Aftermath of Dreaming(87)

A divine intervention must have occurred because my weeping has finally stopped. The band is playing Frank Sinatra covers; the food tables have been ravished, and everyone is dancing. Even people who look like they have not danced in years are caught up in the wedding-love mood. I alone am sitting at one of the round tables, daydreaming about the nice long sleep I could have on the carpet. The child bridal couple darts past, playing hide-and-seek among the empty chairs. Her white lace dress is in tatters, his clip-on bow tie attached to the edge of her sleeve. I suddenly imagine Michael chasing me as persistently as this little groom with his play bride, but that’s really a dream.

“Fly me to the moon, and let me sleep among the stars…” I like this version I am singing to myself better, a wedding lullaby for the romantically impaired and sleep deprived.

Just as my eyes are starting to nod shut, Suzanne materializes before me, her white silhouette blocking out all other stimuli, like a vision in a dream.

“There you are,” she says. I look around at the other empty tables and chairs surrounding the full dance floor, wondering how she possibly could not have seen me. “Where’s Michael? Didn’t he come?”

It feels like weeks since this afternoon when Michael stood me up or rather grooved out on me, and I had forgotten that my sister doesn’t know he never arrived. “No, he went on an unexpected trip.”

“Oh, honey, that’s too bad. Well, I need you to help me change.”

“I mastered that skill at three; haven’t you gotten it yet?”

The band has switched to “We Are Family,” and the roiling throng is responding with whoops and flailing arms.

“Come on, I need to put on my traveling suit before everyone leaves.”

“For what? You and Matt are staying here tonight until your plane leaves tomorrow morning—why are you changing out of your dress?”

“Will you just come help me? God, you are so stubborn sometimes.”

Following my sister out the reception hall, I concede that she has a point.



The honeymoon suite where Suzanne and Matt will first slumber as husband and wife is a luxurious peach dream. My sister’s empty wedding dress is lying in the middle of the floor like a circus tent dropped at the end, no longer needed to create magic in. I am zipping up Suzanne’s cream-colored sheath as she holds her hair out of the way.

“And no one does receiving lines anymore, either, but my God, if I don’t get to enjoy all the traditions and costumes that come with a wedding, what’s the point.” She slips into the matching jacket and examines the result in the mirror.

“Well, I’ve always considered elevators travel.”

Suzanne catches my eye and we laugh ourselves into giggles. I suddenly want to put on our childhood matching nightgowns and play princesses in the backyard among the glowing fireflies that we pretended were fairies until long after dark.

I smooth down the collar of her jacket, letting her hair fall back onto her shoulders. “You look great.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m really happy for you.”

“Thanks, honey.”

Suzanne turns around and goes to the dresser, then begins rooting around in our grandmother’s burgundy leather traveling valise that she uses as a jewelry case, pulling out pearl studs and a necklace.

“So, how long is y’all’s honeymoon again? Bali’s going to be great.”

Suzanne walks back over to me, holding something in her hand.

“This is yours,” she says, and places into my hand our mother’s prayer book. The ivory leather is cool and soft on my skin like Momma’s cheek was when I’d kiss her good night as a child. “I could tell she wanted you to have it when I asked her for it.”

“Oh, Suzanne, I can’t.”

“Yes, I want you to have it. Now it’s from both of us.”

A splash of wetness falls from my eye onto the book. I worry what the moisture will do to the leather, but realize mine are not the first tears to be caught and absorbed by the prayers held inside.

“Okay, but…” My words are interrupted by more tears emerging from my throat, lungs, and heart. They are fresh and solid, as if they are the first of their kind, not the thousandth that day, but I know that these are from a different place than the others. “I may not be able to use it for what y’all did.”

“Hush. You don’t know that.” Suzanne puts her arms around me and hugs me in a true embrace as my dress gathers in folds between the clinch of our bodies. I feel my sister’s arms around me and, through them, every member of our family reaching forward and back through our line.

“So I guess your migration into Matt’s family is complete now.”

Suzanne pulls back and looks at me. “Is that what you think? Honey, there is family and there’s family, but—”

I look into my sister’s eyes, eyes the color of Momma’s green one while my eyes are the color of Momma’s brown one. We are one piece of tourmaline, two colors in the same gem, but split and refracting the light differently.

“You’re my only sister. Nothing changes that.”

I hug her again, drinking in the safety of our relationship.

“There you two are.” Matt’s voice enters the room before I see him. “There’s a big crowd of people downstairs holding bags of birdseed and staring at me. I feel like I stumbled into the The Lottery.”