The night before the wedding, Cable was up very late, driving around by himself in the dark, in a light rain. He was a long time getting to sleep, and when he awoke, it was already ten AM. The wedding was to be at noon. He sat on the edge of the bed staring out at a gray sky, a gray day. The rain was still falling. It was no day to get married. It was no day to get out of bed. He rolled back under the covers and stared at the rain, feeling an acute depression. He watched the clock silently, thinking about nothing in particular. Ten-five. Ten-ten. There was a crack of thunder; the rain began to fall heavily and steadily. Then the door of Cable’s room opened, and a thin young man, very wet and very cold, came dripping into the room. “You sure picked a fine day for it,” the young man said. He took off his raincoat and looked at his wet suit, his wet collar and tie, and cursed for a moment absently. Then he began to notice Cable. “Man,” he said, “you don’t look ready.” He grinned evilly. “You don’t look ready at all.” He chuckled and sat wetly on the bed.
Cable made no effort to move.
“Know just how you feel. But it doesn’t hurt much. Think of tonight.” The young man laughed aloud. “Let’s see what they say about this damn weather.” He reached across Cable’s bed and turned on the radio. “I heard them say this morning it was going to clear. Will you look at that?” He gazed bleakly at the window, heavily glazed by pouring rain.
Cable thought: All right. He swung himself around and put his feet on the floor. It was going to be a long day. Cable thought of her. In her room now, dressing. Long white gown. Surrounded by girls. Laughing.
“You ought to get something to eat,” the young man said to Cable then. “Come on now, and I’ll buy you an egg. But, man—I tell you you don’t look ready.”
“I’m not,” Cable said.
The young man chuckled. “Who is?”
Cable went into the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror and listened to the rain against the window. So here it was. Now was the day. Tonight he would be with her, and all the nights to come. Last time to wake up alone. So what? He did not feel anything in particular, no joy, no sorrow, just this vague sort of gloomy depression. You should rejoice, he told himself, or at least you ought to be nervous—nervousness is the classic symptom. But all he felt was this guarded uneasiness, this strange kind of brooding feeling he always had when something was going on in him that he did not understand.
Cable was an instinctive man; he knew things were happening inside him, and he did not know what they were. He would go through with the wedding. There was no doubt of that. He did not even consider walking away. No, the wedding was inevitable. He did not want to go, but it was inevitable, and he felt something like a man falling slowly into a warm pool with his clothes on. He could not stop the falling, but there wasn’t really much to worry about—which was an odd sensation to have on your wedding day. He shaved, and cut himself.
The thin young man, whose name was Duncan, watched him dress and made lewd remarks. Duncan was twenty-five and had already been divorced. He had a tendency to be a bit crude—she thought he was crude—but he was honest and reliable. Duncan was to be best man. “No kidding, man, you look kind of strange,” Duncan said.
Cable sat silently on the bed.
“She’s a real good kid.”
“Sure she is,” Cable said.
“A little young, but what the hell. Unspoiled. You know?”
“Funny thing,” Cable said. “It’s always been kind of quiet.”
“Quiet?”
“I mean, well, it’s been almost dull. Like right now. I ought to be excited. Everybody gets nervous. Or so they tell me. You were nervous.”
“That I was.” Duncan grinned. “Kept a bottle on the hip, or so help me, I’d never have made it.”
“But I don’t feel that,” Cable said. “I just feel sort of—dull.”
“It hits ’em all in different ways,” Duncan said.
“There’s never been anything wild or exciting about it. All last night—it suddenly hit me. The whole thing is strange.”
Duncan waited, watching him.
“Don’t know why I’m not nervous,” Cable said.
“Want to call it off?”
“No.”
“Sure?”
“Can’t call it off,” Cable said. “I couldn’t do that to her.”
“Well,” Duncan said, and waited.
“Dunk? Tell me something. You knew you weren’t going to make it, with Ginny, right from the beginning, didn’t you?”
“Hell, no.”
“On the day you were married, you told me yourself it wouldn’t last.”
“I said that?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t remember that. Must have been drunker than I thought. Well. Bad joke.” He grimaced.
Cable stood up abruptly. “Well, let’s go.”
“You’ll be all right,” Duncan said, watching him.
“Sure,” Cable said.
They went out into the rain and found a place, where Cable ate two eggs in silence. It was Duncan who was nervous and couldn’t touch his food. He kept glancing at his watch and chattering away about strange events from his own wedding, wherein most of his friends had got drunk and in so doing had scandalized the family of the bride—which later turned out to be one part, at least, of Duncan’s undoing.
Cable ate slowly, thinking, unable to overcome the feeling of depression. The odd thing was that he was perfectly ready to get married—he had clearly made up his mind to that—but at the same time he did not understand why.
There hadn’t been anything wildly romantic about his time with Beth, not even at the beginning. She was an extraordinarily attractive girl, who had come along one day and was somehow unlike other girls—not that much prettier, not smarter, but somehow warmer and more pleasant to be with. She was different. She was comfortable. He had fallen in by her side in a natural, normal way, and then slowly, inevitably they had moved toward marriage in the same warm, comfortable way they did everything, and he felt now that although it was right and probably even necessary, he had never really had to make a choice, that he had missed something terribly important.
He wanted to be violently in love. He wanted to feel once that raw hunger they all talked about, those foolish Hollywood-ish bells that rang and whistles that roared and steam that came out of people’s ears when they kissed. He had never felt anything like that with any girl.
So what it came down to—he was staring out the window at the falling rain and he had a mouthful of egg when he thought it—was that he wasn’t in love with the girl at all. He liked her enormously, but he wasn’t in love with her. Unless this comfortable feeling was love, which seemed highly unlikely, because most people insisted love was painful.
The really odd thing was that it didn’t matter. He would go ahead and marry her and be happy. If she went away for a few days or he didn’t see her for a week or so, it would not destroy him, and he would never lie awake at night worrying about her. And yet he wanted to. He thought that was what he was supposed to do. And so he resolved at that moment, cynically, that he would have one hell of a fling one day, because a man ought to have one fiery affair before he died. He could always do what Dunk had done and divorce her if necessary. Which was a scandalous but comforting thought, and a hell of a thing to be thinking the day of your marriage.
The best thing to do now was to stop thinking and start talking. He finished the eggs and was ready.
They arrived at the church only about twenty minutes early, and the rain had begun to let up.
From that time on, Cable moved in a gray, cool, wistful fog of his own. Everyone around him was very nervous and anxious, and the minister’s wife—a thin woman in a purple dress, wearing a long, thin stream of pearls—was frantically glad that he had “finally” arrived. Once he was in the church, they moved around in strange, dark rooms, and eventually he found himself at the back door, gazing out across a graveyard. The rain stopped as he watched. He lighted a cigarette and tried to read the names and inscriptions on the gravestones—a practice that had always fascinated him—and then he could hear music begin in the church. He turned, beginning at last to feel small spasms of fright, and Duncan was there, obviously shaken, telling him not to worry, offering him another cigarette.
“Be a few minutes yet,” Duncan said. “That’s just the introduction. Give the folks time to sit down. You got a good house. Too bad you can’t charge.”
“Have you seen the presents?” Cable said.
“Oh. I forgot about that.”
“We got seven coffeepots,” Cable said. “Six clocks.”
“That a fact?”
“And a sterling-silver corkscrew,” Cable added.
“No home should be without one.” Duncan sneaked a spylike glance around him, carefully extracted a silver flask from within his white jacket. “One for the road?”
Cable shook his head. “Don’t need one.”
“Well, I do.” Duncan drank craftily, one eye cocked for the minister’s wife. “Cheers,” he said, grimacing happily. He looked at Cable for a moment, and then he said, too calmly, a foolish, sad look on his face, “Ought to take one, lad. Just for old times.”
Cable nodded. He took the flask and drank. A toast to times past. To all the empty times. She would be there, from now on, warm in the night. And why was that sad?
“Well, you know I wish you all the luck,” Duncan said, embarrassed.
Cable shook his head. Duncan started to say something else, something awkward and sincere, but at that moment the minister’s wife appeared round a wallpapered corner, gesturing spastically with a gloved hand. Cable took a deep breath and went in to the wedding.
He stepped out before the assembled guests. They were mostly all her friends. There were an astonishing number of old ladies and very many brightly colored hats. He saw one woman weeping. He had not quite believed anybody would really weep. He felt foolish, conspicuous. He wished all this was over. He stood by a wooden railing and looked down at his feet while organ music vibrated that familiar processional, and he had that same high, foolish feeling you get in the Army, on parade, when you are supposed to be solemn and formal and definitely at attention and you feel like relaxing and scratching and saying a dirty word cheerfully, but of course you never do. Now he didn’t feel nervous, he just felt silly, and that same odd depression hung in him like a small cloud.
Now she was coming down the aisle. He saw her on her father’s arm. People were turning to watch her, and he felt a touch of pride. She was very beautiful. He could not see her face because of the veil. He began to feel rather calm. She was closer. She looked up and saw him, and there was a slight smile. She looked very serious and very pretty, but a little thin. He knew he wasn’t supposed to stare at her, but he couldn’t help it. He felt an odd curiosity about everything.
The minister began the service, and he noticed that the man’s voice was trembling. The minister was nervous. He was a bald man with jowls that wobbled as he talked. Cable looked at him with interest, and then Beth was standing by his side, and he wanted to look down at her and wink, but he knew he was supposed to look straight ahead.
It went very quickly. The minister asked questions with a nasal flutter, and Cable did everything right, remembering the rehearsal. He put the ring on her finger, and then she was facing him, and he lifted the veil to kiss her, but her face looked odd. She was white, and she seemed tired. He did not kiss her very much in front of all those people.
Then she took his arm, and he walked her down the aisle and out the front of the church to the car. She had an uncle waiting for them, and there were already people out there to throw the traditional rice, which struck him at that moment as just about the most ridiculous thing he had ever seen anywhere, and he felt himself grinning. He helped Beth tuck yards and yards of white lace into the car, and then they drove off.
He looked down at her. He could not talk to her there, with her uncle in the car, but he wanted to talk to her. He was married. He felt nothing different. Words could not make you married. The words meant nothing. “Well,” he said conversationally, because he did not feel like thinking, “well, I guess it went all right.”
“Yes,” she said. She patted his arm.
“Wife,” he said, experimenting.
“Yes,” she said. She smiled.
“Don’t feel a thing,” he said.
“You were very good. So calm and dignified. I was very proud of you,” she said.
“Nothing to it,” Cable said truthfully.
“It was over so soon,” she said.
“Yep.”
“All those plans.”
Her uncle, in the front seat, turned to chatter about one of her aunts. They drove on to Colonial Manor, where the reception was being held, and very soon things were busy. Cable stood for pictures and then stood with Beth for pictures cutting the cake, and then they actually did cut the cake, and he sampled a piece, and it was awful. Then he was very social: He was introduced to an endless line of relatives, ancient relatives—there did not seem to be anyone in her family under seventy. He had no family of his own, and his friends were all on their best behavior, and it was all stiff and flowery and not at all comfortable. Every now and then, Dunk would filter by with the silver flask, and Cable would nip round the corner for a drink, until gradually he achieved a pleasant glow. The rain had stopped, and there was sunlight on the glistening lawn. He wandered around greeting everyone cheerily.
Then, out on the porch, he was cornered finally by her father.
Her father was a stubborn, honest, efficient man with no sense of humor. He had never spoken much in Cable’s presence, but had managed nevertheless to convey a mute but fatalistic disapproval of him since their first meeting. Cable felt good cheer deep in his own soul, along with the unnatural gloom of the morning—which remained in there tucked alongside the whiskey warmth—and he felt also a sense of victory. He had won. The girl was his.
The man took Cable by the arm and led him to the far end of the porch, where they could be alone. The man took his hand and held it, and he kept looking back and forth from Cable’s hands to his face, but never quite into his eyes. “She’s your responsibility now,” the man said.
Cable nodded dumbly.
“You take care of her, now,” the man insisted gravely. “You be good to her.”
“Yep,” Cable said.
“I’ll stand behind you in anything you want to do,” the man said.
“Thank you,” Cable said. He could see that the man was deeply moved.
The man waited. He seemed to want reassurance. Cable felt touched, embarrassed, could say nothing. The man pumped his hand formally and moved away. Cable looked after him and thought to himself: You’re supposed to call him “Dad.” He had not called anybody that for a long while, and he did not think it would be possible for him to do so. It would sound all wrong. He began to feel again that grave melancholy.
From then on, it was no longer pleasant, and Cable wanted to get out of there. After a long, glassy time, Duncan found him and ushered him upstairs, to change. Then he waited outside a door, and Beth came out, dressed now in something soft and blue. He went with her down the back stairs to the car, and Duncan was by his side, giving him advice and money, and her mother was there—God—crying.
Cable was delighted to get away. They drove slowly along the driveway around the huge house, and people were waving, and Beth put the window up against the falling rice.
They moved out into open country, and he opened up the car, to make sure nobody was following or could catch them. He slowed gradually and then stopped in a quiet place to take the signs off the car and empty the pebbles out of the hubcaps. They had no plans at all except to drive up the Hudson River valley toward Canada, so there was no place anyone could have planned to be waiting for them.
It was September and cool and still wet after the rain, and the day was clear and much colder. They drove on in silence, moving north. They were both very tired, and it was good to be alone and not to have to say anything. He looked at her from time to time, and she smiled uncertainly, watching him. She talked a little about relatives, explaining who some were, but she saw that he was not interested, and she stopped. They drove along a bluff overlooking the river, and it was very beautiful.
They drove aimlessly. He felt alone and still. He saw that she was still pale. She had worked hard, and now it was over. Now the silence, and sunset on the walls of the canyon. The day was ending. Her wedding was done. As he watched her face, he knew what she was thinking: She was watching it all and storing it, wrapping it slowly in an imperishable pink package, which she would take out in her mind, from time to time, to live again. He felt an obligation to make it all good for her.
At sundown, they began looking for a place, but there was nothing quite right. He wanted to find just the right place and therefore waited too long, until it was dark and there seemed to be no place at all. They drove down a long stretch of empty road, and then there was a light across a bridge, which in the darkness seemed a blessing, and so they stopped and registered, not without embarrassment.
The room was small and dark, but pleasant. There were pictures of horses and trees on the walls. She sat for a long moment on the bed. He held her and kissed her. The first time since the wedding. Now he meant it. They rested silently together. He began to feel increasingly sad. He didn’t know what the hell was the matter with him.
She said, “You look very tired. It must have been hard on you.” She touched his hair. She knew him too damned well. The look on her face was gentle.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Let’s just rest,” she said.
They lay together on the bed. He felt nothing sexual. He lay in an appalling silence. He thought: What a rare thing that would be, not even to make love on your wedding night. She said nothing.
He got up and went to the window. There was a small balcony, and he walked out on it and sat for a while watching the stars. But then it was too cold, and he went restlessly back into the room.
She was not there. She was in the bathroom. He wished all this were over; he did not understand his own mind. He lay back on the bed, smoking, and the door opened facing him, and she came out into the soft light. She was wearing a long blue nightgown that was very beautiful. She sat breathlessly on the foot of the bed.
He watched her and felt a thick feeling in his chest, as if he were about to suffocate.
“Do you like it?” she asked.
He nodded.
“I picked it out myself. You should have seen my mother’s face.” She giggled.
“It’s very nice,” he said formally.
“Want me to get your pajamas? They’re in the suitcase.” She bent over and rummaged.
He watched her. He did not want to move. He was beginning to understand.
She handed him his pajamas and then went forward and kissed him. Then she backed off and looked at him. “Honey?” she said.
“Sometimes I wonder why I ever married you,” he said.
She smiled, but she was looking at him. She reached past him to turn out the light, but he caught her arm, bewildered, and pulled her to him. The pain was real. The pain was her. He had never loved anything, and she had violated that silence; she had come in to that one last silent place, and now she was part of him. The minister had not done that—he had done it himself.
What had happened was permanent and irrevocable, and she had the power now to hurt him, and he had done it himself.
And what he feared was the thing that had happened inside him, which he alone knew could never be undone, and that was sweet and terrible at the same time. He tried to explain it, but there were no words. Thirty years from now, she would know.
First published in McCall’s, March 1968