Mary and O'Neil by Justin Cronin
“So, are you nervous?” she asks, pouring Mary’s tea. She has a pleasant face, with the soft, butterscotchy tan of someone who spends a great deal of time outdoors in all weather. Her blond hair is tied in a thick Teutonic braid that falls the length of her back, the end just touching the top of her jeans. “You don’t look nervous.” She laughs, showing the lines of her eyes. It is a laugh that says that she, too, is married, that it happens to everyone.
“I don’t know,” O’Neil says. “I think maybe I’m just getting used to it.”
“Well, don’t be.” She hands him the tray. On it she has placed, beside the basket of muffins and the mug of tea, a thin glass vase holding a single yellow rose. She wipes her hands on her apron. “Take my word for it. It’s the happiest day of your life. You’ll see.”
“Is it?” O’Neil, holding the tray against his stomach and looking at the rose, feels a tightness in his cheeks and suddenly knows he is about to fall apart. He cannot account for this, because as far as he knows he isn’t nervous, or sad, or even especially happy, though what he feels seems related to happiness. It is as if he is suddenly inside his own emotions, so far inside them that he may have neglected to breathe, and he rests the tray on the counter and inhales deeply through his nose. He notices Alice has left the room. Then she returns, dragging a wooden chair from the pantry.
“Here,” she says, and slides the chair under him. “You rest a minute.”
O’Neil does as she says, and Alice hands him Mary’s tea. He takes a small sip, letting the cup hang under his face to feel the sweet steam on his cheeks. The cup is like a warm, smooth stone in his hand, and he realizes he is shivering.
“The same thing happened to my husband. It’s all right. You can stay in here as long as you need. Your family is probably driving you crazy.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have gone running,” O’Neil says. “I hardly slept at all.”
“You’re just tired.” Alice is crouched on her heels in front of O’Neil, looking into his face. Behind O’Neil the kitchen door swings open and without averting her glance Alice says, “Just a minute in here,” and the door swings closed again. “When’s the ceremony? Noon?” O’Neil nods. “Well, then, in a couple of hours it will all be over, and the two of you will be together. That’s the nicest part, I think.”
“This is the day you always remember,” O’Neil says, inexplicably.
Alice smiles and takes his free hand. Hers, like the cup, is smooth and warm, and covered with flour dust. “That’s right,” she says.
“My parents aren’t here,” O’Neil explains. “They died a long time ago. Maybe that’s what’s bothering me.”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” Alice says. “That’s very hard, at a time like this. You must be missing them.”
“I have my sister, though,” O’Neil says. “She was in the bar last night, with her husband. We’re getting married at her house.”
“Well, that’s something. That’s a lot.”
“And Mary, of course. I have her.”
“So that’s your family,” Alice says. She gives O’Neil’s hand an encouraging shake. “Sounds like a nice one. That’s all a family is, in my experience, is people who look after you.”
For a while they stay like this, their hands knitted together, O’Neil drinking the tea. His shivering has stopped, and what he feels now is a languorous contentment that rises from his feet to his legs and chest and arms, and he knows that he could just as easily go to sleep as do anything at all. He would like to go to sleep with Alice watching him, there in the warm kitchen where she works.
“I truly appreciate this,” O’Neil says. “I’m in your debt.”
“It’s nothing.” Alice shrugs, the long rope of her hair swinging. “De nada.”
O’Neil rises and takes the tray. He has finished the tea, but the muffins are still there in a wicker basket covered with a blue napkin. The clock above the stove says that it is just past eleven, and guests will be arriving at the house now. Probably Mary is already there. He puts his hand over the napkin, feeling the radiant moistness of the muffins rising through the cloth, and then Alice lifts her face to him and kisses his cheek. It is the nicest thing he has ever felt in his life, and he instantly wants to tell Mary all about it.
“For the groom,” she says.
Upstairs, his friends are waiting for him: Stephen, wearing his blue suit, and Connor, dressed improbably in seersucker and a pink bow tie. It is a surprising scene; both men, lying on the twin beds of O’Neil’s room, are fast asleep, their hands folded at their waists like pharaohs. The room is dark behind closed shades.
Stephen’s eyes open when O’Neil sits beside him on the bed. He nods hopefully at the tray on O’Neil’s lap. “Breakfast?”
O’Neil hands him the basket of muffins. “Did Mary leave yet?”
Stephen bites into a muffin and nods. “A few minutes ago. I saw them from the window.” He reaches across the space between the beds and lightly slaps Connor’s shoulder. “All hands on deck. Our boy is here.”
“What time is it?” Connor is instantly awake. He has driven up alone from Boston because his wife, an intern at the same hospital where he is a surgical resident, couldn’t get time off from work. “There you are,” he says to O’Neil. “So?”
“I don’t know,” O’Neil says. “It’s late.”
“That’s the beauty of it.” Connor brushes a hand over his coarse hair and grins. His hangover, O’Neil knows, is probably terrible. “No groom, no wedding.”
O’Neil takes a beer from the cooler and heads to the bathroom to shower. The pressure is wonderfully strong, and he takes his time, letting the hot needles run over him, thinking only of the weather, how he hopes it won’t rain, and of his good, loyal friends in the next room. He has known them since high school, seventeen years; soon he will know them longer than he knew his own parents. When he is done he wraps himself with a rough towel and stands in front of the mirror and drinks the beer, which tastes good to him as it always does after a run. He fills the basin to shave, but when he takes the razor in his hand he sees that he is shaking; not shivering, as before, but his hand won’t be still. He finishes the beer and opens the door. Stephen is standing at the window now, smoking a cigarette, and Connor is sitting in the room’s one upholstered chair. For an instant they seem not to notice him. Then Stephen turns and smiles.
“How’s it going in there, tiger?”
“Not so good.” O’Neil holds out his quavering hand to demonstrate. “You were right. I don’t think I can shave.”
“Ah.” Stephen nods. “Connor? This is your department, am I right?”
Connor moves swiftly to the ice chest and removes another Ballantine, wiping the glass on a towel. He hands it to O’Neil. “As your doctor, I advise you to drink this. Now, then—” Connor pulls the desk chair into the bathroom and O’Neil sits, sipping his second beer, which he knows he shouldn’t have. Connor spreads the cream on O’Neil’s cheeks, then moves behind him and gently takes O’Neil’s chin in his hands. His face close to O’Neil’s, he begins to shave him, his eyes following the path of the razor.
“Are you sure you know how to do this?”
“No.”
O’Neil closes his eyes and lets himself feel the scrape of the blade over his chin, where he usually cuts himself. In his ear, Connor’s breathing is a thin whistle, and smells a little of beer. O’Neil can’t believe how late he is, but there doesn’t seem to be anything he can do to hurry himself up.
“There you go, champ.”
O’Neil looks at his reflection in the mirror, Connor standing beside him with the razor in his hand. He rubs his hands over his cheeks and neck, the firm point of his Adam’s apple.
“Nice,” he says.
“I can do the rest too,” Connor offers, rinsing the blade. “I had to do that in medical school.”
“I’m feeling a little queasy,” O’Neil says. He looks up at his friend, in his hilarious seersucker suit. ??
“Only,” Connor says, “if you promise to hold very, very still.”
Stephen has laid out O’Neil’s clothes on the bed, and while he dresses, Connor and Stephen drink the rest of the beer and talk about Connor’s wedding, which was the summer before, up in Montreal.
“You’re really lucky,” Connor says. He is hunched over in his chair, absently swinging his empty beer between his knees. “A wedding should be small. I look at the pictures now and think, Did I really go to that party? Though you should see them.” He rolls his eyes and clucks his tongue happily. “Like something from a magazine.”
At the mirror O’Neil struggles with his tie. It’s new, with bright swirls of yellow and blue to set off the threads of his suit, and he can’t seem to get the lengths right. He ties it first with a Windsor, then with a double Windsor, and each time the skinny end comes out too long. Then, without thinking, he somehow gets it right; he yanks the ends and a tight dimple appears below the knot. He slides into his jacket, shaking his shoulders to pull loose the shape. He is looking at his reflection, taking it in, when suddenly he remembers: the boutonniere. He was supposed to pick it up that morning at the florist’s across from the hotel. But there is no time now. He takes the rose from Alice’s tray, squeezes off the stem with his fingernail, and pushes it through the buttonhole of his lapel.
O’Neil turns from the mirror to tell his friends he’s ready, and finds them standing at the far window, their broad backs toward him. His eyes follow their gaze; it is Simone, once again crossing the lot to her car. O’Neil’s first thought is that he isn’t so late after all, that not all the guests have left. But then this thought is pushed aside, he sees Simone through his friends’ eyes, and he knows he is looking at a beautiful woman, maybe the most beautiful woman he has ever seen in his life, crossing the lot below them. Her steps are slow, graceful, without calculation; she seems almost to float. O’Neil is filled with a reverent awe, traveling the length of his body like a beam of light.
“Unbelievable,” Stephen says.
“They’re different from us.” Connor, his hands buried in his pockets, shakes his head in amazement. “It’s really very simple. I speak not as a married man but as a scientist.”
The three men watch while she opens the driver’s door, removes her hat, and, balanced on her slender heels, lowers herself sideways onto the driver’s seat, her legs dangling out of the car so that she can smooth the front of her dress. She pulls the door shut behind her, places the hat on the seat beside her, and arches her back to examine herself in the rearview mirror, pushing a hand through her long hair. The engine purrs to life and she backs out of the drive.
Still they do not move. The silence of the room falls over them. It is as if they have seen an apparition, a sign, as if they have dreamed the same dream together. Then his friends see that he is ready, they gather their things, and they take O’Neil to his wedding.
It is twelve-fifteen by the time they arrive at the house, and O’Neil’s sister meets him at the door. It rained a while back, she tells him, after they spoke on the phone; just a shower, but the path is too muddy to go up the hill.
“I know,” O’Neil says. “Where’s Mrs. Cavanaugh? I’ll talk to her.”
O’Neil enters the crowded house to look for the minister and finds her in the den, taking a last look at her notes for the homily. She is wearing a thick wool sweater under her vestment, and O’Neil hugs her, embarrassing both of them, because he has never hugged her before. “I think we’re going to do it under the tent,” he tells her. “If that’s okay. Plan B.”
They agree to start in about ten minutes, and O’Neil excuses himself to find Mary. But out in the living room he realizes it’s hopeless; Mary is upstairs with her friends, and he knows that if she wanted to see him she would be downstairs now. His gaze travels the packed room. Somehow, everyone seems to know that the wedding is moments away, and O’Neil realizes that, just as he had wished, all the last decisions have been made for him, that his late arrival was expected and understood, as much a part of the fabric of the day as food and vows and the problem of the weather. There is nothing more to do now, nothing to arrange. He sees a photographer gliding through the crowd, and notices for the first time that the room is filled with flowers; he hears, drifting from the lawn outside, the sound of a fiddle, playing a waltz that he and Mary chose a month before, though he does not remember choosing it, just as he does not remember hiring the photographer or ordering the flowers; none of these. Stephen hands him a glass of water, and he drinks it down in one gulp, asks for another, and drinks that down too. It is May twenty-ninth, O’Neil thinks. I am thirty years old. The woman I will marry is upstairs. These simple facts seem suddenly to hold his whole life, and he is glad for it, right down to his bones. They have saved him, though he did not know he had to be saved. And something he heard earlier in the day comes back to him: Then, you and she will be together. That’s the nicest part, I think.
His sister is beside him. “See?” she says. “It’s not so hard.”
“So this is what it’s like.”
“That’s right, hon.” Kay smiles at him and takes his arm. “This is what it’s like.”
She leads him outside. The guests have followed them out to the lawn, and O’Neil sees that chairs have been put under the tent with an aisle for them to pass through, and that the sky is low and gray. He sees that two chairs are empty, where his parents would be, and he remembers what it was like to love them, as, with his sister and Stephen, he follows Erin Cavanaugh to the front of the tent. He turns and as he turns the day drops away and his vision takes in the whole company—Mary’s parents and siblings, the people they work with and have gone to school with, their friends and their children—and in his heart he marries each one of them, for he knows that this is the one sacrament, the one blessing in his life; and then they, too, depart his consciousness, leaving only Mary, who stands at the far end of the tent. Slowly she approaches, her hair wreathed in the deep silence of flowers; then she is there. Mary. He takes her hand, and then, as if they themselves had willed it—as if such acts of love were possible—a soft wind shakes the tent, the air descends, and gently, it begins to rain.
MAMMALS
April 1993
THEY WERE NOT gamblers, but the resort had a small casino, and that was where they spent the first two days. Kay and Jack: the trip was a reward for two hard years, the rough waters they had crossed together, and though they had imagined it as time together as a family, empty days lounging in the stolen sunshine, they had barely stepped outdoors. They left to eat and sleep and check on Mia and the boys, but always they returned—both winning and losing, yet always winning a little more—and by the morning of the third day, after a twelve-hour run when they had not gone to bed at all, they were ahead four thousand dollars, enough to pay for the week-long trip.
It was Kay who decided to stop. Ten A.M.: she’d just won three hands in a row—another sixty dollars—when an overdue exhaustion washed over her, a sense of absolute completeness, like the last bite of a meal. She understood at once that she was done.
“You know, I think I’ve had it,” she said.
Jack nodded, but kept his eyes on the table. His cheeks and chin were dusted with stubble the color of ash. He signaled to the dealer, a young black man with dreadlocks and a fine, copper-colored nose, that he was in. Expressionless, the young man dealt the cards: a ten, and an eight on top. The dealer drew a deuce. Jack waved a flat hand over his cards to say that he would hold where he was. His bets were small, ten or twenty dollars, but many times just five. He gambled carefully but also with a bemused wonder, like a man puzzling over a problem that seemed to work no matter what he did. He was an economist, but his work was very theoretical; when it came to actual dollars, he had no head at all. It was Kay who balanced the checkbook and paid the bills and kept the ship on course. She watched as Jack won again.
“Jack? Are you listening? Let’s cash in.
He kissed her quickly on the forehead. “Go get some sleep if you want.”
The idea made her yawn. Four thousand dollars: not a fortune, she thought, but certainly a reason to be cautious. She had friends from college who had real money now: the bankers and lawyers who were just making partner, the doctors whose loans were finally paid off, even a novelist whose books did well. She read their news in the alumni bulletin and felt a stab of envy. To such people, she knew, four thousand dollars would seem like nothing at all. And yet it had taken Kay and Jack most of a year to set aside that sum, stealing a few hundred dollars here and there from his salary at the college.
Now the same amount sat before them on the table, neat rows of blue and red chips with the name of the resort etched at the center—a windfall that had cost them nothing. What was it about these chips that made them so pleasant to the touch? As tired as she was, still she longed to hold them in her hands.
“Seriously, Jack. How can this last?”
“I don’t know how it’s lasted this long.” He placed his bet on the table, and the dealer laid out fresh cards. “See? Twenty-one.” It was: a king and an ace, she saw. The dealer paid out.
She was too exhausted to press. “Come soon, then.”
Alone, she stepped from the casino, into the blazing light and building heat of the morning. The air smelled of flowers and the sea. The resort was like a compound, encircled by high fencing that made a U around one side of the bay and a beach of perfect white sand. The brochure had mentioned the casino almost in passing—it was just one more diversion, like the tennis courts and scuba lessons and limbo contests on the patio after dinner—and the two of them had joked about it. What kind of idiot would go to the Caribbean and fritter the time away playing cards in a dark room? But now the trip was half over, and they’d barely done anything else.