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It seemed obvious that we would hold this simple ceremony in my home backyard. I began to wish we had a horse or two and knew how to ride them, because now we had to go home again and start to get ready for a wedding.
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My mom had a blue dress, of a subtle floral print, which buttoned down the back and was ankle length. I did not remember it until I explored her closet. I wondered when she had worn it and for what occasion.
It fit me well enough. I was a little taller than my mother, but only by about two inches. I stood wearing it in front of her mirror and thought about her. It had been years now, but I needed her, and she wasn’t there.
Lou had a little yellow dress that had been given to her by the chicken lady, and it was nice enough. I was trying to think of everything.
We looked through dad’s closet too. He had some white shirts, which I didn’t care for, and a blue one that looked nice next to mom’s dress. His pants wouldn’t work for Doug at all. Dad was a 38 waist and Doug a 34. So clean jeans it would be. Elvin would have to wear one of the white ones.
This was hard to bear, even now. Hard to describe. When we went mining for rings on the dresser in a little case, I found both of their wedding rings. Apparently when they died someone had removed their rings and saved them from the burning. What a terrible time that was. So many died so quickly. We probably would have died except for a couple of neighbor ladies checking in on us and showing us how to survive on our own. One or the other of them would even take us shopping and show us how to use the P-Sec currency. We had the Girl Scouts beat all to heck. I could care for my little sister and run a house at ten years of age.
The rings were a little loose on both of us, but I thought we could wear them during the wedding, and then put them away again.
We sat on the edge of their bed looking at their rings. It is true that I wet his shoulder with my tears.
The backyard was all bushy and overgrown except in the flower beds where we had been planting potatoes and such. We worked for two days hand cutting the grass with a scythe and a pair of hand clippers. Then it looked doable for our level of fancy, after some raking. I still felt like I was pretending.
Bubby patrolled around to make sure there were no rats or squirrels to intrude. He didn’t approve of either.
The days of that week passed. We all five kept busy. I washed clothes. Lou and I swept and straightened rooms. We even washed some windows. Doug and Elvin worked on the front yard some. They trimmed some bushes back and pulled up the big weeds. It began to look inhabited outside, instead of like every empty house on every street.
Lou and I had no suitable shoes, so we decided to go barefoot. That’s ok for country I thought. We had heard about hippies!
Finally, Friday night I was as ready as I could be. The dresses and shirts and jeans were all laid out and clean. The boys were wearing pajama bottoms to save their jeans for the next morning. The house was clean. The yard was pretty good. We had rings. We did not have a cake. But we were happy there all together in my parents’ house.
We made a dinner of roasted potatoes and fried eggs and were glad of it. Bubby ate a celebratory can of dog food, beef variety.
Saturday morning dawned sunny and cool. Up in my bedroom in my narrow bed next to Lou’s I awoke early and sat up looking out at the sky. Everything would change today.
When I went downstairs Doug was sitting at the table in the kitchen. He had made a pot of tea and was sitting with a mug in front of him. He was in my father’s place, and that was fine with me. He said “Jen, I love you.” I was startled to hear myself answer, “I must love you too, because I like you an awful lot Doug.” He became beautiful in my eyes then.
I made a pot of rice with raisins for breakfast, which we had with some precious butter, when the kids arrived at the table. Bubby wanted some too, so of course he ate with us.
There was a bit of a commotion out in front of the house. Bubby went tearing to the door and barked like a common mutt. When the door was opened it revealed Mrs. Steele sitting on a horse, clutching a cardboard box, with Roops holding the reins and grinning. He was in his usual black shorts and boots, but also a nice black shirt and a top hat! Mrs. Steele had on a long floral dress, hitched up a little so she could sit on the horse.
Roops took the box from his mom and gave it to Doug to put in the kitchen. Then he lifted his mom down to the ground. He tied the horse’s reins to a large bush’s trunk. I said, “where did the horse come from?”
“I borrowed the mare from some guy I know early this morning. Her name is Elsie. She has to go back today. He needs her tomorrow,” said Roops complacently. He cut quite a figure there in his hat with the brown mare beside him. An air of fantasy played about this day already. Elsie began calmly eating the lawn. I asked Elvin to get her a soup pan of water, which he did.
The box contained a five-layer carrot cake, decorated with a white icing and little silver sprinkles. I will never know how she got that together. It didn’t seem possible. But Mrs. Steele was a bit of a mysterious character anyhow, with unknown resources.
Next order of business was dressing. We did our best. Lou’s hair was just curly fluff. I sat while Mrs. Steele did mine up in something she called a French roll. She tucked some little white artificial flowers into it too. Doug and Elvin put on their shirts and clean jeans and combed their hair nicely.
Elvin went next door, to the Roger’s empty house and picked six yellow roses and some daisies out of Mrs. Roger’s flower beds. He made them into a nice little bouquet, with a bit of ivy wound around it for me. He said I should hold flowers at my wedding even if they were salvaged.
We put the cake in the center of the table and put some dessert plates of mom’s beside it, with some salad forks. That was the extent of the festive food. It certainly looked special to us. The last cake I had seen had been made by my mother.
Roops, Mr. Rupert D. Jones in full, hat and all, said, “let’s get this show on the road kids. Head for the back yard and assume positions!”
There was no one to give me away, so as Doug and I stood together facing the mountains to the east, Mrs. Steele stood beside me in place of a parent. Lou stood beside her holding the one red rose that she could find, looking like a slightly rumpled fairy. Elvin stood beside Doug on the other side, with the rings in his pocket. Bubby stood beside Elvin, silent for once. I held Elvin’s gift of flowers, sweetly bestowed, proudly.
Roops moved grandly out in front of us and began to speak. He had the old Episcopal prayer book, that as it turns out had been his father’s and so he said… “DEARLY beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this company……” We promised all the old promises. Lou wept. Doug kissed me for the very first time. Believe it or not. I wept too, but from the sheer glory of happiness, sudden and real.
Roops looked very pleased with himself, and us. Mrs. Steele loved every minute, and Elvin smiled and kept his own counsel. Bubby sat quietly looking up into the sky.
And so, we were not Episcopalian and didn’t really know what any of that meant. But we had heard the words somewhere before and we were married there on the back yard lawn in front of God and everybody, just like the book said.
Bubby gave a single sharp bark and said, “look up there!” He was still gazing into the eastern sky.
Brilliantly cascading Lights began to converge above the lawn. Winking into existence as tiny points like shining pearls, and then growing to various sizes and colors, they did an ornate dance in the upper air. They sang a mighty chorus together like no music we had ever heard before.
They assumed a patterned position then, in rows like the shining petals of some Heavenly flower and hung there in the eastern sky for a few moments as we tried to breathe and understand what we were seeing.
One single shining opalescent white Light lowered itself towards us coming to rest at about head height. Its patterned surface swirled and spun as it turned slowly there in the sunlight, like an incredible descended moon or star.
A quiet voice, coming from no direction spoke at last.
“Your Creator blesses you. You are greatly favored! You will receive wisdom now, and honor and strength. The mantle of authority is given to you. As a token of this day, All Being has sent you rings to remind you of this day and the power and terror of it. For authority is a two-sided gift. Now come forward Jennifer and Douglas.
“Take off the old rings and give them to the young man Elvin. Now put out your hands.”
We did as bidden, and somehow new rings of fine rose gold, plain and perfect were slipped onto our fingers. They fit perfectly, of course.
Then it rose to join the rest and they executed some more fantastic arabesques and swirled up into the noontime sky, vanishing over the mountains.
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