ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: The Writer, His Wife, and their Afterlife

Book One, Part One, Chapter Three: Dressed in a Tux

December comes and with it Father Z.’s annual Christmas party, held in a reception room of a downtown hotel, but Tinsley’s missing. He’s found a better job, as a feature reporter on a daily in another state. I meet his replacement, Al, a small man in his fifties with a gray crew cut. Al moves fast and talks fast.

“My wife, Virginia, owns a beauty salon,” he says. “She cuts my hair, too. Does a great job, doesn’t she?” He smiles. He’s missing a back tooth.

And Frank, who planned to be in the midst of Wedding Bell Bliss just now, picking up airline tickets for his Manhattan honeymoon, is already in New York . . . in a hospital undergoing treatment for cancer of the lymph nodes. Missy is with him.

Father Z. comes up to me. “I heard from Frank today. He’s on a liquid diet. He’s ordered a steak shake for dinner because, he said: ‘Steak is what I’d have if I were at your party tonight.’ ”

Frank’s just out of college, working his first professional job, about to marry his high-school sweetheart . . . and he dies in that New York hospital. I meet his father at the funeral home. He can barely speak, but he takes my hand.

“I worked with Frank,” I say. “He was like a teddy bear. So gentle. I can’t believe I’ll never see him again.”

A pale, dark-haired woman about my age is seated on a sofa against the wall, to the left of Frank’s casket. I recognize Missy from the photo on Frank’s desk. An older woman — probably her mother — holds her hand. I don’t intrude on Missy’s sorrow. What can I say, anyway? I have no words of comfort.

I go up to Frank. He’s dressed in a tux. Atop the black jacket and pleated shirt, his left hand is folded atop his right. On his ring finger is a wide gold band. I look over at Missy. She wears a gold band, too.

It’s not yet New Year’s Eve. Frank and Missy wed in a place neither of them expected to be and earlier than they had planned, and their marriage is already over.