“What I don’t like, Adam,” Dottie confided to me, “is how the poor fool keeps eyeballin’ your mother—like he don’t trust her, or somethin’—and, if looks could kill, how the diaper baby keeps lookin’ at that little groom!” I’d seen those looks—delusional, to be kind. It’s a wonder to me how we got through the rehearsal without a hitch—worse, with no forewarning of what would happen at the actual event.

The diaper man did not attend the rehearsal dinner at the Exeter Inn. The befuddled emeritus was left at the Front Street house, where Dottie could take charge of him—where we could, for the moment, forget about him. There was a tent outdoors at the Exeter Inn, too—the rehearsal dinner would be there.

It was a warm July night. I have no idea if the Exeter Inn had air-conditioning in 1956—likely not, because many of the guest-room windows were open. Before the music started in our tent, we could hear snippets of conversation and occasional laughter from the open guest-room windows of the inn.

As for the music we awaited in our tent, Nora had forewarned me that her dad and Uncle Johan were providing it. Thank goodness they weren’t performing it, but the music was their idea. Nora and I knew this was a dangerous plan: to match my uncles’ deplorable taste with the Barlows’ European refinement. Nora had predicted strippers from Boston, grinding to country music. But the musical entertainment had not arrived. Em and Nora were nowhere to be seen. Nora might have been dreading the musical entertainment, or so I imagined.

Not so. Nora told me later that they’d gone to their room in the inn because Em wanted to get a jacket or a sweater—something to put on if the weather turned cooler later, under the tent—and while they were in their room, they started fooling around. I guess one thing led to another. Suddenly we heard the keening cries of Em’s orgasm; I’d heard nothing like it, not even in foreign films with subtitles. Not even Uncle Martin and Uncle Johan thought Em’s orgasm was funny—they weren’t laughing. This was a climax that could end the world. Em’s orgasm went on and on—it just kept going. One of our waitresses under the tent appeared to be mentally disordered by how long the ecstatic screams lasted—she lost control of her tray, a water pitcher was spilled, and the waitress dropped to her knees to recover her equilibrium.

“Merciful God!” Aunt Abigail cried.

“Someone should call the police, and an ambulance,” Aunt Martha chimed in.