The Cooler on the Courthouse Bench

The Photo

After a while Kelsey wiped her eyes and said, “I don’t have a single picture from today. Not one. Will everybody please get on the steps?”

So we did. Josh and Amy and Kim and Pam had come across the square by then, and Pam had brought the waitress’s to-go boxes, bless her.

We all climbed up onto those wide stone steps in the sunshine.

Kelsey turned around and looked at Earl, still sitting on the bench.

“Earl,” she said, “you too. You were here before any of us.”

He shook his head. “I’m not dressed for it, ma’am.”

“Neither is the cooler,” Kelsey said, “and it’s going in.”

So Earl came up the steps. Kelsey handed him the lid of her daddy’s red-and-white cooler and said, “Hold this. It’s important.” And he held it in front of his chest like a man holding a flag at a parade.

Pam took the picture with Kelsey’s phone. I have it printed and framed on my piano now.

Kelsey and Tyler in the middle, Gail on Tyler’s other side with her mascara all down her face, me on the end, and Earl in his tan canvas jacket holding up that cooler lid and smiling with his whole face.

It is the only wedding picture they have. Kelsey says it’s the only one she’d ever want.

When Ray came out for his afternoon break and saw all of us on his steps, he said, “Well, I’ll be,” and asked if he should take one so Pam could be in it too.

So he did. That’s the second picture, and it’s on Gail’s refrigerator.