The Bridge Game

Reconcile Smith, as confirmed a bachelor as the island had ever had seen, and Mae Louise Nickerson, an unmarried lady and Uncle Shad's oldest girl, began courting in 1959. He was 34 and she had just turned a discreet and mostly uncelebrated 32. The courtship lasted for 24 years.

“I declare,” my grandmother remarked one afternoon at the weekly bridge game, “I don't see why she don't jist marry that man. They's been keepin' company since 'fore hens had feathers and they ain't getting' no younger. Two spades.”

“It's geographic,” Aunt Pearl said mildly, “Two hearts.”

“Ayuh,” Miz Clara nodded, “Ol' Rec's right partial to livin' in that old shack in the woods and Mae Louise don't like the idea of not livin' on the square. Three diamonds.”

“Pass,” Aunt Vi ventured timidly and all three women glared at her. “I heard tell he didn't ask her for the first 10 years,” she added with a shy kind of shrug and my grandmother gave her a skeptical look.

“Viola,” she said sharply, “Pass? Again?” But then she saw my delicate Aunt Vi - who had never wanted to learn bridge in the first place but was too fainthearted to say so - was about to cry and she softened and patted her hand lightly. “Never mind, dear, we'll manage,” she sighed, “I didn't mean to scold.” Vi brightened at once and the conversation returned to Reconcile and Mae Louise.

“Folks git set in their ways,” Aunt Pearl suggested, “A body gits used to livin' alone.”

“I 'spect so,” Miz Clara said, “Cain't be easy to make room for somebody else after more'n 50 years. Likely folks just git in each other's way.”

“Bein' married ain't no Sunday stroll,” my grandmother admitted as she scooped up the last trick with a victorious flourish. I suspected she was thinking of her own loutish, thug of a husband, “Mebbe they's better off.”

“Mebbe so,” Aunt Vi said, “But it be fearful to think so.”

Clara, the only one at the table still single and clearly irritated, lowered her bifocals and looked directly at each woman in turn. “This be one damn fool conversation for three married women to be havin,” she said snappishly, “It ain't nobody's business whether Mae Louise marries Reconcile or not and it don't matter how long it takes if'n she does or doesn't! Ain't a single one of you know the first thing about being an old maid spinster and I reckon we'd all be better off if folks jist tended their own gardens and their own bridge games!”

Nana laughed first although she tried mightily not to and soon Pearl and Vi joined in. All three women rocked in their seats and Clara really didn't have much choice. She blushed as red as a beet from Lily Small's vegetable patch and finally managed to mutter an apology. The bridge game was called on account of foolishness and the four old friends retired to the sunporch to eat hot buttered scones and drink iced tea laced liberally with gin.

To the delight of the entire village, Mae Louise Nickerson and Reconcile Smith married the following summer and set up housekeeping in a small cottage on a dirt road that overlooked the ocean. It was close enough to the square and far enough removed from the village that it satisfied them both and the last time I was home, they were still there, happily raising chickens for him and tea roses for her.