The Card of Thanks in the County Paper

The mailbox

Abby and I took three nights at a cabin on West Okoboji for a honeymoon, because it was what we could afford.

We came home on a Wednesday to the farmhouse we rent from an old couple who moved into town.

I manage two wean-to-finish hog barns about four miles down the gravel, twenty-four hundred head in each, for a family that contracts with one of the big integrators.

I was back at work at five the next morning, checking waterers and walking pens.

Abby found the first envelope that afternoon and left it on the table for me, unopened, because it had my name on it.

It was the car service invoice. The one the driver had already handed me.

They had mailed a clean copy, like I asked, and at the bottom someone in the office had typed what Sherri had written: Billing per Sherri Pedersen, groom to pay.

I told Abby about the reception then, standing at the counter with my boots still on. She listened without interrupting.

When I was done, she picked up the invoice and read it again and said, “Seven hundred eighty dollars to ride twenty minutes.”

The second envelope came Friday. It was from the hotel out by the highway where we had held a block of rooms for Abby’s relatives coming in from out of state.

I had put my card down to hold the block.

Sherri had called the week before the wedding and added a suite to my block for Friday and Saturday nights. Four hundred twenty a night.

Then room service: two breakfasts, a fruit tray, a bottle of champagne, and a late supper on Saturday after the dance.

The folio came to one thousand one hundred twenty dollars, and it had already gone on my card.

On Monday there were three. A dressmaker in Orange City, for a custom gown sewn to measure, one thousand four hundred fifty.

A florist in town, for a bouquet, a wrist corsage, and two arrangements delivered to the suite, six hundred.

A photographer, our own photographer, for two extra hours at the hotel taking portraits of Sherri, six hundred more.

That last one hurt the worst. Mike, our photographer, had called to ask if we wanted the hotel pictures in the same online gallery as the wedding, and I had to tell him I had no idea what pictures he meant.

On Tuesday there were four. A hairdresser from Sioux City who had driven up to do Sherri’s hair and makeup at the hotel, three hundred twenty with travel.

A tanning place in Sheldon, a package of spray tans, one hundred forty-five. A nail salon, ninety-five. A boutique in Le Mars, for shoes and a wrap, three hundred forty.

On Wednesday there were two. A small bakery cake, a two-layer lemon, delivered to the suite for what the invoice called a family brunch, two hundred ten. And a letter from our caterer.

Bev, who did the food, had a careful way of putting things. She wrote that she had been happy to accommodate the additional forty guests Mrs. Pedersen had added by phone on the Thursday before, and that she was sorry the final count had not reached us. Forty plates at eighteen fifty. Seven hundred forty dollars.

I had wondered who all those people from Sherri’s office were. I had shaken their hands in the receiving line and thanked them for coming.