The Front Row Seat in the Orchard

The Bouquet

When the pastor got to the part where I hand off my bouquet, Megan stepped forward for it, the way we had practiced.

I shook my head at her a little. She understood right away. Megan always understands right away.

I turned around and handed my bouquet to Grandma.

She took it in both hands, the good one and the bandaged one, and held it in her lap through the whole rest of the ceremony with the photo of my father wrapped inside it, though she did not know that yet.

Ryan’s vows were short. He had written them on the back of a seed invoice, and he read them off it, and he said he would follow me anywhere at forty-five miles an hour.

Grandma laughed again. Nobody else knew why. I did.

What People Saw

I did not plan for there to be a consequence. I only planned the chair.

But two hundred people were sitting in that orchard, and they all had eyes, and by cocktail hour every one of them knew the whole story.

Aunt Sue told it. Megan did not have to. The Kent City church ladies told it. Ryan’s mother heard it from a Vos cousin who heard it from my school principal.

By the time the sun went down behind the barn, there was nobody left at that wedding who did not know why my sister had been in the second row.

Brandi heard it told. She had to stand at the bar with Nora in her arms while one of Dad’s cousins asked Grandma, right in front of her, how she hurt her hand. Grandma said, “I fell into a punch table.” That was all she said. Everybody already knew the rest.

Mom could not fix it. That was the part I think stung Brandi most.

For thirty-three years Mom had fixed everything for her, and here was something Mom could not fix, because it was not a fight and nobody was angry and there was nothing to smooth over. There was only a chair.

I did not say a word to her about it. Not then, not at the reception, not since. I did not have to. The chair said it for me.