The Front Row Seat in the Orchard

Saturday Morning

I was in the orchard by nine.

The ceremony was at four thirty, and the reception was going to be on the grass beside the barn under the string lights, and there was still a whole day of work between me and either one.

Ken Brinks was out on his four-wheeler checking the rows. Ken and his wife have run the orchard since the eighties, and they started doing weddings ten years ago when the apple prices went soft.

He waved me over and told me the forecast was sixty-four and clear.

“Heard about your grandma,” he said. “She all right?”

“She says she is.”

“Hazel Kroll?” He shook his head. “She bought half-bushels of Northern Spies from my dad for forty years. She’s tougher than a fence post. You tell her the Spies won’t be ready till mid-October this year, and I’ll save her some.”

The trees were heavy.

The Empires and the Jonathans and the late Galas were all hanging red over the chairs, and the grass between the rows was cut short, and the punch table from the night before had been folded up and carried away.

I walked to the front row on the bride’s side. The cards were all there in their little holders on the chair backs.

Mom. Then, on the aisle where Grandma’s name had been, a new card in Mom’s handwriting. Brandi and Nora.

Grandma’s card was in the second row, directly behind. Mom had done it neat. She had even brought a fresh holder.

I stood there a long time with the sun coming through the leaves.

Then I took Grandma’s card out of the second row and put it in the pocket of my sweatshirt, and I left Brandi’s card exactly where Mom had put it, on the aisle seat in the front row.

Then I looked at the stroller sign. Mom had made one, a little hand-lettered card that said Stroller Parking, and set it by the second row on the aisle.

I left it there too. There was room for a stroller there. I had measured it with Ryan the day before.

I did not change one more thing. I went and helped Megan tie burlap bows on the end chairs, and then I went up to the farmhouse to get my hair done.

Grandma Arrives

Megan went down to meet Grandma when the Buick pulled in at three thirty. I watched from the upstairs window of the farmhouse, where the Brinkses let brides get ready.

That was the only part of the day I spent indoors, and I spent all of it looking out.

Grandma wore lavender. I knew she would.

She had bought the dress in early summer at the Kohl’s on Alpine Avenue, and she had sent me a picture of it on the hanger with a thumbs-up, which is the most technology she uses.

Megan checked her hip again in the yard. I could see her ask, and see Grandma swat at her, and see Megan laugh.

Then Megan took her arm and walked her slowly down between the rows to the front. The guests were still up by the barn with the lemonade, and every chair in the orchard was empty.

Grandma stopped at the second row, where she knew Mom had moved her. I watched Megan lean down and say something.

Grandma looked up at the farmhouse, right at my window, as if she knew exactly where I was standing.

Then Megan walked her one row up, and Grandma sat down in the front-row aisle chair with Brandi’s name on the back of it, and folded her hands in her lap, and the bandage on her left hand caught the sun.

Before the Music

I was not supposed to come out until four thirty. My hair was done and my dress was on, and Megan had made me promise to stay out of sight.

I went down anyway.

I took the back steps and the path behind the barn, holding my dress up off the grass, and came out between the rows at the front, where nobody up at the barn could see me.

The late afternoon sun came slanting through the trees and lay across the aisle in long stripes, and the apples overhead were so red they looked painted.

Grandma saw me coming and put her hand to her mouth.

I bent down in the aisle in my ivory dress and took her by the shoulders, and she reached up and held on to my arms, bandaged hand and all.

“You didn’t have to,” she said.

“Yes I did,” I said. “You were supposed to be here. You were always supposed to be here.”

She held on a second longer than I expected. She smelled like Jergens lotion and the lilac powder she has worn since before I was born.

Our photographer had followed me down the path. I did not know it until the pictures came back.