SIX

DAN AND LOUISE shuttled back and forth for a while, staying first at the trailer and then at the farm. But with all their running around, they didn’t see much of each other, and their razors were never where they needed them to be. So they talked this over and Dan moved to the farm, selling his house trailer to the farmer Jan Johanson for nineteen hundred dollars.

The trailer marked the point at which Grafton gave way to fields, and Jan decided to clear and plow the lot. He owned all the surrounding land, so this made sense. The trailer he would move to his farm and use as an agribusiness office. Many farms had now developed to the point where they needed such places, with computers and fax machines and file cabinets that would have struck the farmers of yesteryear as a big waste of material. In any case, moving a trailer required a crane and a flatbed truck, and a number of people showed up out of mild curiosity on the Saturday this was to happen.

Snow fell lightly, disappearing as it touched, leaving no accumulation on the hard black dirt of the fields. The air was cold and still. Louise and Dan sat with Henry Hamilton on the tailgate of Henry’s pickup. Henry was smoking a pipe that kept going out.

Most of the work was done. The Johanson family worked with utmost efficiency. The trailer was off its foundation with two girders underneath, one at each end. Cables connected the girders to the hook of the crane, which was being operated by Hans Cook. The engine was running and sending up smoke from time to time. Up in the cab Hans was drinking coffee.

Later, Henry would claim to have predicted that something would go wrong, which was true, but what he predicted to go wrong and what in fact went wrong were two separate things.

“What do you think’ll happen when they lift that mobile home?” he said.

“The earth will open up and swallow the town,” guessed Louise. She wore a red quilted vest and a Cargill cap.

“I’ll bet you fifty bucks the thing breaks in the middle,” said Henry.

“Tell Jan,” said Dan.

Henry went over and raised this issue with Jan, who listened carefully and then said he had talked to the company that had manufactured the trailer about the best way of moving it. Actually, he said, the company was defunct, but he had tracked down its former engineer, who was now retired and living in California and very willing to discuss the problem. Coming from Jan Johanson, this detective work was totally believable.

“He talked to somebody in California,” said Henry to Louise and Dan.

Hans Cook took a last sip of coffee, tossed what was left on the ground, screwed the cup onto his thermos, put the thermos by his feet, and took hold of the levers that controlled the crane. Jan raised his hand. Hans revved the crane’s engine, and the sound and stream of exhaust sent a current of excitement through the crowd. The crane roared and the cables tightened until the trailer lifted, but then one of the girder clamps broke and the girder dropped, ringing like a church bell against the cinder-block foundation. The trailer rolled crunching and shattering on the ground. All this happened at once and so smoothly that an uninformed bystander might have thought that this was what they wanted. Fortunately no one was hurt. Jan Johanson had his arms folded the whole time, and when the trailer had come to a stop he still had his arms folded, and he said, “Mother… fuck.”

A crow coasted onto the field and the snow fell.

“I am not believing that,” said Louise.

“I guess that’s how they do it in California,” said Henry.

Hans, in the window of the crane, shook his head and poured coffee. Louise pulled Dan’s hip to hers. “We had some beautiful times in there,” she said.

They lived together all winter, and in the spring announced their engagement. People wondered what Louise saw in someone like Dan. Of course, Dan had his merits. He might not have been a great crime fighter, but he conducted himself decently in most situations, which is not true of every cop. He had gray eyes and a melancholy smile. He was tall enough to be a little taller than she was. The question had more to do with Louise, who had developed a certain status apart from the town and its business. She had always said what she was thinking, and seemed to be afraid of no one, except perhaps Mary. The reason she had married Tiny was that most people thought it was a bad idea. So had she tired of that contrary life? Had she changed? Did she want to drive the patrol car? One phrase came to explain Louise’s decision. Nurse Barbara Jones said it to the hairdresser Lindsey Coale. “She’s come into herself,” said Barbara. “Just look at her face. I was looking at her face the other day when she didn’t know I was watching. She has come into herself at last.”

“Her hair’s improved, too,” said Lindsey Coale. “It’s got all those reddish highlights. I wish she would stop by. A cut, a curl. Anything. People don’t understand how dependent hair is on the emotions.”

Louise put on a blue dress with white dots and went to see Pastor Boren Matthews of the Trinity Baptist Church. Grafton seemed to get two kinds of religious leaders: simple, good men who understood not one thing about the town, and moody ones who embodied rather than allayed the anxieties of the congregation. Pastor Boren Matthews was of the second category. He and Louise climbed the stairs to the cupola to talk. A .410 shotgun leaned against the wall in a corner.

“We’ve been having trouble with pigeons,” he said. “They live in the bell tower of Sacred Heart and come over here to do their business. I’ve spoken with Father Wall, but he is no help. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Catholicism, Louise. But there are people in this town who are doing some very strange things.”

“All religions are strange,” said Louise.

“But the Catholics take the prize.”

“It’s like having an imaginary friend.”

“You don’t have to think of God in human terms,” said Boren Matthews. “Some people are comfortable with the general idea of a higher power.”

“But that’s like giving up. A higher power could be anything. It could be a big paperweight.”

“A paperweight is not a higher power.”

“I like when they say God is a jealous God. Because you can imagine him storming around Heaven going, ‘All right, where were you last night?’”

“Quite an imagination. What brings you here?”

“Dan Norman and I are getting married, and I promised my mother to ask if we can have the wedding in your church.”

“It would be difficult for someone who describes God as possibly a paperweight.”

“Well, I gave it a shot.”

“And there was a time not that long ago when I would just say forget it. But churchgoing is not what it used to be, and frankly, we can’t afford to turn anyone away. Do you know how many people we had last Sunday?”

“Take a wild guess.”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, guess.”

“Including you?”

“No. With me it would be seven.”

“It’s not many.”

He shook his head, looked out the window. “I’m afraid the Trinity Baptist Church of Grafton will not be around much longer. Look what happened in Pinville. Look what happened in Lunenberg. What they’ll do is lump us in with that crowd over in Chesley. And they don’t allow gambling or dancing in Chesley. We’re very liberal here. We take a laissez-faire attitude all the way. When people get to Chesley they’ll be in for a rude awakening.”

“Will you still be around in May?”

“Oh, probably.”

“Because we were thinking about May.”

Pastor Matthews jumped up and crept to the window. “Shh,” he said. He picked up the shotgun. A pigeon flew from the roof. “Come back here,” he said. “Look, May is fine.”

“O.K., great,” said Louise.

The minister shook her hand. “Congratulations, Louise,” he said. “I must say I’ve always been attracted to you, mentally and physically.”

Then she had to go downstairs and ask the minister’s wife, Farina, for a book of ceremonies. Farina was friendly. Her hair was dark, with little waves like those in an unbraided rope. She often sat alone on the steps of the parsonage in the evening. Now she went around the house looking for the book. She could not find it anywhere. She did find an old photograph. In it a young woman smiled, her legs folded on summer grass. She had lipstick and sideswept hair.

“Do you believe that’s me?” she said.

“That’s on Rainy Lake, Minnesota. My family used to go every summer.”

Louise left the parsonage and thumbed through the small notebook she had taken to carrying to keep her errands straight. Then she drove up to Stone City and met Dan at Mercy Hospital to have their blood drawn for the marriage license. They sat in plastic chairs with fold-down palettes for their arms. A nurse they did not know came in and wrapped tubing around their arms. Louise had seen junkies apply this same kind of tourniquet on PBS. The intercom said something and the nurse left.

“Boren Matthews came on to me,” said Louise.

“What do you mean, ‘came on’?”

“He said he was attracted to me.”

“Maybe he meant he likes you.”

“He said mentally and physically attracted.”

“That does sound like coming on.”

“I guess he doesn’t have any congregation left and it’s driving him crazy.”

“Do you want me to talk to him?”

“Nah. You know, my arm’s beginning to hurt. I don’t think you’re supposed to leave a tourniquet on if you’re not bleeding. Where did she go?”

They removed the bands. The lights throbbed in their eyes. “It’s this dress,” said Dan. “When you wear this dress the most sacred man would be attracted to you.”

“I thought you were the most sacred man.”

“It’s just a sexy dress.”

“I never thought of it that way.”

“I guess that’s why,” said Dan.

The nurse came and drew their blood. It was kind of painful. Louise imagined that the doctors would mix their blood together in the lab and hope for the best. Then they went into the waiting room, where Dan stood at the counter filling out forms while Louise wrote in her notebook.

“What were you just writing?” he said as they walked out, and she handed him a piece of paper on which she had written “Show Me Love” four times.

“I will,” he said.

Dan went back to work, and Louise drove to the mall south of Stone City. She bought a pair of pale yellow shoes to get married in. They hurt her feet.

“You want that,” said the salesman. “If the shoe didn’t feel painful now, it would probably be the wrong size. You could go to a seven. But, Miss, I guarantee you this foot of yours would swim in a seven.”

Louise paid for the shoes and left. She followed a mother and daughter out of the store and through the mall. The girl, about two years old and carrying a shoebox, was drawn like a magnet to anything that would break or fall. The mother kept dragging her away from the storefronts. There was a stone fountain in the center of the mall, and here the two rested. The mother read a newspaper while the girl opened the shoebox, took out a new pair of red shoes, and threw them in the water.

Now, at this same time gamblers had set up shop in Grafton. These were two men who drove a dark red Chevrolet Impala and sat all day in the back of the Lime Bucket tavern. They claimed to be from Canada, but their knowledge of Canada was sketchy. Dan knew something about the gamblers but had not yet taken action. It seemed to Louise that many things fell into this category for Dan. A good part of the job of sheriff, the way he did it, was the biding of time.

One day Louise overheard one of the gamblers talking on the phone. There was a pay phone in the Lime Bucket, but these two men generally walked across Main Street to the phone booth by the old bank. This was not what you would call private—the door had been removed years ago to discourage kids from going in there at night and kissing—but it was better than standing by the jukebox with “Third Rate Romance” playing in your ear.

“The angel will bite if it gets aggressive,” the gambler was saying. “Sure it will… I did tell you that, honey. You’ve got to separate them… Yes, I’ll hold on, but I want you to go right now and separate those fish… How about in the tank with the mollies… What do you mean? All of them?… Well, what exactly killed them, honey? I am not, I’m not accusing you of anything. I just wish you wouldn’t sound so happy when my fish die… Listen, while I’m holding, why don’t you put Klaus on… Hi, Klaus. It’s Daddy. It’s your old man, Klaus… Do you hear me? Are you there? I hear you breathing… Klaus? Hello?”

The gambler left the booth. He dressed with style for someone living out of a Chevrolet Impala. He wore black pants, an ironed blue shirt, and a New York Mets cap turned backward over his ponytail. No one seemed to know his name, but he was called Larry Longhair.

“You’re getting married,” he said to Louise. “I saw your picture in the paper. I went to get you a present, but the store was closed. Good for you, in any case. Marriage is one of the reasons we play this silly game. Here, have ten dollars.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Louise.

“Oh, take it,” he said.

“You’ll need it for gambling,” said Louise. “You and that other guy.”

“Richie,” said the gambler.

“You can’t get away with it forever.”

“Maybe you’re right,” said the gambler. “But in the meantime, I know of a good bet in the ninth race at Ak-Sar-Ben. If I call right now, we can get you in on it. I’ll put in this ten, and you put in twenty. Total wager: thirty bucks.”

“Some present,” said Louise.

One evening between then and the wedding, Louise came home from work to find sawdust settled like snow on the floor of the bedroom. Dan had dug an ancient string bed out of the attic and lengthened it by cutting and installing new four-by-four side rails. Then he ran six planks from rail to rail, spacing them evenly from the head of the bed to the foot, and bolted plywood to the planks. The mattress rested on the plywood, and the resulting bed was rustic, fragrant, and very high. Louise and Dan got on their backs and slid underneath—it was like being in the basement of a new house, peering up at the joists.

“That ought to hold us,” said Louise.

Dan had to go out later and help the fire department burn down a shed on the Lonnie Pratt farm. Sometimes when people had old buildings they wanted to get rid of, they would donate them to the fire department for practice. Dan returned at ten-thirty, took a shower, and came into the bedroom with a white towel draped across his head. “They do all right when they set the fire themselves,” he said.

Louise put down the magazine she was reading. She enjoyed the elevated perspective of their new bed. “Climb up here and talk to me,” she said.

The women of Trinity Baptist gave Louise a bridal shower in the cafeteria of the old school. Louise, Mary, and Cheryl Jewell sat at the head table. The other women filed solemnly by, leaving packages, and then they sat down and watched Louise open them. She got a popcorn maker, a birdhouse, a carpet sweeper, a shoeshine kit, and a framed poem about the dogwood tree. She got a fishnet heart in which to save ribbons. Inez Greathouse stood and prayed for the marriage. “Louise has a wonderful name,” she said. “Because if we take off two of the letters and rearrange the remaining ones, we have the word ‘soul.’ The Christian soul we know is bound for heaven; and two souls such as Louise and Dan, who commit themselves to God’s love, will never falter in life’s journey. Oh, there will be fights, because there are always fights. And there will be times when Louise and Dan are convinced their hearts are breaking. We have all been there. But if they have faith, their hearts will not break, and that is God’s promise to us all. Amen.” After the prayer everyone had small, bitter cups of coffee. When it was over, Louise and Cheryl went to the tavern for a beer.

Cheryl Jewell had come back from Kansas City to be maid of honor. Her presence in Grafton was controversial. She was divorced from her third cousin Laszlo and usually flirted with him when in town. But Laszlo was remarried, to a woman named Jean. Also, Cheryl and Laszlo had a daughter, Jocelyn, who now lived with Jean and Laszlo. And Cheryl was staying with her Aunt Nan, whose house stood right next door to Jean and Laszlo’s on Park Street. All these names are not important except to show the delicacy of the situation. Nan Jewell was bossy and opinionated but did not take sides in this matter, as she disapproved of Cheryl and Laszlo equally. Cheryl had sexy gray bangs. She was always in school and always involved with someone unworthy of her time. Currently she was studying botany and dating a chemist named Walt.

“He runs away every time we make love,” said Cheryl.

“You know who else was like that?” said Louise, and whispered the name of someone they both knew.

“I mean he literally runs away,” said Cheryl. “He puts on tennis shoes and he’s out the door. He goes up around the reservoir, down the graveyard, and back, a total of four or five miles. There’s something I don’t trust about joggers. The blankets are still warm and I hear his soles hitting the pavement. I don’t think it’s normal. And I also happen to think he has a glass eye.”

Louise laughed. “What do you mean?” she said. “You can’t tell?”

“Well, sometimes he gives me a look, and I think, My God, those eyes are glass,” said Cheryl.

“Dan’s eyes seem real,” said Louise.

“He’s all right,” said Cheryl.

“Hi, ladies,” said the gambler with the ponytail. He stood at the table, holding a cigarette near his mouth. “Say, Louise, I’m afraid that bet we made didn’t pan out.”

“I didn’t make a bet,” said Louise.

“Well, I put that ten dollars in for you. But the horse pulled up lame. Isn’t that the way? The race was fixed, too, which is the hell of it. I guess you can’t fix Mother Nature, much as we might like to.”

“How are your fish?” said Louise.

“Last I heard, the tank had stabilized,” said the gambler. “So when’s the big event?”

“Saturday,” said Louise.

He sent a stream of smoke toward the ceiling, took off his baseball cap, and settled it on Louise’s head. “Here’s something blue,” he said, and moved on.

“Who the hell is that?” said Cheryl.

“Larry Longhair,” said Louise. She got up, put money in the jukebox, and played the first and second parts of “Rock Your Baby” by George McRae.

“Remember this?” said Louise.

“I played it when you and Tiny got married,” said Cheryl. “Everyone hated it.”

“No, they didn’t,” said Louise.

“It isn’t a tune for the French horn,” said Cheryl. “I realize that now.”

“You were in the music academy. We assumed you knew what you were doing.”

“It was an interesting experiment,” said Cheryl.

“Much like the marriage itself,” said Louise.

“You know, I miss hanging around and talking,” said Cheryl. “Sometimes I think I’ll get back with Laszlo.”

“What about Jean?”

“Yes, well, that’s the problem,” said Cheryl. She sighed. “I have to tell you. Don’t take this wrong. I mean, it isn’t negative. But the word around town is that you’ve changed.”

“What do you think?”

“Yes, but not how they mean,” said Cheryl.

Louise lowered the visor of the cap and took a drink of beer. “How have I changed?” she said.

“It’s not like you’re repenting or anything,” said Cheryl. “It’s more like, O.K. This is the way.”

Louise nodded. Rod Stewart sang “Maggie May” on the jukebox. “You know what I never liked about that song?” said Cheryl.

“Well,” she said, “if it really don’t worry him none, you know, when the morning sun shows her age—why even mention it?”

“This is true,” said Louise.

Louise stayed at her mother’s house the night before the wedding. She lay in her childhood bed, on her side, in the shape of a question mark. At the suggestion of Hey, Teens! magazine, she had climbed a stepladder twenty-three years ago and pressed glow-in-the-dark stars to the ceiling. Louise had been greatly influenced by Hey, Teens! when she was a teen. She had made and worn easy-to-make clothing that really looked very bad. She had joined the Gary Lewis and the Playboys Fan Club. The stars barely glowed, and she saw them faintly from the corner of her eye.

She fell asleep and dreamed. Louise had simple dreams most of the time. She had little patience for those who would draw her aside and say, “Listen to this dream I had. I was talking on the phone with my cousin, and then it was like I was the phone …” Anyway, in this dream Louise and Dan were driving home at night from Morrisville, and Dan took a steep road that Louise had not known about. They glided up through the country. The sky was like a map of the sky, with concentric rings, big blue planets, names and distances printed in white. The road climbed sharply, and the scenery was lonely—a dark house, black pines—but beautiful in the planetary light.

“Do you take this route very often?” said Louise.

“In fact, I never have,” said Dan, “but I’m familiar enough with the road system to know this will level out up ahead like a hawk’s nest.”

It didn’t, of course. The car went over the crest of the road and dropped into endless dream darkness. Louise woke, breathing hard. She heard a strange smacking noise and went downstairs. It was one-thirty in the morning, and Mary was mopping the walls of the hallway for the reception. She wore a housecoat with the sleeves rolled up. She had never mastered cleaning, and as she flailed the plaster with the cords of the mop, she seemed to be losing ground.

“I wasn’t going to do this,” said Mary. “But I started in with a sponge, and don’t you honestly think the mop does a better job?”

Louise yawned. “You’re paranoid,” she said. But she pitched in, unfolding and setting up three card tables with the distinct and tropical smell of Mary’s basement.

They listened to a talk show on the radio and made their way down Louise’s list. Their work acquired the intent and wordless pace that can be reached only after midnight. Louise chased cobwebs with a cloth-covered broom. Mary sewed the hem of Louise’s dress. Louise taped white ribbons to the lamps. Together they made sandwiches without crusts.

The talk show featured a woman in Rapid City interviewing an agoraphobic. But the guest got nervous and went home halfway through.

“I guess she wasn’t lying,” said Louise.

“You always had the opposite problem,” said Mary. “You never wanted to come home.”

Louise sat in the kitchen curling ribbon with the blade of a scissors. “One time I did,” she said. “I had a flat tire and it was raining and I didn’t have a coat. I remember wishing and wishing I was home. Well, I’m going to bed.”

“Don’t be scared about tomorrow,” said Mary.

“Good night,” said Louise.

“Good night.”

In the morning they made punch—orange juice, grapefruit juice, pineapple juice, and vodka. Sun poured through the kitchen windows. They stood mixing and sampling until they were happy not only with the punch but with the house, the weather, and the lives they had led so far.

Heinz Miller came over shortly after noon. A retired farmer, he lived next door with his wife, Ranae. He wore a short-sleeve white shirt and wine-red slacks.

“Our cable just went out,” he said. “Would you mind if I turn on the ballgame? Got some money on the Twins. It’s the top of the third with one man on and nobody down. Our cable went blank. I thought of you.”

“How much money?” said Mary.

“Three thousand dollars,” said Heinz.

“Good Lord,” said Louise.

“How much?” said Mary.

“Three thousand,” said Louise.

“I know it’s a lot,” said Heinz. “I bet it with those guys at the Lime Bucket.”

“Well, Heinz Miller,” said Mary.

“They used psychology on me,” said Heinz. “They made it sound like I wouldn’t have any money to bet. They said the farm economy is so poor that when a farmer moves into town it’s usually to live in low-class housing. So of course I told them all about the house. Like an ass. ‘We finished the attic.’ ‘We put in a breakfast nook.’ The next thing I knew we were betting three thousand dollars. But I’m going to ask you not to tell Ranae. I believe it’s best she doesn’t know. If she found out, I think she would take my gun and kill me.”

“You have it coming,” said Mary.

“She really has gotten attached to that gun,” said Heinz. “And she used to hate it. Couldn’t stand to see it. Didn’t even want it in the garage. Then the other day I noticed it was missing from the cupboard by the Drano there, where I keep it. Next thing I know, here comes Ranae walking up the street with the gun in her hand. Well, it turns out she’s been taking it down to the sand pits every afternoon. So I ask her, you know, why the sudden urge to be a sharpshooter. And she says—get this—she says, ‘Heinzie, I’m thinking about doing away with you.’ How’s a fellow supposed to respond to something like that?”

“She walks to the pits every day?” said Mary. “I should start walking. A lot of people walk these days.”

Heinz Miller turned on the ballgame, which was between the Twins and the Tigers. “What do you bet this is fixed,” he muttered, and lit a cigarette. “Doctor said I shouldn’t smoke, so I got some of these low-tar jobbies.”

Louise brought him a cup of punch and took a cigarette. She and Heinz sat on the davenport smoking and watching the ballgame, an ashtray between them. Louise wore a red and white bathrobe, a blue towel around her hair. “Are you coming to my wedding?” she said.

“When is that, honey?” said Heinz.

“Two o’clock,” said Louise.

“That you would have to ask Ranae,” said Heinz.

“You could at least congratulate me,” said Louise.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“How do I pay these men?” said Heinz. “With a check?”

“Hell no, they won’t take a check,” said Mary, who had been listening from the kitchen.

“You wouldn’t think so,” said Louise.

“I can’t watch,” said Heinz. The Tigers had runners on second and third. He turned down the sound and covered his eyes. “What’s happening?”

“The count is three-and-one to Tony Phillips,” said Louise. “And here’s the pitch. Phillips swings. It’s a line drive single to right.”

She went upstairs and dried her hair. Then she sat on the bed, looking at a framed photograph from her first wedding. In the picture she stood alone in a white dress, day lilies in her arms. Her eyes looked hooded and desirous and empty.

She had been stolen not long after this picture was taken. Seven of Tiny’s friends had grabbed her on the church steps after the ceremony. Bride stealing was traditional but rather pointless in the modern era. They put her in a car and drove fast to Overlook Park in Chesley, where everyone settled on a ledge above the river. She still had the lilies in her lap.

Marijuana and a gourdlike bottle of Spañada were handed around. Dusty light seemed to follow the path of the river, and Louise got loaded on two drags of Hawaiian marijuana. She wondered what had happened to the mild grass of high school—gone forever. Then it dawned on her that these men could throw her off the ledge and into the river. This seemed suddenly very likely, and she had the impression that the notion was blooming in all of them. She wondered if by spreading her arms she could fashion wings from the extra fabric in her wedding dress. Maybe it was supposed to have been a kite in the first place. She could glide all the way to St. Louis, or someplace far like that.

Louise got away without much trouble. She retreated from the ledge, carrying the train of her dress, fingertips touching the twigs and leaves that had hooked in there already. She climbed into a car. The doors and trunk were open and the radio was well into that very long Southern song about the bird who would not change. She started the engine and drove away. A cooler bounced from the trunk at the speed bump in the park. In the rear-view mirror she could see bottles and ice tumbling along the pavement.

Now she took the old wedding picture into the closet, where Mary kept a cardboard barrel of coats. When you were in Mary’s house you were never far from a store of old coats. Maybe she knew something no one else did about climate patterns. Louise buried the picture in the coats.

She brushed out her hair and put on her dress. It was yellow with white flowers and a low back. She tied a rose-colored ribbon in her hair, spread her arms, and turned toward the mirror. Her hair was long and brown, and the ribbon made it look coppery.

Henry Hamilton gave Louise away. They walked together down the aisle of the church. He had a bad hip and she had small shoes, so they moved at a slow and stately pace. Henry wore a handsome, deep blue wool suit. It is an unnoted fact of Midwestern life that the old farmer rummaging through pocket T-shirts at Ben Franklin might have a wardrobe like Cary Grant’s at home in the attic. The suit smelled like a trunk with faded steamship stickers.

“You look beautiful,” said Henry.

“No, you do,” said Louise.

The church was plain, but light streamed through the stained glass. Cheryl had done a good job on the flowers, and Louise felt as if she were approaching the edge of a jungle. Pastor Matthews was flanked by the leaves of large plants. Dan and his best man, Deputy Ed Aiken, edged toward the altar as if making their way along a narrow ledge. Dan’s tie was crooked and he had a kind of careless happiness on his face. This is the way of men.

“Dearly beloved,” said Pastor Matthews. “We are here to unite Louise Montrose Darling and Daniel John Norman in the blessings of matrimony. First I have a few announcements I did not get to last Sunday. Shirley Baker is still in the hospital, as are Andy Reichardt and Bill Wheeler. Bill continues to be troubled by that nasty cough but wanted to thank you for your prayers. Marvin and Candace Ross have a new baby, Bethany; mother and daughter are doing fine. And a note comes from Delia Kessler thanking everyone for the kindness extended to her following the death of her grandfather Mort …”

The announcements went on for a while longer, but eventually Louise and Dan got to speak their vows. The pastor raised his hands and Louise felt his palm brush her hair. “With this ring,” said Dan, “I thee wed, and pledge my abiding love.” They kissed. Louise closed her eyes. She could not define what she was feeling but knew no other way to express it than to say that she loved him. So that’s what she said. It occurred to her that you only get glimpses of love, your whole life, just bits and pieces. They kissed again, deeply, unrehearsed. Farina sang a hymn—“O Love That Will Not Let Me Go.”

Afterward, everyone went outside. Cheryl and Laszlo walked beneath the poplar trees while poor Jean waited, counting the fingers of her white gloves. Across the lawn, Louise and Dan stood on the sidewalk, receiving the wishes of the people. It was cool in the shade, and wind moved the branches of trees.

Heinz Miller had been forced to go home when Mary and Louise left for the church, and by then his cable service had been restored. He asked Ranae to take a seat in the living room and told her about the bet he had made. They watched the Twins complete a dull and losing effort, and Ranae wept softly. In her mind’s eye she saw the departure of all that three thousand dollars could buy for their grandchildren. Toys, games, and bicycles went spinning over the horizon. It’s true that the Millers would not have spent the three thousand dollars on their grandchildren, but it gave Ranae a way to measure the loss. The wedding started in the sixth or seventh inning, and Heinz and Ranae did not go. When the game ended, Heinz turned off the television, and they sat in dim light for almost an hour and a half. Three or four times Heinz asked Ranae what she was thinking. Finally she threw a book that hit him on the arm. Then she got up and said, “If you think I’m going to miss the wedding of my friend’s daughter, and now the reception, because of you, well, how wrong you are.”

They dressed silently and walked over to Mary’s house. Heinz was mournful. Ranae was furious at Heinz. They found Louise soaking her feet in a plastic tub at the base of the stairs. She looked wonderful in her yellow dress and bare feet. They hugged her, and Heinz gave her a card with five dollars in it to start them on their way. Mary came over, said how proud she was of her daughter, cried, coughed, blew her nose, and sat down. “By the way, Ranae, I hear from Heinz that you’re walking every day to the sand pits,” she said. “I would love to go with you.”

“I don’t think I shall be walking anymore,” said Ranae.

“Oh, Ranae,” said Heinz. “You’ll be walking, for God’s sakes. Aren’t you being kind of melodramatic.”

“Shut up, Heinz,” said Ranae.

Sensing the poorness of their own behavior, Heinz and Ranae left the reception after fifteen minutes. They walked across Mary’s grass, through the hedge, and into their yard. The red Impala of the gamblers was in the driveway, and the gamblers themselves were looking in the windows of the house.

Heinz put his hands in his jacket pockets. “Say, get away from there,” he said, in a formal voice.

“This is nice,” called the gambler named Richie.

“Are you aware those milk pails by the piano are antiques?” said Larry Longhair.

“That’s none of your concern,” said Heinz. “Ranae, honey, go inside the house.”

Ranae did so. She got the gun from the cupboard by the sink and loaded it. Her hands were shaking. The gamblers were walking Heinz to the garage. Ranae came down the sidewalk. She raised the gun and fired twice into the sky. She shot out a garage window. The gamblers ran to their car and peeled out of the driveway. Heinz went to Ranae and embraced her. Then something odd happened. One of the bullets that she had shot into the air came down on the sidewalk. Ranae and Heinz looked at each other and hurried into the house.

Louise and Dan went to Solitude Island, in Lake Michigan, for their honeymoon. Although it was May, it snowed almost every day. They stayed in a hotel with gas lighting, narrow rooms, no electricity. Dining was communal in the morning and at supper, and as far as Louise could tell, the only thing people ever talked about was who disliked meat the most. One man who admitted feeding bacon to his dog was asked to leave the table. Louise and Dan had not thought to bring boots and scarves. They kept to themselves and spent a lot of time in bed, with the snow falling on the old hotel. But on the sixth day the weather cleared and the sun came out. They walked through the woods to a cliff by the big lake.

“I didn’t know there were places like this,” said Louise.

The wind blew in their faces and hair, and that night Dan came down with an earache. The next day his temperature was a hundred and one, and they went to see an island doctor, who told him to put mustard in his ear. Louise and Dan took a ferry to the mainland, picked up some antibiotics in Escanaba, and drove home without stopping. It was eleven-fifteen on a blue and brilliant morning when they got back to Grafton. The gamblers had left town, and soybeans were growing in curving rows where Dan’s trailer used to be