the place of contact, where there was a nick in the varnished surface of the wood, which glowed like something vital.
Too quickly, it was her turn. She looked down at Ben, his transparent eyelashes fanning against the skin of his cheek. His lips, the color of the altar flowers, were parted. God, he was dazzling. A perfect thing. It was clear to her that she couldn’t wake him, that she needed to bring him with her up to the lectern now. She formed a basket with her forearms and, pressing him to her, negotiated her way over Ned’s knees, and past Robbie, who was trying to stand to make way for her, his young limbs a tangle, a puzzle he had to solve.
There was a microphone at the lectern, a dark bulb at the end of a small arc of brass, beckoning her. If she spoke directly into that, she would wake Ben, would frighten him, she thought, so she positioned her mouth slightly to the left of it, bending down, her body mirroring the shape of the brass rod, a long, slim, curved thing, live, electric. Knox rested one of her elbows on the wooden edge of the stand, to steady herself.
“I wanted to say something about love,” she said, looking up at last as the final word proceeded from her lips. There were hundreds of faces staring up at her, expectant. There were Marlene and Jimmy, their shoulders touching. She could hear she’d been too loud, despite the precaution she’d tried to take; the mike was picking her up, and Ben shifted in her hands.
“I wanted to say something about family, also, today,” she went on, though she knew it would happen, and it did: Ben’s dark eyes blinked open; they were Charlotte’s eyes; and he opened his mouth in a wail that gathered volume and urgency as it came; he had no idea where he was, or what was happening. Knox raised the top of his head to her lips, began whispering into his ear, bouncing in place. In a moment, Bruce was moving toward her, his hands splayed, his face full of understanding. She met his eyes. They’d been part of a sacred dance, the two of them, and she hadn’t understood until she was back home that it might be over for good.
“Hey,” Bruce mouthed. His face twisted into a half smile. “Let me take him.”
Knox stepped toward him, and the delicate handoff was under way; Bruce’s tapered hands closed around Ben, who started to calm in his father’s presence. Bruce moved aside, toward the side aisle; he’d stand out of the way in lieu of returning to his seat. Knox bit her lip, resolved to gather herself. What was it she’d wanted to say? That she needed to recover? Her eyes scanned the front pew, the faces of her people, and lit on Ned’s, with his strong clean-shaven jaw and pretty eyes behind his glasses, telegraphing such encouragement in his expression. Go on, he seemed to be saying with that face, as well known to her as her own, and suddenly it came to her, what had eluded her, before. I don’t love you, she thought. Not the way I’m supposed to. When she was too overcome to continue speaking, she thought she registered forgiveness in his look, and she wanted to tell him that he didn’t understand, and that she was so sorry, so, so sorry, but then she felt the minister’s hand resting gently on her back, and she was waving her hands in front of her face, and stepping aside.
KNOX STOOD on the porch of the guesthouse where Bruce and the boys were staying, a baking dish in her hands. She’d spent the last two and a half hours making lasagna, though what she’d wanted was to lie down in her dress and sleep and perhaps never wake up. Instead, after the reception at her parents’, she’d driven out of the field where the car guys—the same group, with the pimples and lazy smiles and self-deprecating manners and blinding white dress shirts she remembered from all her parents’ summer parties, now gone silent, their gazes sorrowful and kind—had parked her, and made her way straight to the Kroger’s in Versailles, where she’d powered up and down each wide aisle, surprised at what she seemed to be doing. The place was a psychedelic whirl of color, vast as a midway; at this time of the evening it seemed peopled by the aimless