Unending Nora

Chapter 10

Julie Shigekuni 71 Chapter 10 Theweddingwould be a large affair, maybe three hundred people packed into hard-back pews in hundred-degree weather. Seated at the rear of the church, Elinore scrutinized the backs of heads recalling human genetics and biology lectures she’d sat through in graduate school. An examination of alleles would indicate an increased risk of multiple sclerosis. On the other hand, the occurrence of sickle cell anemia would be non-existent. She wondered how many present still bore traces of their Mongolian birthmarks, and in what shapes. The black hair, common to everyone in the room, suggested a set of phenotypes that carried genetic predispositions, but her musing was, she knew, a way to ward off the uncomfortable feeling that had come over her upon entering the church. At a quarter past six, the ceremony had still not begun and the waiting felt interminable. As if Elinore and her mother had made some miscalculation by showing up on time, guests continued to make their way down the aisle, one middle-aged woman stopping her bent-armed escort to chat with Hideko, then greeting Elinore and Naoko loudly by name. “Is your friend deaf?” Elinore whispered to her mother afterward , unable to think of the question she should have asked instead, like who this stranger was. But relief settled over the restless audience as soon as the organ music began. Conversations turned to inaudible murmurs and attention focused on the aisle Unending Nora 72 where the wedding party, followed by the veiled bride, made its way to the front of the church. Naoko, perhaps feeling a tremor on her mother’s lap, turned her face up to Elinore’s and wiped at a stray tear with her finger. “Watch the bride, baby.” Elinore gently pushed the toddler’s cheek away. “This is a special moment you don’t want to miss. Isn’t she beautiful?” “Booo-tifool,” Naoko pointed. Elinore was glad that her two-year-old’s attention could so easily be redirected on the bride. Ashamed that her daughter had caught her in an unguarded moment, she hoped that no one else would notice her tears. The weeping was not anything she’d expected and it troubled her. Even if it was acceptable to be seen crying at a wedding, she was not comfortable with tears. She had not wept at the death of her grandmother, nor at the birth of her child. She did not weep at movies, and certainly not at weddings where a person’s emotions were in plain view. Yet the formal occasion provided a gateway into her emotions, eternity projected by the minister into the tenets of a relationship, the naive beauty of the bride yet untested by time and failure. Elinore witnessed it all like white slats in a gate beyond which her own life could be seen in the gaps. The spring she met Saburo had been her final semester of graduate school. She’d been lingering over coffee in the campus bookstore, not quite ready to vacate her seat by the window, and stressed about her upcoming exams. In a phone conversation the night before, her mother had told her of her grandmother’s cancer, and the news had thrown her. She’d talked to her Grandma Rio just two nights before, and she’d said nothing—of the tests that were being run, or of the symptoms that necessitated them. Three thousand miles from home, Elinore suddenly had a hint of all that had gone on in her absence and by comparison her life as a graduate student in New York seemed meaningless. What did it matter if she arrived late to Molecular Genetics, or even if she failed to show up to the final exam? Having focused on the assurances Julie Shigekuni 73 that had always governed her actions, she was busy warding off remonstrances by her mother: Don’t disrupt your busy life when there’s nothing you can do by being home. But why had she not questioned Hideko’s logic, even when she knew it to be flawed? That morning, she had watched the world outside rush by, numbing herself against a sense of foreboding when she noticed Saburo’s shrewd but kind eye scanning a display of books; what seemed like moments later he appeared at her side. Even before he spoke, he seemed familiar. A relative? An old...