Quinta Seton sat at the writing desk where Alan's grandmother Amanda once had written her thank-you notes for hundreds of wedding gifts.
Quinta was doing the same. "Was it the O'Connors who gave us the Cuisinart?" she asked her husband. "I've lost the tag."
"You're asking me?" Freshly showered, Alan was pulling his khakis on in a hurry, late again for work. Newlywed husbands are like that, always finding something more fun to do.
"It has to be the Cuisinart. It's either that or the tripod, which is the only other gift without a tag. Why would they give us a tripod?"
"Who are the O'Connors?"
"My aunt's cousin's … husband, and his wife, I think. Or my uncle's. I forget. Why would anyone give us a tripod?"
"How many cousins do you have, anyway?" Alan asked, yanking a polo shirt from its hanger. "I've never been so blessed confused in all my life as I was at that reception."
"Not that many, really. I would guess nowhere near a hundred. And they weren't all there, you know. It just felt like it." Quinta abandoned the thank-you project and went up to Alan, encircling him from behind as he ran a brush over his still-wet hair. Leaning her cheek against his back, she smiled in recollection and said, "That was the best wedding. I had such a good time. I loved that we were able to hold the reception at Ocean Court where we first danced together."
"And don't forget kissed."
"And fell in love.
"Do you think that's when we did?"
"Oh, yeah. No doubt about it." She hugged him tight. "I love you."
Alan tossed the brush on his bureau and turned inside the circle of her arms. "I love you, too, Win—an absurd amount."
She loved that he had come up with his own pet name for her, loved the sound of it on his lips. They kissed, not for the first time in the last hour, and she said, "Will we always be this happy?"
"I don't see why not."
"My parents were," she said, as if that had set a precedent.
"Mine are, too, in their way. But, oh, if you'd seen my grandparents. They wrote the book on happy."
"I wish I'd known them," Quinta said. She glanced at the framed pastels that hung in a cluster on one wall of the room, each signed flamboyantly with the single name Amanda. She felt a pang for the happy couple, killed in a small-plane crash en route to Martha's Vineyard. "What a waste …."
"Don't go there," he warned softly. "Nothing to be gained by that."
Quinta had heard it from Alan before. She knew he was thinking of the repeated times she mourned her father's impairment. He was right; there was nothing to be gained. But her thoughts were of her father now, and she said, "I wonder if we'll ever get him to move closer to us and the shipyard. He would never live with us, I get that all too well. But at least where I can keep an eye on him!"
"Stop," Alan said, touching his finger to her lips in gentle reproach. "For now, your dad is good. His house is as wheelchair-friendly as a house can be, and it has happy memories for him. You have a sister in Middletown, ten minutes away, for emergencies. You have another sister, currently separated, who may well move into your old place upstairs; who knows where that will go? When and if life does get to be too much for Neil, he can decide on his own to make the move here. But don't wish that on him too quickly, Win; let him enjoy his independence. You know how much it means to him."
"Everything," she said with a sigh. "He's so fierce about it. And yet before the accident he could be positively clingy."
"Traumas change people, not always for the worse."
"All right. I'll stop," she conceded. Their waking-up time had been spent in entirely blissful lovemaking, and Quinta had no desire to send her husband off to work on a down note.
"Oh, wait," she said, suddenly remembering. "A package came yesterday while I was out, and they put it in the mud shed. The box was too big to get my arms around, so I left it where it was. Can you bring it in for me before you take off?"
"Sure. It must have had some value, or they would have left it out in front. A late wedding gift?"
"Not another set of pots and pans, I hope. People keep mistaking me for someone who cooks!" She laughed at the notion and went into the kitchen to meet her husband and the mystery package.
It was heavy. Alan landed it with an awkward thud on the antique marble-topped island, and Quinta began attacking the package with a serrated knife.
"I'm off," said Alan, kissing her cheek. "We have a very important boat to launch after a major refitting, and the customer wants to have me around."
"Oh, let someone else hold his hand," she said, sawing away at the outer cardboard boxing. "Aren't you curious?"
Alan narrowed his eyes at his new wife. "You're an evil little temptress."
"I know. Grab another knife."
He did, and the two worked through the outer, then the inner, thick cardboard enclosures, and then the obligatory Styrofoam surround, and then bubble-wrap after that, and excelsior packing after that. After all the wrappings had been stripped away, scattered across the kitchen floor, they were left with an exquisite bronze sculpture of a winged horse about to take flight, done in realistic detail, or at least as realistic as a winged horse could expect to be.
Quinta gasped and said, "Your grandmother's! It must be one of her works, and someone has—"
"No way," said Alan, walking around the piece. "This is nothing like her work. This artist definitely understood horses. Maybe it's signed." He lifted the sculpture, turning it over carefully and holding it that way with an effort. "A – I – C? – L? – E - N. Huh. Aiclen."
Peering over his shoulder, Quinta said, "Aiden. I think it's Aiden."
"Never heard of either one of 'em. No card?"
After a quick search, they discovered a small envelope with a note inside among the wrappings on the floor.
It was Quinta who got to it first. She
slipped out the card and read:
Dear Alan and Quinta,
I looked up an old acquaintance recently, and saw this in his gallery. Destiny seems to be playing a hand here. I hope you're as taken with this as I was. Congratulations, and may you have a long and happy marriage.
All the best,
Mavis
"Oh my God," Quinta said, flabbergasted. She glanced at her husband, who seemed as stunned as she was. "This is a sculpture of—"
"Pegasus," said Alan. "Indeed it is."
"Is this a joke? After all she did? Is this some kind of taunt? Like Cindy and her pizzas? No, it can't be that. This is a beautiful, exquisite piece! It's probably worth as much as the actual boat Pegasus. I don't understand this," she said, waving the note at Alan. "I do not understand."
Alan took the notecard from her and read it through, then went on staring at it, lost in thought. At last he said, "It's an act of contrition, of atonement … and I think, of joy."
"Joy? Where do you see joy in that note?" She took it back and tried to fathom, in Mavis's elegant hand, what looked happy in it. The odd thing was that on a second, slower, less reflexive and more reflective reading, Quinta did see a certain genuineness there. Unhappy people are rarely capable of acts and thoughts of good will. For whatever reason, this woman was not unhappy.
"Huh." Quinta took the note back to Amanda's desk and laid it next to the blank sheet in which she intended to thank the O'Connors, or not, for the Cuisinart, or not. The note to Mavis would apparently be more straightforward by far. She turned to her husband, who had followed her into the bedroom with high hopes, and said, "God works in mysterious ways."
"Yep," he agreed. "Now where to put it? I was thinking, in the nook across from The Thing in the hall."
"Alan, perfect!"
Generations of family and friends had puzzled over the abstract sculpture that had dominated the entry hall; it was one of Amanda's very first works in bronze and one that her father had referred to simply as "The Thing," a name that had stuck. The winged horse would be a much more accessible piece of art—but no less intriguing, for all that.
Because God apparently did work in mysterious ways.