Rescue by Anita Shreve Page A

of the room to the floor to his face. “You can’t do this,” she said. “You’ve been saving
     for that land all these years.”
    He didn’t remind her that she had let him pay the cop. “Hey, no rules, remember? I can do whatever I want.”
    “This isn’t funny, Webster. This is serious.”
    “Asking you to marry me was serious.”
    She stared at him, then gave a half smile. “So where’s the ring?” she asked.
    He pulled the blue jeweler’s box from his pants pocket. He hadn’t wanted her to find it while he was gone. She took it from
     him and opened it. It was a small diamond set flat in a gold band.
    “Jesus Christ, Webster,” she said. “I was kidding.”
    They were married by the minister at the Congregational church where Webster had been confirmed just before he gave up on
     religion. The soul was an entity he felt ambivalent about.
    Webster’s parents came to the ceremony, along with Burrows and his wife, Karen. Two of Webster’s cousins drove down from the
     Northeast Kingdom. No one from Sheila’s side showed up, and it felt to Webster, for a moment during the service, that his
     soon-to-be wife was standing on air, as if she might tumble into oblivion for lack of roots. Sheila’s sister, the only relative
     who might have made the trip, was near her ninth month of pregnancy and couldn’t travel. Sheila didn’t seem to mind. “I wish
     it was just me and you,” she’d said the night before.
    She wore a high-waisted black dress, which surprised Webster, who hadn’t been consulted and who’d assumed white. After theceremony, when he complimented her on the dress—it was fluid and elegant and made her skin light up—she explained that she’d
     wanted to buy a dress she might be able to wear again.
    “To your next wedding?” he asked.
    She cuffed him with her bouquet, one his mother had picked out.
    After the ceremony, the eight celebrants walked in the July sunshine to a wedding luncheon in a private room at the Bear Hollow
     Inn. Webster’s cousins, Joshua and Dickie, both of them farmers, had keen senses of humor, which Webster remembered from his
     childhood when they’d lived closer. The jokes got Burrows going, and once Burrows had had a few, there was no stopping him.
     Webster sat back and stroked Sheila’s arm. He liked seeing his mother laugh to the point of near hysterics. Even Sheila joined
     in the conversation when she could, though for minutes at a time she was eerily quiet.
    “You OK?” he asked.
    When she turned to him, he thought he saw tears forming at the corners of her eyes. He put his elbow on the table to shield
     them from the rest of the group. He’d never seen Sheila cry. His face was inches from hers. The tears frightened him.
    “What is it?” he asked, taking her hand.
    “Nothing. I’m fine.”
    Webster thought it might be the loneliness of having no family at the service and was about to say that he was her family
     now. He and the bump.
    “This is stupid,” she said. “I never do this. I’m just so happy.” She bent her head to his chest, as if embarrassed by emotion.
     He wrapped her in his arms. “I never thought this would happen to me,” she said. “Not like this. I don’t deserve you, Webster.”
    “Are you shitting me?” he whispered into her ear. Sweet nothings from the bridegroom to the bride. “I’m the one who can’t
     believe his luck. You roll your car precisely on my stretch of road, and I just happen to be in service? What are the odds
     that the love of my life would do that?”
    He felt her laugh.
    He pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. If he glanced up, his father, who’d insisted Webster
     carry one in his suit pocket, would be smiling. Webster held Sheila until she’d fixed herself up. “I really do love your dress,”
     he said, a compliment that allowed him to pat the deliciously round contour of her lap.
    “Do I have mascara all over me?” she asked.
    He pulled away and