The Wedding

Warner Books

Chapter One

Yet the more I thought about it, the more I sensed not only herdispleasure in an absentminded spouse, but the traces of an oldermelancholy-as if my lapse were simply the final blow in a long, longseries of careless missteps.

Had the marriage turned out to be a disappointment for Jane? ThoughI didn't want to think so, her expression had answered otherwise,and I found myself wondering what that meant for us in the future.Was she questioning whether or not to stay with me? Was she pleasedwith her decision to have married me in the first place? These, Imust add, were frightening questions to consider-with answers thatwere possibly even more frightening-for until that moment, I'dalways assumed that Jane was as content with me as I'd always beenwith her.

What, I wondered, had led us to feel so differently about eachother?

I suppose I must begin by saying that many people would consider ourlives fairly ordinary. Like many men, I had the obligation tosupport the family financially, and my life was largely centeredaround my career. For the past thirty years, I've worked with thelaw firm of Ambry, Saxon and Tundle in New Bern, North Carolina, andmy income-while not extravagant-was enough to place us firmly in theupper middle class. I enjoy golfing and gardening on the weekends,prefer classical music, and read the newspaper every morning. ThoughJane was once an elementary school teacher, she spent the majorityof our married life raising three children. She ran both thehousehold and our social life, and her proudest possessions are thephoto albums that she carefully assembled as a visual history of ourlives. Our brick home is complete with a picket fence and automaticsprinklers, we own two cars, and we are members of both the RotaryClub and the Chamber of Commerce. In the course of our married life,we've saved for retirement, built a wooden swing set in the backyardthat now sits unused, attended dozens of parent-teacher conferences,voted regularly, and contributed to the Episcopal church each andevery Sunday. At fifty-six, I'm three years older than my wife.

Despite my feelings for Jane, I sometimes think we're an unlikelypair to have spent a life together. We're different in almost everyway, and though opposites can and do attract, I've always felt thatI made the better choice on our wedding day. Jane is, after all, thekind of person I always wished to be. While I tend toward stoicismand logic, Jane is outgoing and kind, with a natural empathy thatendears her to others. She laughs easily and has a wide circle offriends. Over the years, I've come to realize that most of myfriends are, in fact, the husbands of my wife's friends, but Ibelieve this is common for most married couples our age. Yet I'mfortunate in that Jane has always seemed to choose our friends withme in mind, and I'm appreciative that there's always someone for meto visit with at a dinner party. Had she not come into my life, Isometimes think that I would have led the life of a monk.

There's more, too: I'm charmed by the fact that Jane has alwaysdisplayed her emotions with childlike ease. When she's sad shecries; when she's happy she laughs; and she enjoys nothing more thanto be surprised with a wonderful gesture. In those moments, there'san ageless innocence about her, and though a surprise by definitionis unexpected, for Jane, the memories of a surprise can arouse thesame excited feelings for years afterward. Sometimes when she'sdaydreaming, I'll ask her what she's thinking about and she'llsuddenly begin speaking in giddy tones about something I've longforgotten. This, I must say, has never ceased to amaze me.

While Jane has been blessed with the most tender of hearts, in manyways she's stronger than I am. Her values and beliefs, like those ofmost southern women, are grounded by God and family; she views theworld through a prism of black and white, right and wrong. For Jane,hard decisions are reached instinctively-and are almost alwayscorrect-while I, on the other hand, find myself weighing endlessoptions and frequently second-guessing myself. And unlike me, mywife is seldom self-conscious. This lack of concern about otherpeople's perceptions requires a confidence that I've always foundelusive, and above all else, I envy this about her.

I suppose that some of our differences stem from our respectiveupbringings. While Jane was raised in a small town with threesiblings and parents who adored her, I was raised in a town house inWashington, D.C., as the only child of government lawyers, and myparents were seldom home before seven o'clock in the evening. As aresult, I spent much of my free time alone, and to this day, I'mmost comfortable in the privacy of my den.

As I've already mentioned, we have three children, and though I lovethem dearly, they are for the most part the products of my wife. Shebore them and raised them, and they are most comfortable with her.While I sometimes regret that I didn't spend as much time with themas I should have, I'm comforted by the thought that Jane more thanmade up for my absences. Our children, it seems, have turned outwell despite me. They're grown now and living on their own, but weconsider ourselves fortunate that only one has moved out of state.Our two daughters still visit us frequently, and my wife is carefulto have their favorite foods in the refrigerator in case they'rehungry, which they never seem to be. When they come, they talk withJane for hours.

At twenty-seven, Anna is the oldest. With black hair and dark eyes,her looks reflected her saturnine personality growing up. She was abrooder who spent her teenage years locked in her room, listening togloomy music and writing in a diary. She was a stranger to me backthen; days might pass before she would say a single word in mypresence, and I was at a loss to understand what I might have doneto provoke this. Everything I said seemed to elicit only sighs orshakes of her head, and if I asked if anything was bothering her,she would stare at me as if the question were incomprehensible. Mywife seemed to find nothing unusual in this, dismissing it as aphase typical of young girls, but then again, Anna still talked toher. Sometimes I'd pass by Anna's room and hear Anna and Janewhispering to each other; but if they heard me outside the door, thewhispering would stop. Later, when I would ask Jane what they'd beendiscussing, she'd shrug and wave a hand mysteriously, as if theironly goal were to keep me in the dark.

Yet because she was my firstborn, Anna has always been my favorite.This isn't an admission I would make to anyone, but I think sheknows it as well, and lately I've come to believe that even in hersilent years, she was fonder of me than I realized. I can stillremember times when I'd be perusing trusts or wills in my den, andshe'd slip through the door. She'd pace around the room, scanningthe bookshelves and reaching for various items, but if I addressedher, she'd slip back out as quietly as she'd come in. Over time, Ilearned not to say anything, and she'd sometimes linger in theoffice for an hour, watching me as I scribbled on yellow legaltablets. If I glanced toward her, she'd smile complicitly, enjoyingthis game of ours. I have no more understanding of it now than I didback then, but it's ingrained in my memory as few images are.

Currently, Anna is working for the Raleigh News and Observer, but Ithink she has dreams of becoming a novelist. In college she majoredin creative writing, and the stories she wrote were as dark as herpersonality. I recall reading one in which a young girl becomes aprostitute to care for her sick father, a man who'd once molestedher. When I set the pages down, I wondered what I was supposed tomake of such a thing.

She is also madly in love. Anna, always careful and deliberate inher choices, was highly selective when it came to men, andthankfully Keith has always struck me as someone who treats herwell. He intends to be an orthopedist and carries himself with aconfidence that comes only to those who've faced few setbacks inlife. I learned through Jane that for their first date Keith tookAnna kite flying on the beach near Fort Macon. Later that week, whenAnna brought him by the house, Keith came dressed in a sports coat,freshly showered and smelling faintly of cologne. As we shook hands,he held my gaze and impressed me by saying, "It's a pleasure to meetyou, Mr. Lewis."

Joseph, our second-born, is a year younger than Anna. He's alwayscalled me "Pop," though no one else in our family has ever used thatterm, and again, we have little in common. He's taller and thinnerthan I, wears jeans to most social functions, and when he visits atThanksgiving or Christmas, he eats only vegetables. While he wasgrowing up, I thought him quiet, yet his reticence, like Anna's,seemed directed at me in particular. Others often remarked on hissense of humor, though to be honest, I seldom saw it. Whenever wespent time together, I often felt as if he were trying to form animpression of me.

Like Jane, he was empathetic even as a child. He chewed hisfingernails worrying about others, and they've been nothing but nubssince he was five years old. Needless to say, when I suggested thathe consider majoring in business or economics, he ignored my adviceand chose sociology. He now works for a battered women's shelter inNew York City, though he tells us nothing more about his job. I knowhe wonders about the choices I've made in my life, just as I wonderabout his, yet despite our differences, it's with Joseph that I havethe conversations that I always wished to have with my children whenI held them as infants. He is highly intelligent; he received a nearperfect score on his SATs, and his interests span the spectrum fromthe history of Middle Eastern dhimmitude to theoretical applicationsof fractal geometry. He is also honest-sometimes painfully so-andit goes without saying that these aspects of his personality leaveme at a disadvantage when it comes to debating him. Though Isometimes grow frustrated at his stubbornness, it's during suchmoments that I'm especially proud to call him my son.

Leslie, the baby of our family, is currently studying biology andphysiology at Wake Forest with the intention of becoming aveterinarian. Instead of coming home during the summers like moststudents, she takes additional classes with the intention ofgraduating early and spends her afternoons working at a place calledAnimal Farm. Of all our children, she is the most gregarious, andher laughter sounds the same as Jane's. Like Anna, she liked tovisit me in my den, though she was happiest when I gave her my fullattention. As a youngster, she liked to sit in my lap and pull on myears; as she grew older, she liked to wander in and share funnyjokes. My shelves are covered with the gifts she made me growing up:plaster casts of her hand-prints, drawings in crayon, a necklacemade from macaroni.

She was the easiest to love, the first in line for hugs or kissesfrom the grandparents, and she took great pleasure in curling up onthe couch and watching romantic movies. I was not surprised when shewas named the homecoming queen at her high school three years ago.

She is kind as well. Everyone in her class was always invited to herbirthday parties for fear of hurting someone's feelings, and whenshe was nine, she once spent an afternoon walking from towel totowel at the beach because she'd found a discarded watch in the surfand wanted to return it to its owner. Of all my children, she hasalways caused me the least worry, and when she comes to visit, Idrop whatever I'm doing to spend time with her. Her energy isinfectious, and when we're together, I wonder how it is I could havebeen so blessed.

Now that they've all moved out, our home has changed. Where musiconce blared, there is nothing but stillness; while our pantry onceshelved eight different types of sugared cereal, there is now asingle brand that promises extra fiber. The furniture hasn't changedin the bedrooms where our children slept, but because the postersand bulletin boards have been taken down-as well as all otherreminders of their personalities-there is nothing to differentiateone room from the next. But it was the emptiness of the house thatseemed to dominate now; while our home was perfect for a family offive, it suddenly struck me as a cavernous reminder of the waythings ought to be. I remember hoping that this change in thehousehold had something to do with the way Jane was feeling.

Still, regardless of the reason, I couldn't deny that we weredrifting apart, and the more I thought about it, the more I noticedhow wide the gap between us had become.

We'd started out as a couple and been changed into parents-something I had always viewed as normal and inevitable-but aftertwenty-nine years, it was as if we'd become strangers again. Onlyhabit seemed to be keeping us together. Our lives had little incommon; we rose at different hours, spent our days in differentplaces, and followed our own routines in the evenings. I knew littleof her daily activities and admitted to keeping parts of mine secretas well. I couldn't recall the last time Jane and I had talked aboutanything unexpected.

Two weeks after the forgotten anniversary, however, Jane and I didjust that. "Wilson," she said, "we have to talk."

I looked up at her. A bottle of wine stood on the table between us,our meal nearly finished. "Yes?"

"I was thinking," she said, "of heading up to New York to spend sometime with Joseph." "Won't he be here for the holidays?" "That's notfor a couple of months. And since he didn't make it home thissummer, I thought it might be nice to visit him for a change."

In the back of my mind, I noted that it might do us some good as acouple to get away for a few days. Perhaps that had even been thereason for Jane's suggestion, and with a smile, I reached for mywineglass. "That's a good idea," I agreed. "We haven't been to NewYork since he first moved there."

Jane smiled briefly before lowering her gaze to her plate. "There'ssomething else, too." "Yes?"

"Well, it's just that you're pretty busy at work, and I know howhard it is for you to get away." "I think I can clear up my schedulefor a few days," I said, already mentally leafing through my workcalendar. It would be tough, but I could do it. "When did you wantto go?" "Well, that's the thing ...," she said.

"What's the thing?"

"Wilson, please let me finish," she said. She drew a long breath,not bothering to hide the weariness in her tone.

Continues...
Excerpted from The Weddingby Nicholas Sparks Copyright ©2003 by Nicholas Sparks. Excerpted by permission.
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