The Song Two Hundred Guests Finished

The song I kept off every list

I never put “My Girl” on any list. Not the one Alonzo made, not the one Paula marked up, not the program my cousin printed at the library. I did not even tell Whit what it was.

It was not a secret to be sneaky. It was just the one part of the whole day that was only Dad’s and mine, and I did not want anybody’s opinion on it. Not the florist’s, not my bridesmaids’, not anybody’s.

I called Alonzo myself in August and told him there would be one extra song, right after the cake.

Uncle Woody would come out on the lawn, I would nod, and he would play it. Alonzo said, “Yes ma’am, got it,” and wrote it on a sticky note.

So when Paula looked over her printed list that night and heard a song start that was not on it, I am sure it looked to her like a mistake.

I did not know yet what that song was to her. Nobody did.

The quiet

Standing on the lawn in that silence, I want to be honest about what I felt. It was not grace.

It was hot, and it went straight up my neck, and for about four seconds I wanted to walk over there and say something I could never take back.

I did not. I am not sure I can take credit for that. I think I was just frozen, and Uncle Woody’s hand was the only thing holding me to the ground.

Across the yard, Whit had been carrying a bag of ice to the coolers by the shed.

I saw him set it down in the grass, very carefully, the way he sets down his hot stick after a job, and start walking toward his mother.

Before he got halfway there, a little voice started singing.

It was Elva. My brother Abner’s girl, seven years old, my flower girl, still holding the basket with three petals left in the bottom.

She was standing right at the front of the ring, and she was singing the song.