The End of the Book by Porter Shreve Page A

Albert suit looked faded, and some of the threading at the collar had come loose. George recognized the coat as the one his father had worn to his mother’s funeral a decade ago, and felt a mixture of sorrow and pique. Mrs. McCormick congratulated the bride and groom, and Margaret took the opportunity to lead her away, no doubt to apologize once out of earshot.
    Tom Willard knitted his brow and seemed about to scold his son for the interruption when Seth Richmond came around. He looked unchanged since George knew him as a youth, still hangdog and melancholy and a conversational challenge. George asked if he was still living in town, and Tom answered for the young man, who spoke in short sentences that trailed off, sometimes unintelligibly. “He’s living in Columbus, went to the state university for a couple years there, didn’t you?” Tom said, and Seth nodded. “And you’re a mechanic, isn’t that right? Working on—what is it? Automobiles?”
    â€œMy father-in-law is a motor man,” George put in, trying to find some common topic. “I should introduce you.”
    This line of questioning continued for a while until Tom Willard grew bored and began scanning the room, with its profusion of luxuriant fabrics and furnishings, carved moldings and winking crystal. When Tom had slid away, Seth turned to George and without ever making eye contact asked, “Did you invite Helen White? I was sure I’d find her here.”
    The idea had crossed George’s mind. On the one hand he had wanted Banker and Mrs. White to come to Chicago and see this house and all his success. And he wanted to impress Helen, as well. But there was a history between them, and it didn’t seem fair to Margaret or, more to the point, to George’s memory, where he maintained an image of Helen White as a standard of perfection. “I didn’t invite her,” George said now. “We’ve fallen out of touch. I don’t even know where she lives.”
    â€œWhy, she’s right here in Chicago,” Seth exclaimed. “She’s been a year and more. I thought surely you’d have heard.”
    â€œIt’s news to me,” George managed.
    And as the cocktail hour came to an end his mind began to drift again, while the rain resumed its pitter-pat upon the reception tent in the Lazars’ back garden.
    In months to come George would try to make light of the terrible weather that marred the wedding, how the drizzle on the tent grew to a great downpour that muffled the toasts and drowned out conversation. He couldn’t recall the few audible words, only the suspended feeling of his father’s speech dragging on, the tent’s roof growing heavy with rain, the caterers furiously sopping the floor with towels, his new wife reaching her hand to her hair to make sure her tiara of orange blossoms had not fallen.
    On their first wedding anniversary, in July 1906, George and Margaret had dinner at Henrici’s on Randolph, in the Theater District. They had spent a pleasant afternoon together, walking in Lincoln Park and reading under an umbrella on North Avenue Beach.
    â€œWhy didn’t we have this weather a year ago?” Margaret asked.
    â€œIf we had, there wouldn’t have been a story,” George put in, and repeated something he’d overheard a farmer say at Biff Carter’s Lunch Room in Winesburg: “Rain and pain are both for growth.”
    â€œYou’re quite the philosopher, George Willard.” Margaret wore an off- the-shoulder evening gown of dark heliotrope and had grown her ginger hair long, some swept up and the rest a cascade of curls down her shoulders and arms.
    A year into the marriage, George found himself for the most part content. He had gone into the arrangement in such a headlong manner that the morning after the wedding he had woken up disoriented, wondering how he had materialized in the bridal suite of the Morrison