Free What Is Left the Daughter by Howard Norman Page B

loves me and I love him. Maybe we're both a bit head-over-heels. But so what? Maybe it's laughable, us all smitten. But it's not laughable to us. Anyway, my hope is, this obituary, in his daughter's handwriting, might help convince my dad that Hans is not just a German anybody. Understand, Wyatt?"
    "You look like you're going to cry, Tilda," I said. "It's too early in the morning to get so worked up."
    "Well, I started getting worked up about eight o'clock last night," she said. "I've been getting steadily more worked up ever since. Just please give this obituary to my father, will you?"
    Marlais, I did deliver those pages to my uncle out in his shed, and he did read them, and then he tacked them to the wall along with the newspaper articles. He placed the obituary next in line after the last reported U-boat sinking. Then he went back to applying linseed to a sled. He didn't offer a single comment about Hans Mohring's life. What my uncle did say was "This is one inspiring document Tilda's written up, don't you think?" Later, I sneaked into the shed on my own and retrieved the obituary.
    Those pages, in Tilda's own hand, I've kept all these years.

Always Leave a Little Room for a New Purchase
    N EXT MORNING, OCTOBER 6, I didn't bother to go to work. Instead, at seven A.M. I went to the bakery, and there sat Tilda again. She looked all haywire, exhausted as I'd ever seen her, I'd say more ravished, just this once, than ravishing. She wore a gray fisherman's sweater, dark loose trousers and galoshes. It was steadily raining, with harder rain in the offing. The moment I joined her at the window-side table she said, "Hans has made an addition to his obituary."
    Cornelia was behind the counter. On its shelf, the radio was affected by the storm. There was mostly static, with barely audible passages of music now and then. Yet Cornelia made no effort to find another station. I hoped that I was wrong, but it was almost as if she was resigned to the static itself being the featured program, human expression the interruption. Tilda and I watched her a few moments.
    "Being a touch stingy with candy sprinkles on those cupcakes, aren't you, Cornelia?" Tilda said. Cornelia ignored this. Every day after school, children stopped in for cupcakes. One to eat in the bakery, sometimes up to half a dozen to take home. Cornelia couldn't afford to slack off on them. The woodstove had only just begun to provide heat. Tilda and I were drinking coffee and eating toast and jam. "Want to know what he added?" Tilda said.
    "I'm all ears."
    "That he is survived by his wife, Tilda Hillyer, of Middle Economy, Nova Scotia."
    We sat without talking for a few minutes. "Wyatt, I'll need you to give me away at my wedding," Tilda said then. "Considering recent events. Considering everything. I can't ask my father, now, can I? He'd refuse me."
    "Tilda, have you just told me you've set a wedding date?"
    "October tenth," she said.
    "That's just four days from now."
    "Coming up quick, I know. Reverend Plumly over in Advocate Harbor agreed to perform the rites. I thought five or so villages down the road wasn't too close or too far. When I told him Hans is a German citizen, all Reverend Plumly said was 'I won't charge additional money for that.'"
    "Reverend Witt turn you down?"
    "I try not to go where I know I'm going to get my feelings hurt," Tilda said. "No, I didn't approach him."
    "I take it you've told Aunt Constance."
    "Hans made the announcement in private to Mother, on her last visit, which was two mornings back. He asked her for my hand in marriage. Mother hugged us both, but then, she would, wouldn't she? No matter what she thought."
    "I wonder if she's told Uncle Donald."
    "Probably she's got to decide, would the news be worse for Dad now or later?"
    "Promise me you'll never tell me how Hans proposed marriage," I said.
    "He said he felt like he'd known me his whole life already, so why not continue that."
    "Funny, since you've never been to Germany."
    "You