-looking, and when nothing came his way he would stand there grinning, just like Bill, his jaw thrown forward as if crossly, stiff hair curling out from in front of his ears as her grandfather’s had done. Each time, some of the younger wives who’d played softball last time would not play this time but would sit on the porch with the older women, watching the children in the grass below and talking, laughing or complaining. When she’d hit her first homer, Uncle Grant had pretended to be indignant at her having connected with his pitch, and her handsome cousin Duncan had smiled as though he were proud that she was his cousin. Duncan was always the best of the players. If he missed a catch it was because he wanted to give you the run, or because one of the smaller children had grabbed hold of his legs. They made him bat one-handed, to be fair, but that was a joke; he would pop out a fly — so gentle that it seemed to float down to you on dove’s wings — to whichever of the younger kids hadn’t caught one yet, and if you missed the catch he would be out at the first base he came to that wasn’t being covered by a grown-up. They called him “the loser,” because every time he came to bat he would get himself put out, one way or another, and when he was at field he’d put nobody out except — he pretended — by accident. They razzed him and hooted at him and loved him: Useless as he was if you wanted to win, he was always the first one chosen. He was beautiful and good — he didn’t even smoke — and juggling three bats, gently and precisely popping up flies, standing on one hand, coins dropping from his trousers — and grinning, always grinning — he seemed to shine like an angel … or a bride. (When he’d brought the present by last night, he’d smiled again exactly as he’d smiled all those years ago when she’d hit that first homer, as though he was proud to be related to her. “Do I get to kiss the bride now?” he’d said, “—in case I come down with a cold sore?” She’d given him her cheek, blushing, and he’d kissed her lips and said, “Missed!” She’d pretended to slap him.) She thought of Henry Soames trying to play softball.