The Wedding - By Nicholas Sparks Page 0,29

in my voice. She smiled briefly.

“Do you know what I remember most from that night?” I went on.

“My sweater?”

My wife, I should add, has always had a quick wit. I laughed but was clearly in a more reflective mood and went on. “I liked the way you stopped for the dog, and were unwilling to leave until you made sure he was safe. It told me your heart was in the right place.”

I could have sworn she blushed at my comment, but she quickly picked up her wineglass, so I couldn’t be sure. Before she could say anything, I changed the subject.

“So is Anna getting nervous yet?” I asked.

Jane shook her head. “Not at all. She doesn’t seem worried in the slightest. I guess she believes that it’s all going to work out, like it did today with the pictures and the cake. This morning, when I showed her the list of all we had to do, all she said was, ‘I guess we’d better get started, then, huh?’”

I nodded. I could imagine Anna saying those words.

“What about her friend, the pastor?” I asked.

“She said she called him last night, and he said he’d be happy to do it.”

“That’s good. One less thing,” I offered.

“Mmm.” Jane fell silent. I knew her mind was beginning to turn to the activities of the coming week.

“I think I’m going to need your help,” she said at last.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Well, you’ll need a tux for you, Keith, and Joseph, of course. And Daddy, too. . . .”

“No problem.”

She shifted in her seat. “And Anna is supposed to be getting the names of some of the people she’d like to invite. We don’t have time to send any invitations, so someone’s going to have to call. And since I’m out and about with Anna, and you’re on vacation . . .”

I held up my hands. “I’d be glad to take care of it,” I said. “I’ll start tomorrow.”

“Do you know where the address book is?”

This is the type of question with which I’ve become quite familiar over the years. Jane has long believed that I have a natural inability to find certain items within our home. She also believes that while I misplace objects occasionally, I have assigned her the responsibility of knowing exactly where it is I might have misplaced them. Neither of these things, I might add, is completely my fault. While it’s true that I don’t know where every item in the house is located, this has more to do with different filing systems than any ineptitude on my part. My wife, for instance, believes the flashlight logically belongs in one of the kitchen drawers, while my reasoning tells me it should be in the pantry where we keep the washer and dryer. As a result, it shifts from one location to the next, and because I work outside the home, it’s impossible for me to keep up with such things. If I set my car keys on the counter, for instance, my instincts tell me they will still be there when I go to look for them, while Jane automatically believes that I will look for them on the bulletin board near the door. As to the location of the address book, it was plain to me that it was in the drawer by the phone. That’s where I put it the last time I used it, and I was just about to say this when Jane spoke up.

“It’s on the shelf next to the cookbooks.”

I looked at her.

“Of course it is,” I agreed.

The easy mood between us lasted until we finished dinner and began to clear the table.

Then, slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the quick banter between us gave way to more stilted conversation, punctuated by longer pauses. By the time we’d started to clean the kitchen, we had retreated into a familiar dialogue, in which the most animated sound came not from either of us, but from the scraping of plates in the kitchen.

I can’t explain why this happened, other than to say that we’d run out of things to say to each other. She asked about Noah a second time, and I repeated what I’d said previously. A minute later, she started speaking of the photographer again, but halfway through her story, she stopped herself, knowing she’d already recounted that as well. Because neither of us had spoken to Joseph or Leslie, there was no news on those fronts, either. And as for work, because