Delicate Wedding

By Joseph Kranak

With his younger son's wedding approaching, in New York City, Frederick Adelson decides to try and persuade his dissolute and detached older son, Elias, to join the family at the wedding after a long separation. Frederick sends two old friends of Elias, who ineffectively try to work on Elias while the rest of the family prepares for the upcoming celebration. But upon arrive at Elias' settled home in Amsterdam, they find much going on and standing in the way of Frederick's goal.

A story of romantic and filial affection, it is set amidst the struggle to keep fraying relationships together and the struggle to start love anew.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph Kranak
• Release date: Oct 20, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466040632

Joseph Kranak

I'm an aspiring philosophy professor and amateur writer, working on completing my PhD.

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DELICATE WEDDING

by

Joseph A Kranak

Published by Joseph A Kranak at Smashwords

Copyright 2008 by Joseph A Kranak

Published under Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

If you copy or distribute this book please retain attribution to the author.

Dedicated to my sister,

to a long marriage

CONTENTS

Introduction

DAY 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

DAY 2

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

DAY 3

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

DAY 4

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

DAY 5

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

DAY 6

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

DAY 7

Chapter 21

Introduction

Frederick Adelson’s birth was mythic. Marie and Anthony Adelson gave birth to their first and only son on the tenth day of May in the third year after the end of the second World War, in their house in the east of Manhattan. They decided they had to call him Frederick. The sun was looking in from a window at the child, and Frederick cried at the bright stare of the sun, such that he clung to his mother’s perspiring skin and only ceased as soon as the sun was eclipsed by a cloud. It was accepted Adelson myth that this was precisely the moment when the midwife arrived and, upon seeing the baby already delivered, declared, If that child doesn’t live as fast and die as quickly as he was born, then he shall be the most dignified man I’ve ever had the privilege of not quite delivering.

Elijah and April Scott gave birth to their fourth and last child, and only daughter, Annabelle, on the twenty-eighth day of the month of November of that same year, in a hospital on the opposite side of Manhattan. She was a quiet thing from the first moment she was born, silencing her cry as she was put into her mother’s arms, and still looking on silently as she was passed into the arms of her weeping father.

Frederick and Annabelle met once in their early youth. In their mutually fifth year they met while chasing birds in the heart of Central Park in the heat of the afternoon of an early April day that seemed warm beyond its season. Only Frederick would remember this accidental day, even though the two of them would not meet again until their freshman year at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. He would never make the connection between chasing birds in Central Park and truly falling in love for the first time in their eighteenth year, for he had no idea who the little girl in that vague memory was. Frederick told Annabelle that she brought the life out in him after they had been dating for a few weeks and she kissed him on the lips for the first time. And when he began having a recurring dream of running through the grass with masses of white birds parting into the air, to reveal a mysterious young woman hiding behind this cloud of birds, he would always wake up and assert in his mind that it must be Annabelle.

He studied Business and Economics and he told Annabelle that he would return to Manhattan and work in his father’s brokering business. She thought she would be foolish to dream of anything else, but it was what he hoped for their future, and it took her some time before she began to learn to be unsure about things. Reciprocally these were the happiest days of their lives. They would walk through the woods and Frederick would talk about his future and about his father’s business. It pleased her to listen of the prospect of a happy future that she, even at that time, believed she was to be a part of. The birds would fly through the air and he would tell her about his recurring dream, never failing to remove the uncertainty of the identity of the woman—it was she that he chased the birds with, across an open field on the campus. And they were younger in the dream, it took place long before college—we knew each other before we even met he would say, and she would believe him.

The world was transforming around them, and she liked that he could keep things seeming as if they had never changed since she was born, as if they hadn’t changed since the times past that were just distant enough to be freed from their unidealed realism. The world around them rebelled and rioted and warred and shouted and made love and he would tell her that all he loved was she and that he would wait; and she adored him all the more.

She had long, straight brown hair and bright blue eyes and she would only smile with her eyes, seldom with her mouth. Her lips were small, her smile was beautiful, and she expressed herself with subtlety. The more time she spent with him, the more she became a mystery to herself.

She’d been close to her three brothers, and she easily befriended men, and this was something that Frederick could not understand. She told her closest friend—a sensual, uncontrollable intellectual—all about Frederick and he would listen and he would nod his head. Woman was a mystery to Frederick, and he was as unmysterious as he could be. He cut his hair very short, which accentuated his chiseled face. He had broad shoulders and a thickly hairy chest, and thick hair grew upon his face, which he daily shaved. He was tall, had a big smile and moved and communicated with large, bold gestures.

When, out on the green fields of the campus with the birds flying in flocks one day, he bent on one knee and presented a ring to her, and she shed one tear before she said the one word to him. It was their Junior year in the spring, and it would be at the end of the summer that they would be wed, in a church near his birth place. In the waning days of their third year of college she looked at him with the most unsubtle eyes and kissed him more when she was alone with him.

It was in their last day before they were to return home for the summer with their parents in Manhattan that she finally wanted to end the wait. She was alone with him one night and she looked him in the eyes and slowly took off her clothes. She lay back and pulled him forward with her hand and made him kiss her all over her skin.

He had waited long and he believed that every reward of patience was fully repaid. She came to think differently afterward, I have held myself back so long for what? while she lay naked in the glow of the afternoon sunshine squeezing through the curtains above her bed, warm light and shadows crisscrossing his large naked back laying beside her. She later came to believe that she had only ever really doubted him at this moment, and only briefly. It wasn’t that she loved him any less or that it was disappointing, it was more complex, that she was unsure of herself and she doubted what she had done. And then he said: It’s so wonderful to lay in the sunshine and be in love, and every other thought evaporated from her mind. When they made love again, Elias was conceived.

The marriage day was a continuation of that afternoon. And everyone was there to see it. Her dress was long with layers and folds of white fabric neatly wrapped and tucked about her. He was tall and handsome and Anthony couldn’t hide his inestimable pride over his son: Frederick’s wife was an enviable prize, and Frederick knew it. They honeymooned, they returned. Frederick lived up to his promise of working with his father. And their lovemaking, sparse between his long, busy days and frequent trips, finally conceived little Elijah.

Twenty-Four years later, of the two children of an overall happy marriage, it would be little Elijah that would first find a heartfelt love—the more diffident and shy younger brother that had only just recently truly learned how to talk to a woman in a way that could bring her to fall in love with him. He had met Arlette too while he was studying at Dartmouth and she had enough eyes to see that Elijah’s worth exceeded the asking price. He looked for the places where his father had told Elijah things had happened between him and Annabelle in his semi-apocryphal stories, and Elijah took Arelette to these places. They went on walks on those mythicized paths, sat on the same benches and talked, lay on the same grass and basked under the same sun. He went to the same mythical green field where his father proposed and he did the same, and she said five words, and then fell silent. And they didn’t speak for two days, and then she finally said: Yes. Forgive me. I decide slowly. And he was too happy to not want to forgive her. And she continued, in explanation, It’s the rest of my life, you know.

The date was set for the following summer, just after Elijah would finish his schooling. The same church as his father used was to be the place. Everyone would be there that should, except Elias. The one who most should would not. It was intolerable. He replied to no mailings, had all but disappeared, but they knew he was out there, ignoring them. He was all the way on the other side of the ocean hiding in his favorite metropolis to the distant sound of shouts and pleas from all his family begging him to not miss the one unmissable day of his brother’s life.

DAY 1

Chapter 1

Frederick had only grown a beard just three years ago. He had been clean-shaven all his life before. Since that time, the beard had been slowly filling with gray and now only the section around his mouth still retained a dark black, peppered with a few stray grays. Thus, he had, just in middle age, managed to change his appearance, and a little bit of himself along with it. He looked more distinguished. He had always had an instinctive capacity to present himself with an air of genial dignity, but this beard refined that presentation—genial dignity became powerful dignity, and his geniality became a more self-humbling largess.

He was right now standing in the middle of his library—a modest room crowded with shelves full to bursting. Most of the books had been collected by his wife. He was in the room because he had been curious and idle, intending to commune with his wife. He looked at the shelves, thinking, saying things to himself in his mind, It amazes me what she reads, To imagine all this stuffed up there in her mind, and such. He stroked his beard in a contemplative fidget that he had only just learned in these past three years. The thought of the upcoming wedding entered his mind and he said out loud in a quiet whisper: This was also Elijah’s favorite room, wasn’t it? The bookshelves had been crammed into the room with an amazing density. He turned around to look at the room that completely surrounded him. He now thought there might be some mystery to Elijah’s character hidden in this room, and perhaps, via Elijah, some mystery to the other one, to Elias.

There was a stuffed, leather chair beneath the one window in the room, and this was the only piece of furniture that was in the room. It was a place where his wife did like to do some of her reading, but the room was more of a storage place for the books. It was not a show room: company was not brought to this cramped room. He had a few of his favorite and most beautiful books on display between the entryway and the living room. He never read those, though.

Elijah came in through the door, which was only open just a crack and he said to Frederick: I didn’t expect to find you in here. Frederick didn’t turn around to see him, still looking at a shelf’s long row of fiction; he just smiled at such a frank observation, and waved to his son behind his back. He said nothing, waiting for Elijah to continue the conversation, I’ve been looking for you. What are you doing in here? You’re not looking for something to read, are you?

Can’t a father just wander around his own home? Frederick said, still staring away from him, now looking out the window at a building across the way that now caught a sinking sun in the reflection of the windows. Not when we’re so busy, Elijah said, though slightly sarcastically.

Frederick then felt a pair of arms reach around him and hug him from behind. He realized that it was Arlette. She rested her head on his back as she held him and said: How are you doing Frederick?

You don’t have to call me that, Frederick said, Just call me what he calls me, referring to his son.

Sorry, she said, it takes time getting used to calling you ‘dad.’ At one point I only had one of them.

Frederick then turned to her and looked at her with a smile and mock surprise: Who says he calls me ‘dad’? You can be honest. I’m the ‘old geezer,’ the ‘old man’ the ‘squinty-eyed buzzard.’ That’s what he calls me when I’m not around.

She laughed, and then continued, Even if he did… As she paused, the smile slowly left her face, and she asked, How are you doing?

He looked around the room before he spoke, then he looked into her eyes and said, with an impenetrable look on his face: I feel lost.

She waited a little bit for him to say a bit more, but he remained silent, looking deep into her eyes while she looked back at him. She felt she could tell what he meant, so she didn’t bother to ask him. She finally spoke up: Don’t be. Frederick’s eyes began to drift as if this was what he expected her to say, so she continued, "I want you to remember something: I’m happy right now. I’m as happy as I’ve ever been. Elijah too. We worry about you. Especially because we know that, no matter how things come about in the next week, we’re going to be happy with everything, with the wedding, with the ceremony, with everything. We’ll go on. And Elias won’t ruin it for us, no matter what’s going on with him. If you’re worried for our sake, forget it. Everything that could be done to make this the happiest day of our lives has already been done. We just have to wait for it to happen." She was smiling and tried to comfort him with her soft expression, while she tilted her head upward to meet his eyes. After