Whisper Hollow by Chris Cander Page A

spent dancing and drinking and eating at Myrthen’s parents’ house. Myrthen wore the wreath for the duration of the event. Only a few guests showed up, but nonetheless, Rachel had rolled up the living room rugs and engaged their neighbor’s brothers to play the accordion and clarinet while Myrthen dutifully, though unhappily, danced with the male guests. Each one paid a dollar a turn, a gift to the newlyweds. But if they counted the gifts against the cost to entertain, the deficit would have been staggering. Passage to the New World was a bargain compared with the price of a dress and ceremony for their only child.
    “Your mama and I were married on the ship coming to America,” her father said to her at the end of the night. “No money, no church. I said to myself, in America, it will be better. There I will make money enough to give proper weddings for all the daughters I will have.” He patted her hand and looked at her with seeping rheumy-gray eyes that hadn’t seemed happy in as long as she could remember. “But I only have one daughter,
Liebchen.
So I don’t mind spending extra for yours.”
    At long last, the guests retired. John took his bride by the hand, and he bid farewell to her parents and his while she stared at the floor. A friend of his had offered to drive them to their new home, a company house that had been recently vacated.
    A week before the wedding, in a rare moment of lightness, Rachel had used some savings to buy two sets of lingerie. “Perhaps some good would come of this coupling after all,” she’d said. “Grandchildren, at least.”
    But when John’s friend dropped the couple off at their front step in the middle of the night, Myrthen had only one hope: that her unwelcome husband had had too much to drinkand might possibly abandon any intent to consummate the marriage.
    John — who’d drunk only enough to overlook his wife’s obvious unhappiness — unpacked her trousseau. He found the lingerie that Rachel had bought: a sheer yellow nightgown, and a peach-colored silk negligee. “Which will it be?” he teased, dancing into the living room and holding them both up for her to see.
    “Excuse me,” she said. She picked up her small valise and passed him, allowing a wide berth, and shut the bedroom door behind her. With slow, deliberate care — much more than was due the gown she detested — she disrobed. She hung her wedding dress on a hanger and suspended it from one of the three hooks on the wall. Later, she would put it away where she wouldn’t have to see it. On the tiny nightstand, she laid her wreath, its veil floating down.
    Minutes passed. A half hour. Finally, John knocked on the bedroom door. “Myrthen?” She didn’t answer. “Myrthen?” he said again, singsong, pressing his mouth against the jamb. When there was no reply, he turned the knob and pushed the door. The room was dark but for the starlight. He blinked to adjust.
    She was in bed, with the coverlet up to her chin. Her eyes were closed.
    “Myrthen?” He tiptoed to the edge of the bed and leaned over. Then he pulled his loosened tie off, unbuttoned his shirt and dropped it onto the floor. He undid his belt and pants and wriggled out of them. Underwear. Socks. Once naked, he stretched and yawned, loud, extending it into the “aaarwwh!” of a coal car passing by the station without stopping.
    Myrthen opened her eyes and beheld her husband and that part of him that only weeks before had ruined her life. “You don’t want this any more than I do,” she said, her voice a lowgrowl. “We don’t need to play our roles now. Nobody’s watching.” She closed her eyes again and shifted onto her side for sleep.
    John pulled back the sheets, and she rolled unwittingly toward the center of the weak mattress when he climbed into the bed. He moved toward her and reached out to touch her face. As he looked at her, she noticed the way his eyes crinkled when his mouth spread into a slow smile. That mole on his