Glancing back, she saw Shohei blowing air into Dan. They broke into the sun and neared a coast guard vessel.
She picked up the radio. 'Coast guard, we've got a wounded man. He's dying,' she cried out, choking, nearly hysterical.
'This is the United States Coast Guard. We have a helicopter and a lifeboat coming your way.'
Dan could feel the joy when he saw Maria bending over him. With a tired grin he looked into her eyes. Then, in a twinkling, he felt a terrible sting in his shoulder. His face burned. Where did Maria go?
A white light, a wave of foreboding.
'Dear God, dear God!'
He heard Maria's voice through the white light. Something utterly serious, he knew. Then the light grew warm. People gathering around, and in his ear, Maria's voice. 'Don't die, Dan Young, don't die.' He could see so many things. Tess and her calm smile. Maria in court, standing on the counsel table. Nathaniel.
'Daddy, Daddy' cried Nathaniel's voice.
He was in a glass-topped casket. Tess lay beside him now. People with red roses were standing all around. There was a man wearing vestments and holding a small black book. Those standing around began tossing the roses as they were lowered to the place where they would stay for a night.
Maria waited in a large anteroom of the St. Joseph's Episcopal Church. It wasn't a place in which she felt familiar. She had mostly forgotten her childhood experience of its customs and rituals. The woodwork was dark mahogany, very fine, the design Tudor. Two large windows allowed sunlight through head-high half-curtains. In the corner were large bouquets that had not yet been put out. For a moment the world had left her alone. Looking through the window, she saw a hearse drive up. Dan's brother got out. Tears flooded her eyes. Soon it would be time. She had to pull herself together. Any minute her mother would come.
As if the thought summoned the person, there was a knock.
'Come in,' Maria said.
'We need to get you ready,' Laura Fischer said.
'I know.'
Mrs. Fischer removed the wedding dress from its stand and Maria slipped off her robe.
'I'd love to know what you were thinking.' Her mother began helping her into the dress. It was a Vera Wang and very expensive. It embarrassed Maria. There would be people dressed in army boots at her wedding as well as people in designer originals.
'Do you see the hearse out front? The one covered with 'Just Married'?' Maria asked.
'Hearse?' Laura Fischer walked to the window and peered out.
'I've heard of practical jokes on your wedding day, but this is more interesting than most.'
'It's a very special message.' Maria pointed to several pages on a window seat. 'That's the homily the priest is giving during the ceremony. It explains the hearse. Dan sent Nate with the homily. Nate confidentially advised me that his father was worried I might look out the window and not understand.'
'Nate was in here?'
'He's the son of the groom. That doesn't count.'
Laura finished the last button while Maria went to the vanity to inspect her makeup.
'I'm not really a makeup person. But my cowboy grew up looking at teenyboppers in Maupin with makeup. Tess wore makeup. Do you think I'm giving away too much of my own identity?'
'Oh yes. Shaving under your arms and a little blush will no doubt twist your soul, dear.'
'Ever since Dan Young started looking at me in the courthouse, I started changing what I wore, my hair, then lipstick. Jeez, why couldn't I just stay myself?'
'This would certainly explain it,' Laura said, reading the homily. 'It's really one of the most touching things I've ever read. You're going off in a hearse because he's dying to every love but yours. There won't be a dry eye in the place. It's so un-macho of Dan.'
'There's more to macho Dan than meets the eye.'
'Apparently,' Laura said. 'Let's do the veil.'
'We're ahead of schedule.'
There was a knock.
'That'll be the bridesmaids ready to go.'
''I don't understand how I can wear a veil. The symbolism is so outmoded.''
'The hearse is for you, honey; the wedding is for the rest of us. Wear the veil. I think your father has invited everyone he ever met, and then some.'
'He's gloating. But he doesn't really know what I've reeled in here. He hasn't completely won.'
Laura sighed a deep sigh.
'Mom, I love you. And you know what I'm going to whisper in Dad's ear when he gives me away?'
'What, dear?'
'I'm going to try to fix us. I'm going to tell him I want to sit in his den and watch football again.'
'Oh dear. He'll cry in front of his friends.'
Dan was in the pastor's conference room, which was also a kind of theological library. He stared in the mirror; everything seemed in order. Turning to Nate, he stooped down to help him with the cummerbund on his tuxedo.
'Dad?' Nate said.
'Mm-hmm.'
'I still miss Mom.'
'I do too. Always will.'
'Maria says she can't be my new mom because Mom is still my mom.'
'That's right.'
'But she says she's going to be like my godmother. She's there to remind me what Mom would want, and to stand in at parties and games and stuff and remind me that Mom's proud of me. And she says she loves me like a mom. Is that right?'
'That's right.'
'Do you think Mom knows?'
'She knew we loved her, Nate.'
Dan was fluffing the large salmon fly in his hat.
'Does Maria know we love her?'
'I believe she does. Wouldn't hurt to tell her, though.'
'You're not gonna wear your hat, are you, Dad?'
Dan looked down and smiled mysteriously.
'Dad, I don't think they allow cowboy hats with tuxedos.'
'It's livin' at the edge, son.'
Dan watched Nate screw up his face in disdainful puzzlement.
'I'm just kidding, Nate. There are times when a man can leave his hat behind.'
