(1993) The Stone Diaries

(1993) The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields Page B

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Authors: Carol Shields
Tags: Pulitzer Prize winning novel
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strong, and when at last she met her real father, Cuyler Goodwill—he arrived at the Simcoe Street door with sweat on his brow, wearing an ill-fitting suit, looking disappointingly short and dark-complexioned—she braced herself for his kiss. It didn’t come, not on that first meeting. He never so much as took her hand. His face had a poor, pinchy look to it, but the mouth was kind. They sat downstairs in the parlor, he in the leather armchair, and she on the sofa, two strangers in a glare of silence. Daisy was wearing a yellow striped dress made of Egyptian cotton. Her father cleared his throat politely. This was enough to loosen his tongue. He went on and on after that, explaining to her about the train journey they were about to take, and the place where they would be living when they arrived in Bloomington, Indiana. An apartment, it was called. He said the word cherishingly, as though to persuade her of its worth.
    The two of them were drinking lemonade from tall tumblers.
    Who made this lemonade? Someone must have squeezed the lemons and stirred in cups of sugar and added chipped ice, but Daisy can’t think who this person might have been. Nevertheless her fingers will always remember the feel of those tumblers, the pale raised bands on thin pink glass, but it is the sun she will chiefly remember—how yellow like corn meal it was, sifting through the fine summer curtains and filling up the whole of the room. These, at least, were things she might believe in: the print of sunlight on her bare arm. The cool sweet drink sliding down her throat. The buttons on her father’s shirt, glittering there like a trail of tears.
    Her knees formed little hills, poking up through the yellow cloth. Her father’s words came toward her like a blizzard of dots.
    On that day she liked the world.

CHAPTER THREE

    Marriage, 1927
    MRS. JOSEPH FRANZMAN entertained at luncheon yesterday in honor of Miss Daisy Goodwill of Bloomington. Covers were laid for ten.
    Mrs. Otis Cline received at tea this afternoon in honor of Daisy Goodwill, a June bride-elect. Miss Goodwill is a graduate of Tudor Hall and of Long College for Women.
    Mrs. Alfred Wylie entertained at a kitchen shower Thursday afternoon in honor of Daisy Goodwill, a June bride-to-be. The rooms were prettily decorated with wisteria, bells, and streamers. Guests included Mrs. Arthur Hoad, Mrs. Stanton Merrill, Mrs. A. Caputo, Mrs. B. Grindle, Mrs. Fred Anthony, Miss Labina Anthony, Miss Elfreda Hoyt, and the Misses Merry Anne and Susan Colchester.
    During the afternoon, Miss Grace Healy contributed several delightful vocal and piano selections.
    A "white" dinner in honor of Bloomington bride-elect Daisy Goodwill and groom-to-be Harold A. Hoad was held at the Quarry Club last night. The menu included bay scallops, fillet of Dover sole, supreme of chicken served with an accompaniment of creamed onions, and a dessert of vanilla chantilly ice molded in the form of twin doves. Guests were Mrs. Arthur Hoad and sons Lons Hoad and Harold A. Hoad, Mr. and Mrs. Horton Graff, Mr. and Mrs. Hector MacIlwraith, the Misses Labina Anthony and Elfreda Hoyt, Mr. Dick Greene, Mr. and Mrs. Stanton Merrill, and Mr. and Mrs. Otis Cline. The artistic table, centered with a profusion of summer blooms and lighted by ivory tapers, was presided over by Mr. Cuyler Goodwill, the host for the evening and the father of the bride-elect. The silver-tongued Mr. Goodwill, a partner in the firm Lapiscan Incorporated, concluded the evening’s festivities with a few eloquent and thought provoking words on the benefice of time and coincidence.
    "Time," Cuyler Goodwill tells his audience of fifteen, that genial after-dinner assembly who sit now with their chairs pulled back from the table a comfortable inch or two, a burr of candlelight softening their features, "time teams up with that funny old fellow, chance, to give birth to a whole lot of miracles. It was, after all"—and here Mr. Goodwill lifts an expository

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