Sabine headed back to her room but went to the left instead of the right without meaning to; force of habit. The boys lifted up on their elbows from their twin beds and blinked in the darkness.
"Did he go?" How said.
"He went home," Sabine said. "Everything's fine." It was amazingly simple, lying to them. They wanted to believe that everything would be all right, she wanted them to believe it.
"We thought we heard the door," Guy said. "Was he okay?"
"I think he'd calmed down." Thanks to you, she wanted to say, but maybe Guy wouldn't want the credit for sending his father away.
"Gram didn't wake up?"
Sabine shook her head. "Now you need to go to sleep." She went to Guy's bed and then How's, kissing them both on the forehead even though they were too old. It was not an ordinary night.
"Good night," How said.
"Good night, Sabine," Guy said.
Sabine backed out of the room quietly and closed the door. She liked to believe they were already asleep, that they felt so safe with her reassurances that sleep came without question.
Across the hall, Kitty was lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
"How's that cut?" Sabine said.
"I shouldn't have left you out there with him."
"It was fine. He left without any problem." Sabine leaned over and looked at Kitty's face. She ran her thumb beneath the tear on Kitty's cheek. It wasn't so bad. No more stitches, at least.
"He's always going to be around," Kitty said, as if she had decided to take the rest of the night to puzzle out her life.
"He's not," Sabine said. She sat down beside her sister-in-law and took her hand. "He won't be in California."
"Lucky for you," Kitty said, her voice thoughtful. "He doesn't seem to like you."
"I want you and the boys to come back to California with me." All she didn't understand was why she hadn't thought of it before.
Kitty looked at her. "Leave Alliance?"
"In a heartbeat."
Kitty sat up and pulled a pillow into her lap. She had meant to go with her brother. She had meant to be the magician's assistant, see the ocean. "Leave Mother and Bertie?"
"Lots of visits."
"Oh, Christ," Kitty said. "I don't know." She looked up at Sabine. "I'm not so young anymore. I don't know how it would be to uproot everybody, have everything be different." She reached up and put her hand on the side of Sabine's face. Kitty's hand was as cool as a leaf. "You wait and you wait and you wait for something to happen, and then when it finally does you don't know what to do about it."
Sabine closed her eyes and kissed Kitty. A kiss that she liked to think would have been much better if she hadn't been so tired.
"We don't have to decide this right now," Kitty whispered. "It doesn't have to be tonight."
Sabine shook her head. "This offer is good. Permanently good." She stood up and Kitty stood up beside her and together they folded back the blankets. Now the bed was the right size, and Sabine put her arms around Kitty and held her against her chest. This was the thing that everyone had told her about, the thing that she had given up for Parsifal before she really understood what it was. Kitty pressed her face against the side of Sabine's neck. "I'm going to fall asleep," she said.
And that was when Sabine remembered what she wanted to tell her. "Just one more thing," she whispered. "I had an incredible dream about Parsifal and Phan tonight. I never remember my dreams, but everything in this one is still so clear."
"Tell me," Kitty said from deep inside the well of Sabine's arms. "I dream about them all the time."
Very early on the morning of Bertie and Haas's wedding, two perfect inches of powdery snow fell on Alliance, Nebraska, making all of the snow that was beneath it appear fresh and bright. The plows were back in their sheds by seven A.M. and by eight the sun was out and the sky was clear from Wyoming to Iowa. While the tides of her family rose and fell around her, Bertie stayed focused on what was to be the happiest day of her life. She would be thirty in two weeks and was old enough to remember to put together the proper package for herself: old, new, borrowed, blue. All of the teachers and staff from Emerson Grade School were there, as were the teachers from the high school, where Haas taught chemistry; the middle school; and Saint Agnes Academy. Cousins and second cousins came from Hemingford and Scottsbluff. Two came from Sheridan, Wyoming. Al Fetters' brother, Ross, came with his wife all the way from Topeka, Kansas, though no one had heard from them in years. In fact, the only member of the family not in attendance was Howard Plate, and no one had expected him anyway.
Kitty and Dot helped Bertie with her dress, which she had bought on a trip to Lincoln when she had first become engaged, more than two years ago. Sabine fixed Bertie's hair. She had planned to wear her hair up for the wedding but was afraid that the spot that was shaved in the back of her head for the stitches might show. Anyway, she said Haas had always liked her hair better down.
"Look at my three beautiful girls," Dot said, speaking of her two daughters and Sabine, whom she had come to think of as a daughter. "All of you grown-up and going away."
"We're pretty far past grown," Bertie said, putting gloss on her lips. "And as far as gone, well, Haas and I are only going to San Francisco for five days."
"And I'm not going anywhere," Kitty said.
"You're going to California." Dot picked up the back of Bertie's dress, shook it out, and dropped it.
"I didn't say I was going to California. You're getting things confused. That's what happens when you get old, Mother. It's Sabine who's going to California." Kitty smiled.
"You're going with her."
"I said the boys and I were thinking about going to visit for a while."
"Maybe a long visit," Sabine said hopefully.
"I don't know what we'll do yet," Kitty said.
"The problem with Kitty is that it takes her forever to make up her mind. Let me have some of that powder, will you?" Dot held out her hand to Sabine.
"This is Bertie's day," Kitty said. "Let's leave Kitty and all her problems out of it for once, shall we?" She attached a white net veil on a crown of white satin roses to the top of her sister's head. "There," she said, stepping away. "Will you look at that?"
Sabine brought the bouquet of lilies of the valley from the refrigerator. Everyone agreed that Bertie was a lovely bride.
"I should be crying," Dot whispered to Sabine as she slipped into the pew after walking Bertie down the aisle. "Pinch me. Make me cry."
At the reception people ate sandwiches cut into small triangles and a white wedding cake covered in frosting roses. A three-piece band played "What a Wonderful World" while Bertie and Haas danced their first married dance together in the church basement. Haas didn't look so shy now. He looked happy. When everyone else joined in, Dot danced with her brother-in-law, Ross Fetters, of Topeka. Sabine danced with Guy, and How danced with his mother, though the boys had made their position clear to them on the drive over: Absolutely no more than one dance. The dancing was the entertainment: dancing, lunch, and a champagne toast, even though it was only one o'clock in the afternoon. There was plenty to keep everyone busy, and yet Bertie had asked Sabine a week before if she would do a magic trick at the wedding.
"I'm not sure it really goes," Sabine said.
"Just one trick," Bertie said, twisting her fingers together. "Everyone would love it."
"I'm not actually a magician, no matter how I try and pass myself off around here. The truth is I've never performed by myself before. I don't think I'd be very good."
"Of course you'd be good," Bertie said. "Besides, if Guy was alive he'd do it. I bet he'd want to do a trick."