The Handfasting

Ten years had passed since they joined hands at the high altar of the old abbey church, ten years since they were handfasted, engaged to be married. It had been ten years in which Katherine had finished college, completed med school, and become a doctor. For ten years they had not seen each other, had not spoken, and had not written. It was what they had agreed. “I’ll find you,” Steven had told her. “In ten years, when we have finished school, when we are able to marry, I’ll find you. Whenever you see a yellow rose, remember me – remember I love you.” For a decade, she had been waiting, hoping, and praying. Today, on her birthday, a vase of yellow roses was waiting when she arrived home. Although the action occurs primarily in New York City, psychologically, the story is set in a small town in Virginia. Change came slowly to the rural South in the nineteen-seventies, and attitudes toward women were most resistant to change. Women were expected to be subservient to men, to have children, to keep house. A woman was to be above reproach, and any hint of scandal was met with censure, with ostracism, with shame. These attitudes threaten to destroy Katherine and her chance for the life for which she yearns. The Handfasting is a story of love: love renewed, a suitor spurned, a vicious attack, and a struggle for healing.