The Hearing Aids Instead of a Reception

So Judge Porter read the old words. She read them slowly and plainly, and she stood close to us, and I saw her glance over at Grandma once or twice, the way you do when you know someone in the room is listening hard.

I said them back to Nate. I promise to love you, comfort you, honor and keep you, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse, as long as we both shall live.

Then Nate said them back to me. His voice is low and steady, the way it is on the radio when he is calling in from a pole in bad weather, and he did not stumble once.

I watched Grandma Fern while he talked. Her lips were moving along with his.

It took about six minutes, start to finish. I had spent six months planning the Legion hall reception. The wedding itself took six minutes.

When we came back out into the hallway, Grandma Fern sat back down on the wooden bench by the window. The spring sun was full on her now, and her white curls were almost glowing in it.

She reached up and took my hand and pulled me down close, so close I could smell her Jergens lotion and the peppermint she always keeps tucked in her cheek.

“I promise to love you, comfort you, honor and keep you,” she said, very quietly, just to me.

“In sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse, as long as we both shall live.”

She said the whole thing back to me, word for word, in order. She had heard every word of it. She had held on to every single word so she could hand it back to me in that hallway.

“I heard all of it,” she said. “Every bit. And I heard him, Morgan. I heard Nathan. He’s got a nice voice. You were right about that.”

Then she lifted her hand up near her ear, smiling, like she was showing off a new ring to the ladies at church.

I had not cried at Easter. I had not cried on the phone with my mother or at the front doors when nobody came through them.

I cried right there in the hallway of the Pittsburg County courthouse, kneeling on that marble floor in a sixty-four dollar dress.

Nate put his hand on my back and kept it there. Kim, bless her, finally figured out the camera and took the only good picture of the whole day: me and Nate standing by the bench, and Grandma Fern sitting in front of us with her hand up by her ear, smiling like she had just won a blue ribbon at the county fair.

We ate lunch at the catfish place, all five of us, and Nate’s dad paid before anybody could stop him. That was our reception.

Hush puppies and sweet tea and Grandma telling the waitress the ice in her glass sounded like wind chimes on a porch.

Three Sundays later, Nate and I went back to my parents’ house for Sunday dinner.

Mom made pot roast with carrots and potatoes and sweet tea in the big plastic pitcher.

Grandma Fern sat at the end of the table, same as always. Dad had picked her up from her house after church and driven her over.

What none of them knew was that she had spent three weeks hearing again. She had gone back to choir practice on Wednesday night.