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  I admire the flowers.

  “They are lovely,” my mother agrees. “Naturally I’ve already put Jake down on my invitation list.”

  We discuss my mother and Arthur’s wedding, which will take place on May 21, my mother’s birthday and the day Arthur passed his orals for his doctorate forty-two years before. The flowers have been chosen. The caterer’s all signed up. Together Arthur and mother picked the music for the string quartet. Last month Zenobia and I and my mother went shopping for her bridal dress. We didn’t even descend into Filene’s Basement, though in anticipation I wore my most comfortable shoes. We went upstairs, straight to the designers’ section where my mother paid full price for a gossamer confection in lilac silk. She tried to talk Zenobia and me into matching blue taffeta. She was a good sport, however, when we chose complementary linen suits in pale coral (me) and aquamarine (Zenobia). Afterward we had a lady’s lunch in the Ritz café for which my mother grabbed the check. Zenobia ordered champagne. She made a moving toast about gaining a mother and a sister. My mother beamed. I was touched. Ever since Max and Playgirl my fondness for Zenobia has increased exponentially. Then we all flirted with the adorable waiter who had the kind of eyelashes mothers always say are wasted on a boy.

  Now my mother sits across from me at my kitchen table. I offer tea, wine. I even have a quarter of a wheel of Brie, I inform her. She shakes her head. “I can just stay a minute,” she says. “I have something for you.” She reaches into her pocket and brings out a square of folded tissue the size of a quarter. “Here,” she says. One tear spills out of her eye, reminding me of those Christmas cookies with their raisin tears we made so many months ago.

  I open the tissue to reveal my mother’s wedding ring. I am speechless.

  As is my mother. She kisses me. She squeezes my hand. She waves her own hand. And then she leaves.

  What the hell. I open a new bottle of wine. I pour myself a glass and take it, with the ring, to my bed. I study the ring, this band of platinum thin as a wire. Once my father’s initials chased my mother’s on the inside of its circle like the lovers on Keats’ Grecian Urn. Now I can just make out faint scratchings. Old hieroglyphs. The tops of the letters have worn away. I slide my mother’s ring onto my finger where it fits perfectly. On the wall hangs the drawing Max made for me. It’s framed like a Rembrandt. It’s my Rembrandt. I lie back against the pillows and sip my drink. I think of Shakespearean comedies. Their final scenes in which all the couples are sorted out. Twins are reunited. Men passing as women and vice versa reveal their real genders. The false combinations are switched to the true. Feuding suitors make peace. The star-crossed lovers are uncrossed. Then follows this gala spate of weddings. Equaled by Louie and Cheryl, Seamus and Georgette, my mother and Arthur T. Haven …

  And I lie on my single-occupancy bed wearing my mother’s wedding ring.

  * * *

  On May 19, we are assembled in the auditorium of Max’s school for the third-grade production of Hamlet. We’re all here, the whole extended family, the whole, until the wedding, family-to-be. Plus Jake, who wouldn’t miss it for the world, whom Max invited personally and who is treating us all to a post-performance celebration of cholesterol overload at the International House of Pancakes.

  Harriman has arrived early and saved us a whole row, middle and center right behind the seats of the first- and second-graders. Harriman’s on the aisle with his camcorder at the ready and enough tape to document the Hundred Years War. Next to him is Zenobia, then Jake, me, my mother, and Arthur.

  The program—color-Xeroxed and illustrated with a castle complete with drawbridge and moat—lists five Hamlets—one Asian and two girls if you can deduce that Tina Chung is Asian and Rainbow Gonzales is female—including Max and someone with the surprisingly plain name of Tom Thomas. There are five Ophelias, too, though a careful study of the program shows that no young man has agreed to don Ophelia’s robes to strew Ophelia’s violets. An assortment of Ghosts and Gertrudes, and even two Bernardos though I can’t remember who Bernardo is.

  Every one of them is adorable however. And once the play gets underway there’s a constant murmur of doting parents and significant others tsk-tsking over each actor’s adorableness. It takes a little getting used to, though, with the shifting of players sometimes in mid-line and the mishmash of costumes recycled, Zenobia has explained, from past productions of Robin Hood and Euripides. The Euripides was staged last year, Arthur adds, and was a revelation.

  When Max finally appears—Hamlet number three—in a green Sherwood Forest costume to which is pinned a rudimentary Danish flag, he is a revelation. He’s been awarded the to be or not to be lines. It’s no surprise he was picked for them since he articulates exquisitely with a huge grin and a lot of lashing of sword. He’s a natural. And I, I suddenly discover, am a natural stage mother. Mouthing the lines along with him, my eyes focused on every gesture, my ears alert to the rest of the audience’s exclamations of how cute! how darling! His struts and frets upon the stage are far too brief but signify incredible talent (I know I am taking enormous liberties). When Tina Chung glides in on her cue: perchance to dream, Max exits the stage to volcanic applause whose gale-force center erupts from our row.

  At intermission, my mother, Arthur, Zenobia, and Harriman join the lemonade line. Jake takes my hand. “What’s this?” he asks. He rubs his thumb along my mother’s wedding band.

  I explain.

  “Hmmm,” he says. “Interesting,” he adds.

  I don’t ask him what “interesting” means. I have no need to know. Instead, I look at him. At his red bow tie. His lopsided grin. His intelligent eyes. His kind eyes. I try to concentrate on the red whorls of hair tufting his knuckles as he holds my hand. I try to picture his feet. I think of Seamus, who was a mistake. And Louie, who feels less like a mistake than an auxiliary road which ended in a culde-sac. I force myself to picture Louie, beautiful Louie, but his edges are blurred, his face an out-of-focus photograph. He’s fading into the distance like one of Shakespeare’s ghosts, like something mailed but never delivered, left unclaimed in the dead-letter repository.

  Jake squeezes my fingers. “You know,” he says, “Maine used to be part of Massachusetts. I just found out.”

  “It was one of my first lessons in grammar school.”

  “I’ve been studying up.” He pauses. “While looking into reciprocity between the states in regard to the bar exam.”

  “Jake!”

  “The meatpackers are getting me down. I’ve done city life, suburban life. They’ve lost their appeal. Don’t worry, Katinka, this is all just a possibility.”

  I’m not worried. I figure Old Town is the glass slipper. The test for which man will come to me. I put my arm through Jake’s.

  I settle back against my chair. It’s a folding one, metal with a crossbar that jabs into my spine. Still, I feel oddly comfortable in this grade-school auditorium surrounded by chatting families and kids running up and down the aisles. If I were writing this story, this might not be the ending I’d pick: Katinka Graham, formerly O’Toole, at a third-grade production of Hamlet wearing her mother’s hand-me-down wedding ring and sitting next to someone—more character actor than leading man—with the improbable name of Jake Barnes. Yet it feels like a happy ending. Or happy start. “Here come Arthur and your mother with our lemonade,” Jake says.