Elizabeth Crane - The History of Great Things

You may end up being just as surprised as everyone else tomorrow , I say. I suppose that’s true. Victor’s remarried. I knew he would be. That’s as it should be. Okay, good. I go to fix up the guest room, and while I’m gone, you tell Ben you had your doubts about whether I’d ever get over my issues with my dad enough to have a healthy relationship. He laughs; he’s not going to take that bait, even though he’s heard another side of that story a few times. She’s good at it , is all Ben says, but when he says it, you get it, and you guys have a little moment.

In theory, you don’t want to upstage my wedding day, you just want to be there like any mother of the bride. But you’re you, and there’s no way around the fact that you’re you and you’re dead, and that’s likely now to be what everyone remembers about this day. So you agree to watch the ceremony from the bedroom window so that Ben and I can at least have our ceremony be about us. When I come back from the hairdresser’s ready to lose it about the overly fancy updo they’ve given me, you help me loosen it up a bit, make it more daytime-y; it’s a big improvement. Your eyes start to fill up. Cut that out, Mom! You’ll make me mess up my makeup. I can’t help it. My little girl. You can be a big fat pain in my ass, Mom, but I’m glad you’re here , I say. Better than a pain in your big fat ass, ha! I wouldn’t have missed it.

The ceremony is in our backyard on Noble Street in Chicago. The trees are decorated with garlands I made from paper and string; I sewed the skirts for the bridesmaids and the ring pillow myself. My dress. . you made my dress. It’s the bridesmaid’s dress you made me when I was a bridesmaid in that all-white wedding in the eighties. We got that brocade fabric on Thirty-Seventh Street; you left the seams extra wide in case I ever needed to let it out and wear it again. I had a designer help me update it by taking off the sleeves and making straps and a kind of a mini-train; I’d kept the leftover fabric. You, for reasons that shouldn’t mystify me as they do, are wearing a heavily sequined Bob Mackie gown you got at the afterlife Loehmann’s. It was a bit much. I had to take off some of the sequins , you say. I try to picture this dress before you worked on it, because it’s still as flashy as a fireworks display. I was never a big Loehmann’s fan, but my other option was Forever 21. Did you come from hell? I ask. No one really says , you say. My stepbrothers walk my bridesmaids down the aisle: Nina, my sister Susan, and another friend who did all the flowers. We got them from Trader Joe’s and she arranged them in mismatched thrift-store vases I picked up for a quarter or fifty cents each, wrapped with tulle.

— Why doesn’t the flower friend have a name?

— That’s another story. We haven’t spoken for a few years.

— Why not? What did she do?

— Why would you assume it was something she did?

— Okay, what did you do?

— Mom, it’s too long a story. I wasn’t completely honest with her.

— About what?

— Lots of things. I spent years telling her things I thought she wanted to hear so she’d stay my friend. I mean, not lies. Agreeing with her when I didn’t. That kind of thing.

— Why would you do that?

—. .

— I just don’t see what this has to do with me.

— I know.

— You can tell me.

— The shortest possible version is that one day, after many years of friendship, I came to feel that I was dealing with her in a way that was not unlike how I had dealt with you.

— Well, I’m sure it was her fault.

— I’m trying to take responsibility for my part, Mom. There were two people involved, yes. That’s all I’ll say.

— I knew it.

— Mom, it’s just a whole other extremely complicated, unresolved story.

— So maybe you should cut her out of this scene altogether.

— I probably should. I was trying to keep the day as real as I could under the circumstances.

— YOU SAID THIS WASN’T A MEMOIR.

Two of Ben’s friends from Michigan, Anne and Chafe, have a ridiculously awesome four-year-old, Ruby; she’s the flower girl — I made her dress too (on the big side, I learned that from you, told myself this way she could wear it again) — and my stepbrother Rob’s boys Matt and Tom are the ring bearers. Ben’s at the altar with his brother Fritz, Chafe, and his other old friends from Kalamazoo, Dann and Tim. Victor walks me down the stairs, because Dad’s too wobbly with Parkinson’s now, though he’s able to take over for the short walk from there to the tree we’ve decorated to stand under, and he got a new suit and a bright blue tie for the occasion. His joyful smile could light the tree at Rockefeller Center; he’s found a bit of a kindred spirit in Ben. Dad has always been proud of his artier side, and he’s tickled to have a son-in-law who is genuinely interested in his old woodcuts. Our friends play music as we walk down the aisle; from the altar, Ben and I look on as Anne sings a Nick Drake song, “Northern Sky” ( “Been a long time that I’m waiting. .” ), with Chafe on guitar, they chose it themselves, it makes me cry; it’s a perfect day. We’ve asked our friends and family to speak as the spirit moves them. Jeannie reads a poem; Ben’s sister gives a tribute to their parents, sure they would have been so happy to see this day. Bob talks about the old days when we were friends and we were both miserable and single and how happy he is to see what my life has become.

Meanwhile, upstairs in the house, you’ve started reading my book. You skim the first story after a couple of pages, confused by the style, and flip through looking for “Mom” or “Mother” until you land on the one that’s about the year after your death. You’ve lost track of time and missed half the ceremony because you’ve been reading the story about you, and just as Bob is wrapping up, you poke your head out the window waving the book in your hand and yell Mood-oriented? Mood-oriented?

Everyone turns to look up at the window. Three people faint: two of our pregnant friends and your sister. I give you a dead stare, which is, no surprise, entirely ineffective, and a wave back into the window doesn’t help either. Quite a few of the guests have no idea who you are, which I thank god for — friends we met after you were already gone, Ben’s family. Many of the guests have seen pictures, of course, but nobody seems to be going straight to Mother of the bride, returned from the dead . Nina whispers to me I’ve got this , hurries back upstairs to pull you inside the window. What does that mean, “mood-oriented”? That I have moods? That I’m moody? The whole world thinks I’m moody now? Nina gently pulls you back inside. Nobody thinks that, Lois, everyone loves you and misses you. Come on inside now.

At this point, after the guests recover from their fainting spells, there’s a pause, a pause so literal and long it’s almost like a freeze-frame. All remaining heads are staring up at the window, even though you’re now inside. Finally Ben’s sister stands up, because no one else has and someone has to. Okay, everyone. Here’s what’s going on. Amy calmly explains the deal about the day pass. Everyone listens silently; it seems impossible to believe, but Amy adds You saw her. If it weren’t true, what would the alternative be? Betsy and Ben decided to have some weird lookalike of her mom show up to freak everyone out? She further explains that the reason she knows this is that her own mother had come to her wedding. What? Ben says. Mom came to your wedding but not to mine? I was there, Amy, I didn’t see her. She stayed inside. Didn’t she want to talk to me? No, it wasn’t that, I’m sure. . Ben looks thoroughly crushed. I was the first one to get married, and I was her daughter, and. . it’s possible she thought better of it after the last time. Mom loved you so much, Ben. You know that. Let’s try to have a good day. I’m sure there are plenty of people here who are happy to see Lois. I know I’m glad to get the chance to meet her. Ben and I look at each other. I whisper I’m sorry.