Convergence--Excerpt of Ch. 1

Chapter 1: The Great Slapping

William McEwen was not exactly feeling like himself. This is a common side effect that accompanies human involvement in a delayed wave-function collapse as defined by quantum physics. That is, it would be a common side effect if delays in the collapsing of wave functions involving humans were all that common. Luckily for most people they are not common. But, for William McEwen the common side effect of the uncommon event had him feeling a bit off.

Most people would feel a bit off in his situation, probably, because no more than twenty seconds earlier he had been sitting in his cubicle on the fourth floor of the Bangerter Rampton State Government Building in Salt Lake City, Utah minding his own business. If he were being honest, he had merely been trying to look like he was minding his own business in an I’m-working-hard sort of way. What he had actually been doing was daydreaming, and his daydream involved him doing something—anything—other than sitting in a cubicle.

Because of the daydreaming he was not sure exactly when or how it had happened, but for the last twenty seconds, or so, he had gone from sitting in his cubicle allegedly minding his own business to just standing there. The just standing part was interesting to him, because he didn’t remember getting up from his seat. But, the there part of just standing there is what had William feeling a bit off, because there was a whole new place altogether. There was a grassy knoll on his grandfather’s farm in Scotland.

This presented an interesting problem for William because William did not have any grandfathers that owned farms in Scotland.

Wait.

On second thought, maybe he did have. Yes, he certainly did have. He didn’t have twenty-three seconds ago, but now he did have. His mind recoiled at the utter confusion of it. After all, William doesn’t usually suddenly have Scottish grandfathers.

William noticed another interesting problem: he now—along with a new “granda”—was the confused owner of two complete sets of memories. Sixty-eight years of memories in total—two sets of thirty-four. Equally clear, equally detailed, equally full of persons, places, and things, but utterly separate memories.

He clearly remembered, for instance, his life in Salt Lake City, Utah. He remembered daydreaming in his cubicle twenty-six seconds ago, although he no longer remembered what non-cubicle-sitting activity the daydream was about. He remembered his lovely wife; Virginia was her name—Ginny for short. He remembered his four children—two boys and two girls. He remembered his home on the corner of Christos and Stern.

He also remembered his wife and two daughters—not the same wife and daughters, but a different lovely woman and two other girls—who were at that moment running toward him on the knoll. He was also from there. Perth, Scotland. Well, technically, there was a farm somewhere between Strathallan Castle and Crieff, a half-hour’s drive south and west of Perth. But, where he happened to be standing at that moment did not change where he was from, which was, for the last thirty-five seconds, Perth…and Salt Lake City.

He sat down, right there on the knoll. It smelled of grass and dirt and maybe sheep. William attempted to scan the scene, but the beauty of Granda’s knoll was almost overpowering. It was a good thing that he sat himself down before taking it in, because the splendor surrounding him literally took his breath. The involuntary exhale caused by his breath’s sudden, unplanned evacuation forced him to vocalize a sound something like, “Oontpf.” It also made him drool a bit; he wiped the spittle off of his chin with the shoulder of his sleeve.

Again he tried to survey his surroundings to get a sense of where he was suddenly located and what he was suddenly doing. In his confusion, he asked himself a couple of quick, clarifying questions like, where the Sam Hill, and how in the Dickens. He also asked a few general questions like, what the… and how the…. The most shocking revelation from this inquisition was that due to his new set of memories he already knew an uncomfortable number of the answers. He knew indeed, for example, where the Sam Hill. However, the how the…, what the…, and Dickens-related lines of questioning and their derivatives were still items for discovery.

William turned his attention back to his surroundings, Granda’s farm. Thinking that perhaps if he investigated his location he might be able to fill in a what the… or two. He attempted to get his mind around the knoll that he suddenly occupied, in order to formulate a description that might help him analyze his situation. Neither he nor he—the two sets of memories suddenly occupying the same space—was a particularly analytical person, but it seemed like what a smart person would do, and being smart seemed to be smart as well.

Without looking down, he dug his fingers into the grass and wiggled them until they penetrated the thatch and sunk into the nearly black soil. He gripped the grass. Then, with both hands, he pulled tearing chunks of thatch roots and all from the earth. He held them up to his face and inspected the random crisscrossing patterns of the root systems. The scent of the loam was vaguely familiar.

He wasn’t looking for anything in particular; maybe he was just attempting to kinesthetically connect himself with this place. Again, he tried to find words to describe the setting, words that would help him comprehend his more-tenuous-than-he-realized place in the universe. A minute-and-a-half ago his life, lifes—with an f—actually, had been comfortably mundane, but now he wasn’t so sure—if he could just find some blasted words!

These words—had they been available to him—are accurate, but they would not have been sufficient: striking, stunning, exquisite, otherworldly, charming, fertile, green. Not the kind of green that William McEwen of Salt Lake City, Utah, was used to, this green was from a completely different color wheel. He really could not describe it, because this particular knoll was all but indescribable.
Unfortunately for his comprehension level, William began to realize that this place was not something one filed a description for, but this was a place to be experienced. He reluctantly stopped trying to find words. Words were not available to him anyway, the knoll being all but indescribable and all.

“Are ya ready, then?” panted the lovely, slightly winded woman, his wife, Tina. Their outing to Granda’s farm was at an end. Granda had long ago passed on, but the family still held the title to the fairly small parcel of land. Granda had scrapped and scraped and scrimped and scrumped and fought legal battles to be able to own that land, they weren’t about to up and sell it. The family leased the parcel to a local conglomerate of barley and cereal farmers, which resulted in a very small monthly stipend that the family split six ways, as there were six remaining blood relatives, eight if his daughters were counted—they weren’t as yet. The family called the stipend, “granda’s meal ticket.” Out of nostalgia they would take an occasional trek to the “homestead,” and that is what William, Tina and the girls were up to today.

“Aye,” he replied to Tina’s inquiry. Half of him was shocked by his fairly thick Scottish accent. William was to himself both familiar and foreign. He was also both an American and a Scot, a Mormon and a member of the Kirk, not a fan of soccer and a fan of football—the European kind of football, which went without saying to half of him.

“Da, you look flummoxed,” said one of the girls. Her name was Kate. The other was Emma. Oddly, these were the same names as his other two, American, daughters, but in reverse birth order. Sure, Kate and Emma were very popular names both in the UK and in the US, but this coincidence felt to him a bit like déjà vu. Actually, trying to reconcile two sets of memories was a lot like déjà vu, an exceptionally lot like brain-wrinkling, vertigo-inducing déjà vu. He shook his head like a boxer trying to clear the cobwebs after a particularly well-connected blow.

“Sumthin’s gone awry,” William mumbled, “I’m not exactly myself.” He stood. He was thinner than half of him remembered, stronger, and maybe shorter. No, not shorter. Whatever the case, he knew that half of him was not in his usual living space. Tina noticed his puzzlement and interpreted it as weariness.

“Are ye ready for the knacker’s yard, Numpty?” Numpty was her pet name for him. It means idiot. In fact, one translation of her question is, are you so tired that you should be made into glue, idiot? From Tina it wasn’t hurtful, at least not to the part of him that knew her. The other part of him didn’t know her, and may have been offended if he had known what knacker or numpty meant.

“Nae. I’m well enough.” He shook his head again, and walked toward the car.



While driving the little family back to their home in Perth, and while fighting the compulsion to move to the right side of the road, William asked Tina, “You ever know anyone in America?”

Tina looked at him, “are you a daftie? Who would I know in America?”

William shrugged, “jus’ curious.”

Tina asked, “How lon’ hae we been married?”

Six years, thought William—two years fewer than he and his American wife’s eight years.
“An’ now ye’re ‘jus’ curious ‘bout who I have stashed away in America, are ye?”

He shrugged again. Tina laughed. To the half of William that was familiar with it, her laugh felt like home. The half not familiar with Tina’s laugh felt the contentment that came to his new set of memories. It sounded a lot like the tinkle of a crystalline bell an octave or so lower, which is a wonderful thing for laughter to sound like. His American self relaxed ever so slightly.

Slightly relaxing allowed William to pay attention to what he was otherwise feeling, and paying attention to what he was otherwise feeling caused William to realize that he had been experiencing quite a lot of stress over the last few minutes. He also noticed that the back of his head hurt at the base just above the neck. He scanned the rest of the body he occupied to see if other areas were feeling the effects. His inventory revealed that his shoulders, neck, back, and calves were flexed tight and that his stomach was knotted. He rolled his head around in a couple of semi-circles in an attempt to loosen the tensing muscles. It seemed to help.

Tina’s laugh had also calmed him a bit, and he was attracted to it in almost the same way that he was attracted to Ginny’s distinctive laughter. All of William smiled. He glanced at Tina. At least that was his intention, to glance, but he found that once he turned his eyes to look at her he couldn’t pull them back, his glance turned into a gaze, just shy of a gawk.

The angle of the setting sun illuminated her auburn hair and bathed her left temple and cheek in dusk’s luminous honey. William was struck by her soft glow, she was cherubic or angelic or heavenly or some other term reserved for describing the divine. Her facial expression was serious, but soft. Her lips’ natural position was a slight pout. Not an angry pout, but the kind that is often employed to cover amusement, which caused William to wonder if she was on the verge of more crystalline laughter. It seemed likely that she would at any moment break that pout into a smirk that could, given time, become a full-fledged smile. And, it also seemed likely that if her smile became full-fledged it would, if applied correctly, melt glaciers. She was beautiful.
He wanted to examine her figure, but remembered that he was looking through the eyes of her husband, or maybe they were his eyes and her husband was the guest. Whatever the case, he thought better of ogling the wife of his new host, or was it ogling his wife while a stranger looked on. It was confusing.

Tina’s eyes were on the road, “stay to the left would ye? I’d like to get home still breathin’, I would.”

William yanked the metallic-blue box he drove back onto the right side of the road, which was, in this case, the left side of the road. Shocked back to reality, such as it was, William realized that he needed a less-consuming distraction to occupy his mind.
“Anyone care take a go at singin’ a Burns tune,” William’s Scottish self suggested to the little family. Although his American self hadn’t the first clue what exactly would constitute a Burns tune, he sensed that the singing of one would sufficiently distract him from his growing uncertainty and keep him able to concentrate on driving. Kate, the oldest of his Scottish daughters led out from the back seat with a strong and charming five-year-old voice. The others, including little Emma, joined in with her by the third or fourth word.

O my love’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my love’s like the melody
That’s sweetly sung in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass
So deep in love am I;
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sand o’ life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only love!
And fare-thee-weel, a while!
And I will come again, my love,
Tho’ ‘twere ten thousand mile!

Staying on the correct side of the road, William McEwen sang every word and every note of a song that half of him had never heard. As he did so, he tried not to panic as he drove one of his cars containing one of his families to one of his homes.

Just Go Now

The sound woke Horace up, though he didn’t quite know it. It felt more like something very large had been dropped on him from very high up. He laid in bed feeling like his whole chest had just been crushed. He lay with his eyes wide open, the small cabin room coming to him blue in the darkness. It was a cold night, even though it was mid spring, which wouldn’t be good for the newly planted wheat crops. A scarce crop meant scarce work for a miller, which he was. But he wasn’t thinking about the wheat crops. He was thinking about the sound that woke him up. Was it a sound? He put his feet on the cold wood floor, and quietly sat up. Next to him his wife slept soundly. He stood, and lifted his rifle from where it hung on the wall, just high enough that the boys couldn’t get it until they were old enough to use it-- which, when they were, he’d be sure they did. Good boys both of them. And though they were still young, 11 and 9, he taught them to work. They worked beside him in the mill, fetching things for him, and watching him crush the wheat with his millstone. He taught them too. Showed them the smoothness of the millstone. Taught them precision and tried to imbue them with a sense of pride in the work of their hands. They worked plenty around the yard and house too. They helped plant and tend the large gardens and fed animals. They ran themselves ragged fetching water from the spring to the house and cleaning barns and stables. Augie, almost 12 now, was getting close to that age where he should start learning how to chop wood and use a gun. But he was such a thin boy and so shaky-handed that when he’d put the axe or the gun in his hand, it sent Augie’s knees to shaking, and his arms quivered and bowed all over. So he’d taken them back quickly and let the boy go on to do his chores and play in the barn and along the endless open land that spread around their farm. Nathaniel on the other hand, was only 9, but strong as a bull. He had a thick body on him since he was a baby. He had a bull’s head too, unswayable if he put his will to a task. He’d get in his head that he wanted to carry two buckets of water from the spring to the house like dad and he’d drag and drag them up the grassy hill, sweat beading all over his soft face. His wispy blond hair would get thick and wet and stick to his forehead.
They were good boys and he found a joy in them that he hadn’t found in any others he’d ever worked with, or known, not even their mother. He’d found a different joy in her. A joy that seemed to change year to year, season to season, day to day as they changed. A change so gradual and so natural that he didn’t see it, only felt it. The way that they’d come into each other and had stood next to each other and held each other up through work and storms and long days and short nights and cold and hot and the peak of sorrow twice, as two babies were born still. That woman who he’d held as she wept over their tiny bodies that he’d put in the ground up the hill, which had become a holy place. The woman who had held him, worked next to him and laughed with him in that wide-open empty land. His help-meet, her help-meet. The wonder and weirdness of creating three out of two, and then a fourth--children, and the weirdness and wonder of growing all of them up together in this place.
With his legs under him he felt the fatigue of the previous day. He rocked a moment with the cold stock of the gun in his hand. Then he looked at his wife sleeping without a care one more time, still feeling that slice of panic in his guts. He opened their bedroom door, and walked quietly on bare feet over cold wood out into the great room where they ate and sat at night. The fire was cold in its place. It was late. Over to one side was the kitchen, with its cold black stove. Off to the other side was the door to the boys’ room. He walked quiet as he could over the creaking boards. The house of his labor that he’d built himself seemed uneasy around him in the dark blue of the night. His arms felt heavy but as he stepped and stepped again he began to relax. Nothing here, nothing out here so far away from anyone else. I just had a bad dream he told himself. I’ll just step outside to make sure, so I’ll be able to sleep easy again. So he went to the door at the front of the house, and pushed it open with the nose of his gun. It swung easy. The latch wasn’t latched. The panic in his stomach came back, like a brick of ice in his belly, melting and steaming. Did he forget to latch it? Maybe the wind took it and that’s what woke him. He poked his head out the door looking into the moonlit night. His springhouse stood dark just down the hill, and his mill sat just beyond. The cool wind pushed against the door and he let go of his gun with one hand to hold it open.
A hand came from behind, crashing down on the hand still holding the gun, sending it to the floor with a thud. Another arm, wrapped around his neck from behind, and the dull moon-glint from the blade of a knife caught his eye. He swung a hand up in time to deflect the knife in time, and dropped to the ground, spinning and rearing his legs up ready to kick. The man with the knife jumped back.
For a long moment, one that seemed to last forever, Horace didn’t know what to do. The man was tall, thin and wiry. He had long arms and tousled dark hair. His face was dark in the night, but Horace could see it was dirty and the man had a patchy beard. The man’s eyes were large dark coals that glowed white-almost in the sickly moonlight. Horace slowly stood, rolling onto his feet in a squat and then raising up. The man with the knife stood still, perched like a cat ready to spring, expressionless. Before Horace could say anything, the man moved forward again--slowly, toward the gun. The man’s eyes flitted toward the boys’ door. The ice and steam and all of his twisted up insides lurched when Horace saw those dark eyes move, even briefly, toward that door. He saw in those eyes danger and knowledge. He saw in those eyes two more mounds at the top of that hill. Fear and rage burned in his head, and tears blurred his eyes.
Horace pounced toward the gun, but he didn’t bend down for it. Instead he went for the man, using his bare foot to stomp at his arm as it extended down to pick up the gun. The man dropped the knife, yelping and clutching his stomped on arm. Before the man could finish the cry Horace had him around the head, holding his strong hand over the stranger’s mouth. His other arm hooked around the stranger’s back, and up toward his neck. Horace could see his fingers digging into the stranger’s face, and pushed harder, and harder trying to hold this man’s mouth so he couldn’t bite down. The man’s eyes bulged from his face, and he flailed in Horace’s grip, beating against his back, and shoulders; kicking Horace in the shins with his boots. Fear and rage burned in Horace like a bellows. He pushed the man to the floor pounding his head on ground. The man’s eyes lolled and he went limp for a moment in a daze. Horace loosened his grip—his stomach hurt so bad. When he let up, the man wriggled and slipped out from under him like a snake sliding sideways. And now the panic in the man’s eyes was replaced by murderous rage. And he came in every direction at Horace with booted feet kicking at him and his white clenched hands shivering and stabbing. The man’s mouth was open wide and his tongue curled inside. Horace saw his teeth like fence posts in shallow soft ground, leaning into each other. He got his arms up, and rolled to his back as the man got to him. He curled up his naked legs and tried to find purchase on the stranger’s stomach or chest to push him away, but the stranger was too quick and slender. His fists beat Horace in the face and arms, and the man’s boots found his hips and ribs. Horace rolled away. The man was crazy, and continued to pummel at him. The stranger lolled at him while he rolled and bit into Horace’s back, just under his left shoulder blade. It didn’t sink deep, but it sent a shot of panic into him.
He rolled over onto his back and caught them man by the arm. You just git, he said to the man quietly. You just git on out of here and we’ll have nothing else to do with each other. The man twitched a bit--thinking maybe. But then Horace saw him pull the knife up. They must have tussled over toward it, and the man smiled. Horace grabbed his wrist and pushed up with his naked feet. The man flew up in the air, but being held by the wrists, he came right back down on Horace, leading with his knee into Horace’s belly. The wind rushed from his lungs and his vision went for a moment. He didn’t know anything except that he had to hold tight, and he tightened his grip till he felt something give.
Horace came back to himself a moment later lying on the floor. The stranger’s knife was lying next to him, but the stranger was up on his feet backing slowly toward the boys’ door. Horace’s throat caught. I’ll tell you one more time he said, you go now and we’ll have no more business. You just go now. But the man said nothing, and backed up slowly toward the door, one arm stretched toward Horace, hand open, the other hand moving back behind him. Horace knew he couldn’t wait any more. He couldn’t let the man move another inch toward that door. The ice melted away and the last burning steam seemed to fill him up. He felt the knot inside him shift and the power of that shift lifted him off the floor. His eyes burned with rage and tears. And in no time he was to the man, pulling him with a hard tug by the shirtfront away from the door. He didn’t say it out loud, but he said to himself, you just go now. You just git and we’ll have no more business. The man squirmed, and loosed his joints and tightened his muscles and flailed like a tent in a gale. But Horace gripped him so tight he felt his fingers become detached from his hands, popped right from their sockets. And He felt them close around the stranger’s throat and he felt them pulse with his racing heart as he squeezed and squeezed, all the while saying behind his teeth you just go now, you just go now. He felt a pop. Not his knuckles, but outside himself. He was on the floor, kneeling on the stranger. He felt the man pop in his throat and then lay limp. His twizzling limbs thumped to the wood of the floor, and he lay still. Horace tried to let go, but his muscles couldn’t loosen up. His tears dropped onto the man’s filthy shirt, and still he couldn’t let go. He couldn’t let go of the man. He couldn’t breath he was so tight all over, until finally he got a breath into his body. A spasm deep down in the instinct part of him that yelled BREATHE you fool. And he filled his lungs and finally let go of the man.
He slumped to the side, onto his backside, and huddled over his knees. Exhaustion, and stupidness made him feel like he’d fallen outside of the world somehow. He sat huddled there forever, the rest of eternity, for a moment. Then the cold air finally brought him back to himself. His hands ached, and his legs were jelly, but he pulled himself up, gripped the stranger by the collar and pulled his body outside the house, out onto the porch. Pulled him down the hill and put his body in the millhouse. Then he went back up the hill, almost crawling from his tiredness. He shut the door behind him, and leaned against it.
There in the boys’ door, stood Augie. Fright pulsed through Horace for a second. No, it’s just Augie. It’s just Augie he said to himself. What’s the matter Pa, the boy asked. Horace said nothing, but walked toward the boy as straight and tall as he could until he was next to him. Even as a boy who was about to become a man, Augie seemed so small to him at that moment. So thin, and Horace cupped his head in his aching hand, and ushered the boy back into his room. You hush up or you wake your brother, he whispered gently. The boy climbed back up into his bed. What’s the matter pa he asked again. Horace knelt down by his bed. Nothing he said. Everything’s just fine ok? I just had to check on some work I forgot. All is well, you just go on back to sleep. There will be no slacking tomorrow just because you was up late you hear? I thought I heard you tussling out there. No, said Horace. I just stubbed my toe and was jumping about trying to get the smart out of it. The boy was quiet a minute, and Horace was quiet too, just looking into his son’s eyes. He fought the tremble that threatened to rend him and expose his lies. But then Augie smiled a small shallow smile, and put his hand on his dad’s shoulder. Ok, he said, and rolled over, pulling his blankets up over his shoulders. Horace lingered a minute trying to find the strength to stand. I killed a man tonight he thought. I killed a man and hid his body. I hid him behind my millstone because I was ashamed. Just go now, he thought. Just go now.

Right Ankle

When she was 17 she was in a car accident where her ankle was pinched between two sharp slabs of metal. It cut through flesh and muscle and sinew and shattered the bone, leaving it pinned to the floor of the car. It hung from her leg as they put her on the stretcher and wheeled her into the ambulance. They sewed it and repaired it as best they could and packed it in ice, and gave her morphine. She lay in bed a long time, groggy, unable to find any train of thought. Doctors poked it and she endured several more surgeries. She could feel her leg calling to her foot. Adhere to me. For we are bound as one and alone we are neither. Come back, be mine again. And her foot seemed to respond, distantly through darkness and fog, I am here, but I can’t find you. Her leg called, come to me, and be whole. She felt surges in her ankle, like flailing strings groping and questing out. She felt it ebb and flow toward and back from her. Finally she felt it touch. Two blind fingers touching though a tiny slit in a thick woolen sheet. There you are, and here I am her leg said. I am found her foot said. I am found. And the bone and ligaments and muscles and sinews all seemed to twist around each and melt into single strands.
The ankle became infected shortly after. She imagined it as thick black frothy foam that billowed and surged inside her ankle, swelling it with its rage, pulling at the newly formed bonds with tight fingers. She’s just going to have to fight it off. And if she can’t? Then she may loose the foot. Or possibly the leg at the knee. Her mother was crying. She became hot. Too hot she thought, I’m going to burn to death. But she just kept getting hotter and hotter. Finally, loosing the sweat from her pores till she was slimy and delirious, she slipped into a deep agitated sleep.
She dreamed she was playing softball, running the bases. She rounded second and fell to the dirt hard, skidding her white uniform with loose brown dirt that clouded around her like cocoa powder. Her coach stood above her. You can’t run with only one leg you silly girl. Get back to the dug out; you’re useless to us. Then she was swimming in the ocean. Light sparkled at the crest of the millions of tiny peaks that poked up from the surface of the sea. She felt the sky above her expand away from her into and endless ocean of air. Birds sang and yelled like children playing. The warmth of the air and cool of the water soaked into her skin. The gentle waves rocked her there in the ocean like a baby. The sun began to set and she started swimming for the shore. She swam for a while then looked up to see how far she’d gone. But the beach had vanished. She looked out into the endless ocean. She turned and there was the beach behind her. She swam for it again, but again she looked and there was nothing but the ocean melting into the darkening night. The wind began to blow, and the water became choppy. She tried again and again until a wind tossed gull called out, you’ve only got one arm and one leg, you’re just swimming in circles! In horror she realized the bird was right. Then she was standing at the doors of a church. A white wedding gown flowed down her to the ground. Her family lined the pews, all heads turned to her, eyes moist. Her mother sat near the front crying and smiling. Her hands were clasped in front of her, and her father’s arm was gently locked with hers. His strong hand held her near the armpit, and she could smell his familiar scent. Standing at the pulpit was a man, his back toward her. He stood tall and his tuxedo well fitted to his broad shoulders and triangle torso. The music began and her father whispered, it’s time. She tried to step forward, but couldn’t. She tried again, one leg in front of the other, but couldn’t. You’ve only got one leg, her father whispered. You’re going to have to hop. She hopped, and then hopped again. With each hop her leg felt enfeebled. Soon her leg felt like a partially cooked noodle. It bowed and buckled in odd places, mid calf and thigh, and she feared it would snap if she tried to jump again. Her father lifted her and easily carried her to her spot next to the groom. She looked at the man’s face. He smiled so brightly that she couldn’t distinguish his features. She could see sparkling tears in the rims of his eyes. He mouthed I love you, then turned as the minister began the ceremony. We are gathered together today… behind her, though she didn’t look, she could see her mother crying. Her friends brows wrinkled, their hands clasped in front of their hearts. Her father’s smile uncontrollable. She saw her grandmother, who’d been dead for ten years, clapping and laughing. Will you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband to have and to hold in good times and bad? Yes she said. Yes he said. I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride. The music flared, people cheered and the man next to her bent down and kissed her. Her lips went limp before him. He kissed her and his joy became a beacon in the room. She felt nothing. She turned her eyes toward the preacher, who said to her, you’ve got no heart. Numb, she turned her eyes back and stared into the sun of the man’s face and reemerged from her dream cold, her teeth chattering.