Sea Glass_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [4]
Her uncle Harold, blind and papery, couldn’t walk the length of the aisle of the Methodist church and so he stood by the front pew with his niece for half a minute so as to give her away properly. She was the last child to leave the house, the boys gone to Arkansas and Syracuse and San Francisco. Her mother sat in her navy polka-dot silk with the lace collar, her comfortable weight caught primly within the dress’s folds. She wore real silk stockings for the occasion, Honora noticed, and not the tan stockings from Touraine’s. Her mother’s black shoes, serviceable rather than pretty, were the ones Harold always referred to as her Sunday-go-to-meeting shoes. Her mother wore a navy cloche, the silver roll of her hair caught beneath it with mother-of-pearl combs.
Just before they’d left the house, her mother had polished her gold-rimmed glasses at the sink. She’d taken her time at it and had pretended not to cry.
“You look very pretty,” she said to Honora when she had hooked the stems of her glasses behind her ears.
“Thank you,” Honora said.
“You let me know, won’t you,” her mother said. She took her hankie from inside the cuff of her dress. “About what you want me to do with the suit, I mean.”
“I will.”
“Some women, they like to keep the clothes they get married in. I had my wedding dress with me right up until Halifax.”
Honora and her mother were silent a moment, remembering Halifax. “Your father would have been so proud,” her mother said.
“I know.”
“So you let me know about the suit. I’ll be happy to pay for it, you decide to keep it.”
Honora took a step forward and kissed her mother’s cheek.
“Now, now,” her mother said. “You don’t want to set me off again.”
Sexton walks into the bedroom with the picnic basket in one hand, the suitcase in the other. He looks at Honora sitting on the mattress, her stockings and her shoes and her suit folded, her garters peeking out from beneath a girdle to one side of the bed. His face loosens, as if he’d come prepared to tell his new wife one thing but now wishes to say something else. Honora watches as he sets down the picnic basket and the cardboard suitcase. He removes his coat and lets it fall from his arms, snatching it before it hits the floor. He yanks the knot of his tie sideways.
She slides backward and slips her bare legs under the cool sheet and blanket. She lays her cheek against the pillow and watches her husband with one eye. She has never seen a man undress before: the tug of the belt buckle, the pulling up of the shirttails, the shoes being kicked off, the shirt dropped to the floor, the trousers — the only garment removed with care — folded and set upon the suitcase. He unbuckles his watch and puts it on a windowsill. In the stingy light of the salted windows, she can see the broad knobs of his shoulders, the gentle muscles through the chest, the surprising gooseflesh of his buttocks, the red-gold hairs along the backs of his legs. Sexton kneels at the foot of the mattress and crawls up to his new bride. He puts his face close to hers. He slides under the sheet and draws her to him. Her head rests on the pad of his shoulder, and her right arm is tucked between them. His knee slips between her thighs, causing the skirt of her slip to ride up to her hips. He kisses her hair.
“What makes it so shiny?” he asks.
“Vinegar,” she says.
“You’re shaking,” he says.
“Am I?”
He presses his mouth to her shoulder. “We’ll take our time,” he says.
McDermott
McDermott sits at the edge of the bed and smokes a cigarette. Behind him, near the window, the English girl is counting out