to turbulent, unbearable emotion.
Noni exhaled. She shook her head and grimaced and wiped her eyes. “Well, at least you’re not pregnant,” she said with a laugh. And then, anxiously: “You’re not pregnant, are you?”
Caroline giggled and shook her head no. “Well, congratulations, then,” Noni said. “This is … exciting!” And with that we all breathed once again.
“Congratulations!” I said. “What a surprise!” I hugged Caroline and stepped back to examine her. She didn’t look any different. I almost expected the weight of this event to show on her face, alter the light in her eyes. But no, the same limpid blue, the same pale smattering of freckles. Only Nathan seemed physically altered: he stood straighter, it seemed to me, shoulders more square. The responsibility perhaps weighed on him, or maybe it simply made him proud. Husband. Wife. Despite our mother’s lessons, or maybe because of them, I believed secretly and fervently in the heady promises of love. I believed it would mark us all in some irreversible, wonderful way. Even me someday.
And then, before I knew it, Renee and Joe were in the car, the sun falling in long lines through the low branches, Noni calling out last-minute driving directions, and Renee nodding and yelling out the window, “Don’t worry!”
“We’ll see you next week!” Noni called. In a few days, when Noni could take time off work, she and I would drive to Boston for the end of Joe’s orientation week. Then I would see his drafty dorm room, Alden’s emerald quad and sparkling baseball field, and meet a few of the boys who would become his teammates and fraternity brothers, his best friends. They all seemed cut from a mold: strong-boned, clear-eyed, with shockingly good posture. Joe looked like them. He fit in, I thought then; he had found his natural place. We would meet Joe’s coach—a tall blond man with dazzling teeth who spoke very fast and made me long for Coach Marty—and eat tepid pasta in the cavernous freshman dining hall. Throughout, Joe would usher us from one event to the next, building to building, with a sort of good-natured bafflement, as though he were as surprised as anyone to find himself here, amid the ivy-covered walls and straight-A students.
As Renee carefully released the parking brake and eased away from the house, I saw Joe freeze: a thin smile, a hand in mid-wave, a length of tan, strong arm.
“Good luck!” I called. This seemed the right thing to say, although I considered Joe already the luckiest, the most charmed. It seemed inevitable that all he wanted would line up before him like the balls that long ago Ace would pitch, pulling them one by one from his bulging pockets as we watched breathless from the stands.
Crack, crack, crack, crack!
Each hit was followed by a startling, whole silence as we watched the ball travel up into air and then breathlessly down, down, down, until it would land with a final dull thump in the grassy field.
THE LIGHTS IN the auditorium flickered once, then again. The microphone cut out and I stopped speaking. Henry, dear Henry, stood up from the front row and made his way onstage. He was only eighty-four, but his knees were bad from riding horses all those years, and so he limped a bit, winced as he climbed the steps. There was an empty chair beside me, vacated hastily by the venue organizer, and Henry took it and then took hold of my hand and brought it to his lips. In the second row, a young man and woman watched us. She had vivid red hair, the color of a flag, and the man’s arm circled her shoulders. Her hair fell across his chest. They, too, were holding hands. Entwined, I thought. Knotted, woven, linked.
And that was the moment the room plunged into darkness. I felt the pressure of Henry’s palm. There was one short, sharp scream from the balcony, but otherwise the crowd remained calm. No rush for the exits, no hysteria. This kind of thing happened too frequently now for it to rouse much of a panic. Still, I felt the heightened tension in the room. The shallow breathing, hands squeezing hands, sweat rising on palms, eyes staring into nothing. Whispers of confusion and comfort.
We waited in darkness for one minute, three, five. My thoughts turned to Luna, the young Luna here in the room and the other Luna out there somewhere. Was that Luna still alive? Did she ever wonder about me, too? Did she wear a diamond ring on her finger? On a chain around her neck? Or was it hidden away in a drawer, unworn and forgotten?
My eyes adjusted. A few exit signs glowed orange. The greenish hue of screens flickered like fireflies on a summer night. I remembered the security check: DEVICES STRICTLY FORBIDDEN INSIDE THE AUDITORIUM! But of course there are always people who will find a way to break the rules.
“The whole city is out!” one woman declared, reading from a bright light.
This information provoked more agitation, groans, and some hurried, hushed conversations. Who cares if the city is out? I thought. Perhaps it was one of those megastorms, or a tremor deep underground, or a hurricane off the coast of Borneo. The news exhausted me. The news bored me. What did it matter? Here we sat, the proverbial ducks. We might as well just reach for the chocolate candy in our pockets, hold the hand of the one we love best, and smile.
Backstage I heard the rustle and hurried footfalls of venue staff doing their best to turn the lights on again.
“We’ve got it,” a voice called, “the generator.” There was the thump of a heavy lever being pulled and dim yellow lights emerged along the base of the walls and along the rows between seats.
Suddenly the space was transformed. It was no longer dark and menacing, nor was it a grand auditorium divided between stage and audience. It was now simply a room, a large, cozy room with an arched ceiling and many, many chairs. Oh, this is something, I thought. Now we can have a proper chat. Now we can get down to the things that matter.
The young woman Luna had been perched on a folding chair. Now she again stood. She tapped the microphone gently, but it was dead, of course, and so she called out, “Ms. Skinner?”
I felt a surge of great affection for her, irrational in its intensity. That mole, high on her right cheek. I struggled to recall the other Luna, the Luna from a lifetime ago.
“Yes, dear,” I said. “Please go ahead.” I wanted to scoop her up and protect her, to ferry her out of here and back to my house in the woods with its fence and bunker and generator and fresh-spring well. There I might convince myself that we were safe.
“When did the unraveling begin?” Luna asked.
“The unraveling?” I repeated.
“You said this was a story about the failures of love,” said Luna, her tone accusatory. “That’s what you said.”
“Yes. I did say that.”
“You repeat the word unraveling several times in The Love Poem. You said there was happiness in your family, and then—” Luna did not finish the sentence. She left the question hanging over me, over us all.
“And then,” I repeated. I cleared my throat. I glanced at Henry, and he winked, nodded for me to continue. If there is one thing I have succeeded at in life, I thought then, it’s choosing husbands.
When did Joe’s unraveling begin? I considered
