Evan Hunter - Sons

Clara, Nancy’s older sister and her maid-of-honor, came through the doors radiantly happy in a pale blue gown, yellow roses crushed in a bouquet against her bosom, dear Clara who had written to me of her sister’s illness during those dread weeks so many centuries ago, I must have loved Nancy very much then, I cried for days when I thought I might lose her.

Oh Jesus God, I love her now, too, with all my being! I love her desperately, I would kill any man who touched her, who even dreamt of touching her. I pledge to you, Nancy, my life, my troth, my undying devotion, I love you, Nancy, I will never stop loving you!

Or perhaps an automobile agency on the Avenue Neuilly, strictly American cars, bring the old Ford over there, put the nation on wheels. Ah, oui, madame, you may well ask who that strikingly

handsome American is! He is Bertram A. Tyler, he is the man who brought the Ford automobile to France, ah, oui, and put the nation on wheels. (Has someone already brought the Ford automobile over there and put the nation on wheels?) I’ll drive him out of business, I’ll fluently make speeches in the Bois de Bologne, I will stand on the equivalent of a French soapbox, make speeches the way the Bolsheviks are doing here in America, only I will extol the merits of buying a Ford automobile from the Bertram A. Tyler Agency on the Avenue Neuilly, where the owner himself, the proprietor, the boss, mesdames et messieurs, speaks fluent French, why even colloquial French, and where you will get the squarest little deal on the continent, bar none, buy your car from me, my friends, make me rich, I want to be a rich American bum, I want to gamble the night away at Monte Carlo, and dance the waltz in the grand ballroom of the Alhambra in Cimiez, and take my yacht to Cannes, I want to be Bertram A. Tyler, the notorious American bachelor tycoon, bachelor, do you hear? I don’t want to get married, not today, not any day, not ever, ever, ever!

She came through the doors on her father’s arm.

My heart stopped.

Her hand rested ever so delicately on the sleeve of his black coat, her eyes behind the veil were downcast as though she were carefully watching the toes of her white slippers, the white lace gown seeming to float of its own slow volition down the church aisle, suspended around her tiny figure as she came closer to me and the organ notes floated from the loft in fat and mellow accompaniment, my Nancy’s triumphal music. She was beside me now, standing on my left, the minister before us, her father having stepped back and away, symbolically mine already though her father had not yet given her in marriage, not really mine as yet because the words had not been spoken. “Dearly beloved,” Reverend Boland said, “we are gathered together here in the sight of God,” perhaps not even mine after the words were spoken, perhaps not to be mine for a long long time to come, “to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is an honorable estate.” We were both so very young, I felt our exposed youth glaringly out of place in this old people’s church, they who knew so very much, but who watched this ancient ritual in silence now, saying nothing, eyes wet, watching, “not to be entered into unadvisedly, but reverently, discreetly, and in the fear of God. Into this holy estate these two persons come now to be joined,” Nancy’s eyes still downcast behind the veil, I wanted to see her eyes, I wanted to read what was in her eyes, did she want this marriage any more than I did?

I thought of a forest at dusk and the lone barking of a dog against the approaching night, the laughter of a lumberjack booming from the bunkhouse, “or if there be any present who can show just cause why these parties should not be legally joined together, let him now speak or forever hold his peace.”

I wanted to say Yes, I can show very just and reasonable cause why we should not be joined. I hardly know this girl. I’ve known her forever, but I don’t know her at all, why are you all rushing us into this? Why are you insisting that I become a man when I’m still not done being a boy, a father when I want to remain a son? Stop them, somebody, I thought, stop them! Papa, tell them I’m still your son, tell them there are still a boy’s worlds to conquer, there are still hoptoads to catch.

“Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?” Reverend Boland asked, and Nancy’s father said, “I do,” gruflly, his two seconds on stage after eighteen years and one month of caring for his Nancy, feeding her, clothing her, loving her, all finished in the two words, “I do,” I give her to be married to this man, I do, his chance to stop it gone, wasn’t anyone going to stop it? Reverend Boland put Nancy’s right hand into my own right hand, and suddenly looked very solemn and frightening.

“Bertram Alfred Tyler...”

(My secret gone, he had given away my secret, he had given me one less thing to confide to Nancy, to bind her to me in the night.)

“Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife, to live together in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all other keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”

“I will,” I said.

“Nancy Ellen Clark, wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband, to live together in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love him, honor and obey him, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all other keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”

“I will,” Nancy said.

“The ring,” Reverend Boland whispered.

The ring was in my hand, Danny Talbot immediately pressed the ring into my hand. Reverend Boland again said, “The ring,” and gently pried the golden circle loose from my fingers, and said, “The wedding ring is the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual bond which unites two loyal hearts in endless love,” and then gave me the ring again. I took Nancy’s left hand in my own, and repeated what I had learned at yesterday’s rehearsal, “In token of the pledge of the vow made between us, with this ring I thee wed,” and quickly slipped the ring onto her finger.

Reverend Boland stood still and tall and majestic for a moment, a pleased awed smile on his face, as though he had been privileged to witness a miracle. Then, as I stood before him with Nancy’s trembling hand in my own, he intoned in a rich and solemn and echoing voice the words we were in this church to hear, the words that had taken less than ten minutes (I had met her in the summer of 1915!) to reach, “Forasmuch as Bertram Alfred Tyler and Nancy Ellen Clark (it was still not too late, I could bolt for the doors at the rear of the church, run west for California and the Pacific Ocean) have consented together in holy wedlock, and have witnessed the same before God and this company (get a boat to Hong Kong, become a rich silk merchant there, wear a little black hat on my head) and have declared the same by joining hands (and have a dozen concubines, Lotus Blossom, Peach Tree Honey) and by giving and receiving a ring (it’s not too late, I thought, run, I thought, run!) I pronounce that they are husband and wife together, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Reverend Boland paused and raised his face heavenward. “Those whom God hath joined together,” he said, “let not man put asunder.” He paused again. He looked at us both. “Amen,” he said.

Nancy lifted her head and her eyes and her veil, and I brushed my lips against hers, embarrassed to be kissing her here in public, even though she was my wife now, my wife! And I said, not knowing if I meant it, “I love you, Nancy,” and she tilted her head to one side and, eyes glistening, said, “Pardon?” and I knew that I had meant it.