Clean-Shaven

He comes back in with both bags, a load of firewood balanced on top, and snow in his eyelashes, as if the last hour was a perfectly normal amount of time to carry two duffels sixty yards.

"Sorry," he says. "Got distracted. It's a nice dock."

You look at him. He looks at the woodstove.

You think about what he wrote from out there, and what you wrote back, and the way the dots kept appearing and disappearing before his answers came. Whatever that was, he's put it away now. He stacks the wood beside the stove in a neat, tight square, the way someone does when his hands need a job.

"So," he says brightly. "What's the schedule, boss?"

You read it off Sadie's laminated itinerary, because of course Sadie laminated it. "Rehearsal at the chapel at five. Rehearsal dinner in the Antler Room at six thirty. Tomorrow, pond hockey and something called a snowshoe lunch. Wednesday the bachelorette. Thursday photos and skating. Friday welcome lunch for the relatives who couldn't come all week and a fish fry. Saturday, the wedding."

"Rehearsal on the first night?"

"Sadie believes in getting the stressful part done early so the rest of the week is fun. She did her taxes in January once. On purpose."

He smiles, but it doesn't make it to his eyes. "I'll skip the rehearsal. I'm not in the wedding party. I'll meet you at dinner."

"You don't want to watch me walk down an aisle with my ex?"

"I really don't," he says, and that part sounds true.

When you come out of the bathroom in your robe, he's at the little mirror over the sink in the kitchenette with a razor and a can of shaving cream.

"What are you doing?"

"Grooming. For your mother." He draws the razor down his cheek in one clean line. The beard comes away and underneath is a jaw that should come with a warning. "You think she's a beard person? I don't think she's a beard person."

"You've had that beard for fourteen months."

"Time for a change." He rinses the razor. In the mirror his eyes meet yours and then slide away. "New year. New me. Valentine's."

You stand in the doorway in your robe and watch him shave, very carefully, every last bit, like he wants there to be nothing at all between his face and whatever is waiting for it.

When he's done, he turns around. Without the beard he looks younger and somehow more dangerous, all clean lines and that crooked front tooth, and for a second, in the yellow light, he reminds you of somebody. You can't think who.

"Well?" he says.

"My mother is going to faint."

"That's the goal."

The chapel at the end of the point has eight pews on each side and a window behind the altar that looks straight out on the lake, the late sun turning it gold and pink like a postcard. Your dad, Rolf, stands in the back with his hands in his parka, looking at the beams like he's checking them for rot. Gran has brought her drink.

Bjorn is at the altar with the officiant, a cheerful retired judge in a fleece vest. Bjorn Haglund, your almost-brother-in-law: tall, fair, broad and gentle, a chemistry teacher in Madison who once spent a whole Thanksgiving explaining to your father why the turkey was dry, and was right. He waves at you, cheeks pink from the cold. Beside him is his father.

You've met Randall Haglund twice, at the engagement party in Milwaukee and at a brunch. He's sixty-one, silver-haired and handsome, with a big warm voice that fills a room and a handshake that lasts. He owns all of this. He hugs you and calls you "the artist" and tells the judge you drew a book about a raccoon that his grandkids will be reading someday, God willing, and winks at Bjorn, who turns red.

"Maid of honor and best man," the judge calls. "Let's walk it."

Kendrick offers you his arm with a bow. You take it, because everyone is watching.

You walk. The aisle is short. It feels a mile long.

"You look great," Kendrick murmurs halfway down, smiling at the pews. "I mean it. Better than great."

"Thanks."

"I've been thinking a lot. This year." His arm tightens under your hand. "I miss you, Ava. I think I made a mistake."

You keep your eyes on the altar. You keep your face pleasant. You count the steps until you can let go of him, and there are six, and you let go on the sixth.

You go back to the cabin to change. The dress is dark green velvet (your choice; it's the one thing this week you've chosen). Shane is waiting on the porch in a navy suit with no tie and his collar open, and you stop on the step.

He looks at you. Then he looks at you some more.

"Okay," he says. That's all. Just "okay," quietly, and then, "Hi, Ava," like he's meeting you for the first time, and he holds out his arm.

Walking up to the lodge, you tell him about the aisle, about I miss you. He doesn't say anything for a few steps.

"Do you miss him?"

"No," you say, and are surprised to find it's true.

"Good," he says, and then, quickly, "for the act. Good for the act."

The main hall is warm and loud with relatives. A woman with a headset and a clipboard comes around the corner from the kitchen at speed, and she is so beautiful you actually notice it from twenty feet away: dark curls pinned up, red lipstick, a black dress, the walk of someone who runs things. She's checking something on her clipboard. She looks up.

She sees Shane.

She stops dead. The color leaves her face so fast you think she's going to drop the clipboard. Her mouth opens.

Shane gives a tiny shake of his head. Barely anything. The woman's mouth closes. She looks at you, at your hand on his arm, and then she turns around and walks back into the kitchen without a word.

"Who was that?"

"Event staff," he says. "I think she thought I was somebody else."

Over by the fireplace, Gran lowers her glass and watches Shane over the rim with sharp, delighted eyes, the way she watches Jeopardy! when she already knows the answer.

The Antler Room is the lodge's supper club: knotty pine and red leather booths, antler chandeliers, a long table set for thirty with relish trays and baskets of popovers and little glass dishes of butter. Somebody is already handing out brandy old fashioneds, sweet. Your mother sees Shane without his beard and puts her hand flat on her chest and says, "Oh, my goodness."

"Told you," you whisper.

"I'm a professional," he whispers back.

Then you're through the door, and the room turns to look, the way rooms look at Shane, and his hand finds yours at your side.

It tightens. Hard.

You follow his eyes to the head of the long table. Randall Haglund is standing with a glass raised, halfway through a sentence, his big warm voice filling the room.

He sees Shane.

The sentence stops. His face goes gray.

And the glass slips out of his hand and shatters on the floor.