The Age of Hope Read Online Free PDF Page B

wedding dress so that it didn’t drag across the hardwood, and she moved dreamily around the room to the tune of “Hey, Ho, My Honey.” She had removed her veil and now everyone could see her eyes, which sparkled. The guests thought that she was beautiful and happy.
    They spent their first night in the small house that Roy had bought three months earlier in preparation for their life together. During the night she woke and wandered through the house, touching the things she now owned: the new fridge, the Kenmore stove, the matching couch and chairs, the dining room set made of oak, the flatware, a sixteen-place setting of silver given to them by Frida’s parents, teacups, the Mixmaster, the brand new towels and napkins stacked on the kitchen table, and more teacups. She felt guilty and imagined offering her mother the gift of the Mixmaster, though she knew she would refuse. While Hope was making love to Roy for the first time several hours earlier, her mind kept slipping away to the trove of treasures that surrounded her in this new place, and in this too she had felt guilty, aware that she should be enjoying the moment. Not that she hadn’t found pleasure in Roy. She had. Though perhaps his pleasure had been greater. He had been in awe, struck by the gift before him, which was Hope. She had assuaged his nervousness with lighthearted humour and comforting words, and had been surprised by her own lack of nervousness and by the sense that she was in control. When she had completed the tour of the house and touched all of her things, she went back to bed and Roy woke and reached for her again. This time the lovemaking was less anxious, and slower.
    In the morning she and Roy drove up to Lake of the Woods, where Roy had rented a cottage for the week. Because Roy was just starting out in his father’s business and didn’t have a lot of money, he expected that Hope would use the small kitchen in the cottage to cook the meals during their stay. She made toast for breakfast the first day and warmed up tomato soup from a can for lunch. She had no plans for dinner. She imagined that if she were Mennonite, or if she had grown up Mennonite like Roy’s mother, and had some training in the ways of the kitchen, then she would have created a lovely roast beef dinner and baked zwieback and perhaps even made a soup from scratch. As it was, she stood in the kitchen, surveyed the mismatched cups and plates, and sighed and asked, “How about toast again?” The next day, she announced that she was ready to eat a restaurant meal. Enough was enough. This was their honeymoon. She said that she had to save her energy for other things. She smiled at her husband, who looked away in sheepish agreement.
    That evening, she wore her taffeta dress and high heels and she put on makeup. Roy wore his wedding suit. They found a restaurant that served chicken and mashed potatoes and salad and a brownie for dessert. It pleased her to watch her husband eat, just as it pleased her to catch him unawares in the bathroom brushing his teeth or shaving, leaning into the mirror as he ran his free hand over his jaw, his shoulder blades moving beneath his undershirt. He finished a second brownie and then talked about his twenty-year plan: children, a bigger house, buying his father’s business. She listened and smiled and nodded. She said she wanted at least three children. “Children should outnumber their parents, don’t you think?”
    It rained most of the week and they spent their time inside the little cottage, playing board games and reading magazines and falling into bed in the middle of the afternoon. On the second-last day the sun finally appeared and Roy rented a boat from the marina, a sixteen-footer with a thirty-horse Evinrude. Hope wore a yellow slicker and green rubber boots and she made a little lunch of leftover chicken and canned fruit cocktail and water in a sealer jar. Roy had borrowed two fishing rods and a tackle box, and so they trolled