together in New York.”
“But I send your mail to the same address,” Solome said. “I didn’t know you’d moved.”
“I just moved down the hall. My old roommate saves my mail.”
Solome had lunch at the University Club with Gretchen and Dennis. They gave instructions on the arrangement of the ballroom. Solome continued to talk with the manager while Gretchen and Dennis continued their errands.
In the afternoon, Gretchen and Dennis registered at various stores. They came home that evening for supper, tired and cranky.
Gretchen came to St. Paul over her spring break later in March. Dennis stayed in New York.
On Monday, Solome and Gretchen looked for Gretchen’s dress. Gretchen wasn’t happy with any of them. She would keep looking, even though they were running out of time.
On Wednesday, when Solome worked at the Historical Society, Soos and the baby accompanied Gretchen to look for bridesmaid dresses at Daynard’s. But Soos soon ran out of patience with the baby, and Gretchen continued by herself.
“You could do something different,” Solome told her that evening after dinner. “Look for dresses the girls can wear again.”
While Gretchen was on the phone to her bridesmaids and Dennis, Solome sat in the family room looking through the modern art book she kept for perspective.
She studied the work of Salvador Dali. His markings were like so many boats on the water. Where was a word for the sea? Maybe Salvadore knew a structured life cut into. Maybe he knew an erasure of form and structure.
What if the sun moved backward and gave her life back to her? What if Gretchen had stayed at school over spring break and Solome had her days to herself? What if Solome told Gretchen about Stephen? She had said she was worried about Stephen, but she hadn’t told Gretchen why. When would they tell the children? Weren’t they a family that shared things? No, Solome was there to help her daughter. She would endure the disruption of Gretchen’s rudeness when she was stressed, and not burden her further. At least, Stephen was himself. There were times she thought his forgetfulness would go away.
Gretchen had decided on a black and white wedding. Her bridesmaids would wear tailored, black dresses. The four girls liked Gretchen’s idea. That would make it simple and practical.
“Is this a funeral or a wedding?” Stephen asked.
Stephen, who was slipping, sometimes could get to the point. But often, it seemed his judgment was impaired. He said what he thought without weighing its effect.
They took Gretchen to the airport on Sunday. She felt everything was up in the air. Out of her control.
“Sometimes things are that way,” Solome said. “It will turn out all right,” she assured her. “You can look in New York for a dress. I’ll fly there if you want.”
Stephen Savard
I lived in a world of shifting objects. What was on my desk was not there any longer. Things disappeared. Things I didn’t know appeared. What was the use of this? What that? It jumbled until I threw my briefcase in fury. That would take care of it.
Plans for the wedding was all I heard. In the middle of it all, the president of Cobson invited Solome and me to dinner.
“You’re not the same, Stephen,” he said. “Do you need a sabbatical?”
“No no.”
Solome sat politely frozen at her place. She was up against the wedding— now this— the accusations that I was not the same.
There was a time I lectured without notes. There was a time the students didn’t mind staying beyond the hour. When I talked, fact moved to fact, departed into anecdote, came back to the point, moved in another direction again. The students listened, took notes, sometimes forgot to take notes because they were intent on listening. Sometimes my lectures had been electrifying. That was what one student course-evaluation said.
As chair, I held the large history department together despite backbitings and feudings. No, by Christ. It was not going to be that way. I held meetings in which we talked our way through the arguments and grievances until they reached departmental understandings. We came through that disruptive period as a solid department that remained solid. As division dean, I held other departments together through discussions and decisions regarding curriculum and allocation. As provost, I maneuvered the college through the challenges it faced, with the president, of course. I was instrumental in hiring the new treasurer who would guide Cobson through a necessary tightening of the belt.
“I had a dream of you, dad,” Soos called one morning. “You had wings. They were small, but they were on your back.”
“Maybe I’ll fly through the wall ahead,” I said. I don’t think Soos heard me because I heard Susan crying in the background and a hurried, “I have to go, dad.”
I also gave guest lectures, but found I couldn’t talk as long as I had, and then I couldn’t talk without notes.
Now the wedding was taking everything. The reception would be $20,000 minimum with all the guests. I heard Solome on the phone. What menu? What wines? What band? Where would cake sit? Stephen what do you think?
Solome Savard
Solome flew to New York to look at the dress Gretchen found. Stephen was supposed to take her to the airport, but at the last minute, had a meeting he couldn’t get out of. There was a time when he could leave Cobson College, get back the minute the meetings started and know exactly where he was. Solome could have taken a cab, but she told Stephen she would call Jane instead.
“Do we ever realize what we’re getting into when we have children?” Jane asked when they slowed in airport traffic.
Solome had hoped to visit the Metropolitan Museum and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but didn’t have time. Gretchen also was in the middle of exams and did not want Solome to do anything but help her with the wedding.
What would Solome wear? She had a dress from Soos’ wedding, but it was frothy. Why did they make dresses for the mother of the bride like that? A battle ship? Because she felt like she’d been in a siege by the time the wedding arrived.
When Solome returned to St. Paul, she found a straight silk dress with sleeves at Daynard’s. Was it too simple? No, it was better than looking like the wedding cake. She wanted to take Soos to look at it. She delayed the purchase, and it was gone when she returned with Soos and the baby.
The next week, Solome found another dress at Daynard’s. It wasn’t black, but a dark blue, almost purple. Periwinkle, the clerk said. What a name. It was a storm front on the horizon after an overly warm afternoon.
Solome wanted petunias that spring, but she didn’t have time to hoe and weed. She told the yard man to plant them along the walk in front of the house. She only hoped he would get it done before the wedding. He usually told her when he would work, and what he would do. He also shoveled their snow in winter, letting it accumulate sometimes before he came with his snow-blower.
Late in April, when the yard man was working, Solome went to the post office and stood in line to purchase stamps, both for the invitations and the inner envelope with the R.S.V.P. card. Then she addressed the invitations to all the guests they decided on after long discussions. Stephen stamped the envelopes. They drove to the post office and put them in the mail with a feeling of accomplishment.
Stephen Savard
I had another appointment with the doctor. Again, we returned home silently in the car.
We had been safe all our lives. Or was safe just a condition that seemed like it was safe, yet was not, for any of us? The doctor’s appointment had steered me into clarity. Safe was a mirage. It was tenuous. It was there by a thread. The physical world was not stable. Was not sure. Could not be counted upon. It only seemed that way.
Solome and I had spent our lives together. We had been