The sun sang a sharp note on the side of the long, black Buick van in the next parking space.
The light seared through my retina as I did my best to ease the old Corolla between the narrow yellow lines on the pavement.
On the other side, the tires of a beige Mercedes rested on a full half of the paint marker, a gesture of carefree arrogance, as a paper license tag dated only yesterday leaned against the rear window.
I couldn’t complain. It was the last parking space before one resorted to pulling onto the grass and mud at the very rear of the church lot, and that meant mud on white shoes, splashes of it on clean white tights, and two days of preparation wasted. Instead, I chose to bear the stress of navigating with surgical precision our tiny car into a tiny space between two very expensive and very close vehicles.
“Now the cars next to us are very, very close, so be careful getting out. Don’t hit ‘em with the door.”
“Yes, ma’am.” All five children replied in unison as buckles unsnapped and doors clicked open.
“And don’t step in any puddles.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I shrugged my purse onto my shoulder, swallowing back a wave of anxiety, and eyed every angle, holding my breath for the sound of impact. There was none. I let out a long breath of relief as the children assembled nearby.
“Partners,” I said. “Jake, no earphones.”
“You look nice, Mom,” he said. He plucked the earphones from his head and stuffed them into his pocket as he took Gracie’s sticky hand out of her mouth.
“So do you, Jake.” I doubted his earnesty. Hardly five minutes went into my appearance. After cleaning up the girls, dressing them, arranging their hair, and making last-minute alterations to their dresses, five minutes was all that was left for me. The best I could do was knot my hair up on my head, crown the mess with a silk orchid, and smudge on some lipstick, hoping to hide the exhaustion under a line of color.
Fortunately, I thought far enough ahead that my dress was not an issue. I settled on a brown shift I reserved for “fat days.” It was comfortable cotton, and the seamwork traced out curves that shouldn’t be there. The hem came to the calf, just far enough down to shroud the thighs but draw the eyes to my only redeeming quality—lean lower legs lovingly bestowed upon me by my mother. I capitalized on this one highlight with a pair of brown leather heels with braided straps weaving around my feet and ankles.
In all, the outfit was bland and hurried, but decent—perfect for the occasion, as Mother always taught me bland-and-decent was the order for all weddings if I weren’t the bride.
“Patience, pay attention!” I snapped. “Where’s your partner?”
She scoffed and yanked Nanna’s arm. “Nanna…You’re supposed to hold my hand.”
“It’s not her fault,” I said. “You’re older than her. It’s your responsibility….” Of course it was Patience’s responsibility, but as always, Nanna was in her own world, eyes squinted and fixed on something hanging from a tree branch overhead.
“What’s that?” Nanna asked, pointing.
“A spider web,” Patience offered.
“Where’s the spider?”
“Let’s go, kids. We don’t have time to talk about the spider. We’ve got to get in there. Come on, Annie,” I said, extending my hand.
She skipped to me, catching the toe of her shoe on a hole in the concrete. It made an awful scuffing sound, and I winced. “I like being your partner,” she said.
“I do, too.” I tried to ignore the instinct to chastise her for bouncing around. We hadn’t even gotten out of the parking lot yet, and already, she’d marked her shoe and beads of sweat were beginning to form on her forehead.
I checked my watch. We still had fifteen minutes left before the ceremony would begin, but I anticipated we’d probably have a hard time finding enough room for all of us in a single pew. I marched on, turning over my shoulder to inspect.
The children did look nice, though uncomfortable. A scowl surfaced briefly on Jake’s face. He would never get used to ties. I didn’t blame him, but it was a detail that would not be eliminated. His khaki pants were straight and pressed, and his shoes gleamed with no marks.
The girls wore matching cream dresses trimmed with rows of eyelet lace. The ruffled hems peeked out from under toile pinafores. The burgundy print caught perfectly the highlights in their maple colored hair. Heavy satisfaction pooled in my gut as I saw their satin bows were still crisply set exactly where I’d placed them, perhaps the most consuming task of all in the last hour before our departure.
We crossed the street toward the chapel, hand in hand, and I gave off a quick spill of commands as we neared the door. “No talking, keep your hands to yourself, save your questions for after the ceremony. Sit quietly, mind your manners.
And Jake, no earphones.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
#
As expected, the chapel was an intricate bouquet of white. Lillies bloomed on every surface, and wide streams of ribbon twined over every beam and border. Slender milk wax candles burned like ivory saplings in the corners, and verdant garlands arched over every visible entranceway.
Pleasant Mount Chapel was once a quaint little country church, but over the decades, the pastor and the pastor’s family—and the pastor’s friends and patrons and business associates and hunting buddies and frail societies of kind elderly women—saw to it that the Lord’s storehouse wax abundant, and by 2001, there was enough money in the treasury to wholly reconstruct the entire edifice.
These days, Pleasant Mount looked nothing at all like it did when I was child. The wood frame was replaced with smooth stone, the pane windows were now cool sheets of tinted glass. Certainly the sign was different. The new one featured a digital marquee upon which scrolled witty figures of speech that were, to me, capital embarrassment.
Inside, the beautiful oak polished floors had been covered with thick wine carpeting. In years past, a narrow podium stood at the front of a small raised altar, but now, the expanded area stretched from wall to wall, and a glass and pipe construction angled up from the floor like a frightening ice sculpture.
Even Pastor Richman had changed. What he did with all his dove gray and beige suits remains a mystery, but these days, black was all he wore, and his gold pins and cufflinks stared out from the dark material like evil cat eyes from deep shadow.
Equally mysterious was how they were able to transform the sleek new Pleasant Mount into a lush garden of lacy sentiment. However perplexing may have been the process, I didn’t for a moment put it past the limitations of the Starks family. They work a dozen miracles for Brenda Starks-soon-to-be-Miller, and they’d make believers of the unfaithful.
Brenda was no friend of mine. Jake’s father was her favorite cousin when he was living. He was invited to every Starks family celebration since he was a child, and for the past fifteen years, we’d attended every one of them without fail. After Abe died, though, it was assumed by all that I would carry on the tradition.
We saw every one of Brenda’s birthdays, her high school graduation, her college graduation, her induction into Roe’s “Pride of the City” Hall of Fame, her engagement party, and now, her wedding. And as with every other event, there was I, with all five of Abe’s children in tow, dutifully present and dutifully celebratory, no matter what sentiment might be deficient or altogether absent inside.
As expected, there wasn’t enough room for all of us in one pew, so Jake slid into a seat on the end of the pew in front of us. Elton Bolton, from nearby Kinder, sat with his wife, Olivia. Elton was a wide man with a thick band of neck that rested on his back collar. He was kind enough and offered Jake more than enough room, to Miss Olivia’s dismay, but when he shifted to allow space for Jake, he positioned his large body strategically in my line of sight to the altar. It would be a nice wedding to hear.
