Look at me, Ann thought. My son is getting married. I am the last to be seated. Look at me, goddamn it.
But no, nothing. Helen was determined to act as though Ann wasn’t even present on Nantucket this weekend. To Helen, Ann might have been a complete stranger.
Ann kissed Ryan—beautiful, elegant Ryan, whose attention she never needed to seek—and sat next to Jim, who reached instantly for her hand. By the time Ann had left the groomsmen’s house and made it back to the hotel, Jim was in the room. He had spent the night sleeping in the rental car, he said, and he had the backache to prove it. He had just emerged from the shower when Ann walked in, and his lower half was wrapped in a white towel. Ann had never been able to resist him in a towel or otherwise, and so she had jumped into his arms and he held her as though they’d been separated for twelve years instead of twelve hours. They said nothing, there was no reason to speak when they could read each other’s minds: he was sorry, she was sorry, they had been drinking, it was an emotionally charged situation and they had to deal with it as best they could. He kissed her and slid his hands up her very cute red gingham skirt and she kicked off the painful Jack Rogers sandals and they made love on the grand expanse of their hotel bed, despite his aching back.
It was as Ann was getting dressed that Jim handed her the long, slim box from Hamilton Hill jewelers.
“What is this?” she said.
“Open it,” he said. “It’s your son’s wedding day. You did such a good job with him, Annie, even when I wasn’t around…”
“Hush,” Ann said. “We did a good job with him.”
“Open it,” Jim said.
Ann opened the box, her heart knocking. If the box was from Hamilton Hill, Jim had bought this at home, planning all the while to give it to her today. And she had kicked him out!
It was a strand of pearls—a choker, which was her preferred length. And it had a sparkling diamond rondelle. Ann gasped as she fingered it.
“Do you recognize the stone?” he said.
She thought for a moment that it might be the stone from her grandmother’s ring, the one Crissy Pine had walked off with. Had Jim contacted Thaddeus Pine again and brokered a deal to get the diamond back? But when she looked more closely, she realized it was the diamond from her engagement ring. Her first engagement ring.
“Full circle,” Jim said. “I love you, Ann.”
It had been a romantic moment, more romantic by far than the day Ann had walked down the aisle to Jim thirty-three years earlier. It was more romantic because they had fought for each other, and they had survived.
THE NOTEBOOK, PAGE 30
The Registry, Part II: The Dining Room
I am finding that dying has its advantages. The biggest advantage is that everything is put into perspective. When you were twelve years old in seventh grade, you brought home a sign that you wrote in calligraphy that said, “Only Family Matters.��� Your father and I were struck by this lovely sentiment, and I insisted your father take the sign to his office, which he did. He’s told me he looks at the sign each day and that even as he works dismantling other families, he gives thanks for ours, crazy and imperfect though it may be.
I am here now to tell you that you were wrong. Family is not the only thing that matters. There are other things: Pachelbel’s Canon in D matters, and fresh-picked corn on the cob, and true friends, and the sound of the ocean, and the poems of William Carlos Williams, and the constellations in the sky, and random acts of kindness, and a garden on the day when all its flowers are at their peak. Fluffy pancakes matter and crisp clean sheets and the guitar riff in “Layla,” and the way clouds look when you are above them in an airplane. Preserving the coral reef matters, and the thirty-four paintings of Johannes Vermeer matter, and kissing matters.
Whether or not you register for china, crystal, and silver does not matter. Whether or not you have a full set of Tiffany dessert forks on Thanksgiving does not matter. If you want to register for these things, by all means, go ahead. My Waterford pattern is Lismore, one of the oldest. I do remember one time when I had a harrowing day at the hospital, and Nick had a Rube Goldberg project due and needed my help, and Kevin was playing Quiet Riot at top decibel in his bedroom, and Margot was tying up the house phone, and you had been plunked by the babysitter in front of the TV for five hours, and I came home and took one of my Lismore goblets out of the cabinet. I wanted to smash it against the wall. But instead I filled it with cold white wine and for ten or so minutes I sat in the quiet of the formal living room all by myself and I drank the cold wine out of that beautiful glass crafted by some lovely Irishman, and I felt better.