The Tractor at the Church Door

Susan

I went inside for the family pictures. Katie was downstairs with her bridesmaids, and I wasn’t allowed to see her yet.

The photographer lined us up in front of the altar, my side of the family, then Ben’s.

Susan and Greg came in through the side door around one-thirty. Greg shook my hand. He’s a quiet man, an insurance man, and I’ve always liked him fine.

Susan smiled at me and said, “Wayne, you look so handsome.” She hadn’t seen the tractor yet. They’d parked in the back.

At a quarter past two the white Chevrolet pulled up at the curb in front of the church. I saw it through the front window of the narthex.

It was beautiful, I’ll admit that. Long and white and shining, with the chrome all polished, and a driver in a black cap.

Susan went out on the front steps to meet it. I watched her through the glass. She stood there admiring it for a second, her hands together.

Then she turned her head and saw the 60, parked beside the steps with its white bows.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t come back in and find me.

She just stood on the steps, and then she turned and looked through the glass right at me. I didn’t look away. I didn’t smile either. I just stood there.

Then the organ started, and the usher came to get me, because it was time.

The aisle

I’ve walked down that aisle at weddings and funerals my whole life. I’ve carried my own father down it.

But I had never walked down it with my daughter on my arm, and nothing in sixty-two years got me ready for it.

Katie came up the stairs from the basement in a long lace dress with sleeves, and her hair pinned up, and my mother’s pearl earrings.

She looked at me and her chin wobbled, and I said, “Don’t you start, or I’ll start.”

She laughed. Then she took my arm, and I felt her squeeze it twice.

That was our signal when she was little, two squeezes, meaning I’m all right, Dad. She hadn’t done it in twenty years.

She didn’t say a word about the tractor. I didn’t ask. I was too busy trying to walk in a straight line with my eyes full.

Pastor Dahl kept it to twenty-five minutes, bless him. He read from Ruth, where thou goest, I will go.

Ben’s voice shook when he said his vows. Katie’s didn’t. When they kissed, the Minneapolis cousins cheered and the Lutherans clapped politely.

Then the organ started up again, and they turned and walked back up the aisle together, married.

And I sat in the front pew next to Joan and held her hand, and I thought, well, Wayne, it’s over now, and whatever happens on those steps happens.