They had stayed at his mother's the night before, and in the morning had attended the service at Country Club Christian.

In the car afterward Ada said, "I've never been to a church before. Meeting is very plain, compared to this. Are all churches so formal?"

"No. Easter is special. The women and girls used to buy fancy new outfits, and white gloves, and big hats. It was all more formal when I was little."

They changed into casual clothes and ate a late breakfast, then spent an hour wandering the grounds of Linda Hall Library so she could see the plantings. Finally they went to Loose park: couples and singles walking their dogs, the yellows and reds of daffodils and tulips, magnolia trees in flower. Owen carried a bag with a blanket, sodas, and snacks. They walked from the duck pond through the concourse, to the rose garden, and stopped to watch the fountain. They walked out into the swale between the rose garden and the tennis courts, and set the blanket under a cottonwood tree. She left her sandals at the edge of the blanket, and sat off-center, feet tucked under her knees. He pulled a deck of cards from the bag.

"Do you know how to play poker?" he asked.

They used blades of grass instead of money. He taught her seven-card stud and five-card stud. She lost nearly every hand, folding when she shouldn't have, or trying to bluff, and failing.

The cards were set aside. Owen lay on his back, staring at the clouds. Ada followed his look; the branches overhead were sheathed in a haze of green catkins. The splashing of the fountain in the rose garden, and the irregular thonk of tennis balls from the courts nearby, punctuated the silence. A ball rose and fell above the court, again and again, disappearing at each end of its flight. A girl with an easel, her back to them, was painting a landscape. Beyond her was a family -- man, woman, baby, and a large German Shepherd -- the man playing frisbee with the dog, the woman rocking the baby forward and back in its stroller while watching her husband.

Ada's Ph.D. dissertation was on prairie grasses. She rummaged through the blades she and Owen had discarded, then lay with her face just off the edge of the blanket, chin propped on the heel of one hand while she sorted through the lawn. When she'd looked at them all, she moved a few feet and repeated the process. After working her way along one edge of the blanket, she gave up. She wasn't able to find a single species she was studying. "They're all exotics," she said. "Not one native species." Owen didn't reply. His eyes were unfocused, staring up at the branches.

Ada watched the family. The woman, baby in arms, was rolling from side to side, and the child squealed at each reversal. It was so young that Ada couldn't tell its gender. The father knew exactly how far he could throw the disk to challenge the the dog, which made enormous leaps in the air to catch the spinning disk, never missing.

Owen sat up and searched in the bag for a root beer. "What are you looking at?" he asked.

"That family." She nodded in their direction. "They seem happy."

"They seem ordinary." He opened the soda and took a sip.

"That's what I like about them. They're ordinary, and they're happy."

"I want you to be happy," he said.

"Thank you."

"You don't understand. We've been dating almost three years."

"Owen, please don't ask me to marry you. Not again."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't."

"I'll be a good husband. I'll take care of you and pay your tuition so you don't have to work so hard."

"You know I won't talk about money."

"Money is important," he said. She was ignoring him, watching the family. "It is," he said. "Money means freedom."

"You can't bribe me into marrying you."

"You know I love you."

"Stop," she said. "You're always pushing that on me."

"You never listen. Why do you go out with me, if you don't even like me?"

"I do like you. I don't love you."

"You don't have to. Just marry me. Other things are more important. Comradeship. Shared interests."

"If other things are more important, why are you always talking about how much you love me?" She knew she had him there. He didn't reply. "Owen," she said. "Owen, why do you keep saying this? Don't you understand that I don't feel the same? Why do you keep pushing this at me? Why do you insist on telling me how much you love me?" She was using a gentle tone. That voice annoyed him, she'd figured out, because he thought she was patronizing him. He was always careful not to show the irritation, but she knew him well enough to see how he felt, regardless. She'd made a mistake. She hadn't caught herself in time. She should have been more matter-of-fact.

"Because that's how it is," he said. "Because you're not like anyone else."

"I want you to explain why you feel this way."

"I can't," he said.

" 'I can't?' That's what I always say. Then tell me why you can't tell me."

He was silent.

"Are you not sure? Don't you know why?"

"No. I know the reasons."

"You have to tell me, then. I will not consider marrying you until you explain your reasons."

That meant that marriage was at least a possibility, and for a moment his skin tingled. "Let me think," he said.

The family put the child in the stroller, and the dog back on the leash, and left. Some of the tennis players must have gone, too; there were fewer sounds of tennis balls.

Owen noticed Ada glance at her watch. She was wearing jeans and a wide-brimmed straw hat he had given her, and a tank top, with one bra strap visible where the tank strap had slipped a bit. Her shoulders were narrow, and a flawless milk white. He wanted to pull down the straps of her tank top and bra and look at the breasts beneath them, and strip off the rest of her clothes and run his hands and lips over every square inch of that perfect skin.

"You aren't like anyone else," he blurted. "You can't be anything but who you are. You're genuine. I need that. You're how I'd like to be."

"I see."

"That's it? That's all you can say? 'I see'? I shouldn't have told you."

"It seems so strange. Why would anyone want to be like me? Don't you understand, I have no place in this world? Why would you want that? You, of all people. You, who grew up having a place, and knowing where you belonged and what you wanted, I've never had a place. I've never belonged. Why do you insist on misunderstanding me? You're so strange."

"What?"

"You don't understand me. You don't want to understand me. You want me to be what you think you need."

He closed his eyes and pressed the soda bottle against his right temple.

"Please don't do that," she said.

"Do what?" He propped the bottle against the bag.

That calculated gesture. "Never mind. I need to go home. I have tests to grade and a lab report to finish."

"Not yet."

"I have a lot of work to do."

"Let's settle this first."

"It is settled. I won't marry you. We're too different, and I have to be alone."

"Have to be alone? Are you Greta Garbo? Being alone isn't romantic."

"I know that."

"Then why do it?"

"It doesn't matter." she said. "I have to be alone."

"Did someone hurt you? Is that why?"

She began to weep.

"God, Ada. I wasn't trying to make you cry." He lay down and pulled her onto his chest and wrapped his arms around her. "Oh, God. What's wrong?"

She struggled until he let her go, then curled up next to him, her hands clutched under her chin. She wept noiselessly for a long time. "I'm sorry," she said when she was done. She sat up and turned her back to him, wiping her eyes. "I shouldn't have done that, it was unfair. I'm all right."

"No," he said. She didn't respond. "Look at me."

She turned around. She didn't look him in the eye, she looked at the opening of his shirt collar.

"Who was it?" he asked. "That musician?"

She nodded.

"What did he do?"

"Nothing." Her chin trembled. "He didn't do anything. It was me, not him. I'm the one who hurt me. And him."

"Are you still in love with him?"

She shook her head, then shrugged.

"You are, aren't you?"

"No. I don't think so."

"Is that why you won't marry me? Because of him?"

"No."

"Because you're afraid it will happen again. Because you're afraid of being hurt?"

She nodded.

"I promise. I promise there's nothing to be afraid of. I will never ever hurt you."

"But I don't love you." Her voice sounded less certain.

"What do you have to lose? How can you be happy, if you're always alone? Don't you trust me?"

"Stop asking questions I can't answer. Just hold me for a while."

"What is it? What's wrong now?"

"Don't talk." She leaned against him. "Hold me, please. Sometimes I'm so lonely I can't bear it."

He opened his mouth to ask what she wanted, and then she sighed, and laid her head on his shoulder, and it was as if she had spoken again: Just hold me. He embraced her, and thought of the way she had looked at the woman and child and man, and he knew what to do. He could calculate this. He'd had years of practice.

They stayed and watched the annual children's Easter egg hunt, and she held his hand. She was quiet during the drive back to Lawrence, and kissed him again and again when he dropped her off. She acted reluctant to leave.

"Please don't think I don't care," she said. "I do. I care very much. But you have to be patient. I've never been good at understanding my feelings, or deciding what to do."

It took him a year to talk her out of her doubts. She wanted to be persuaded. He saw her come around, doubtfully, slowly.

They were married late the next May, in the rose garden in the park, a hundred yards from where they had spent that Easter Sunday. She wanted a Quaker ceremony with only a few friends and family to witness it, a simple exchange in which each of them made a short promise to the other. He wanted an elaborate ceremony, with everyone he knew in attendance. She refused to wear the traditional gown. They compromised: a short ceremony with a minister, a simple dress, a few dozen friends and family. Afterward, a small reception at his mother's house.

He would have agreed to anything -- a ceremony in Sanskrit, or getting married in a cave. He knew that she had compromised on these things because she believed she should, and thought they were important to him. But they weren't. The trappings were inconsequential. What he wanted was her. Now his life would change, because Ada was his wife. This wonderful girl he loved was now his.