The Men Who Walked Out novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: The Aisle

We were married in the yard behind the yellow house in Cambridge, on the first Saturday in June.

Elliot's grandmother's roses had come in early.

Sixty folding chairs stood on the grass in two rows, with an aisle of white runner between them, and the lab filled most of the chairs.

All fourteen of them were there, with their salaries safe, in suits that smelled of the closet.

One of the postdocs had brought a thermos of coffee to the ceremony, and nobody had the heart to tell him.

I waited at the back door of the house in my dress, with a bouquet of the roses and my left hand around the stems.

My father stood next to me in a new grey suit.

He had tied his tie three times.

"Is it straight?" he asked.

"It's straight, Dad."

"You said that the second time."

"It was straight the second time too."

He had a postcard in his breast pocket, and the corner stuck out.

I had read it on Thursday, standing in the kitchen.

It showed a boatyard in Maine, and on the back Gordon had written six lines in his slanted hand.

He had a job on a repair crew, and a rented room over a chandlery, and he asked whether I had gotten the first card.

I had answered both.

I hadn't decided what to call what we were, and he hadn't asked me to.

"He sent the second one to me as well," Dad said, tapping his pocket. "It says he won't come. He'd like me to know he thinks that's right."

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