The Reception the Whole Town Gave

Pastor Wade blessed the meal. It was short. He thanked God for the food and the hands that made it, for the soldier and his bride, and for every person in the yard. Then he said, “And for the one who came late to the table, and for the grace that does not keep a count.” I saw Roone put his hand over his eyes.

Lindy cut Vesta’s lemon cake with a knife borrowed from the Saint Mark’s kitchen. And we ate.

There were speeches. Ben, who had said maybe six words to me all week, stood on a folding chair with a paper cup of lemonade and told how Harvey had never complained in two years, how he had carried a wounded man’s pack on a twelve-mile march without being asked and never told a soul. He stopped twice. When he sat, the three young soldiers stood, then the veterans from Cecil’s hall, then one by one everyone in the churchyard.

Arlie gave a toast four sentences long, the longest speech I have ever heard him make. It belongs to Lindy, so I will not repeat it.

The woman with the beagle told Harvey she had been looking for him for two years. Children ran through the string lights in broad daylight. Someone started a game of horseshoes by the fence.

The food did not run out. Around two thirty Hazel came to me with a look I will never forget. “Verda, we have more than we started with. Saint Mark’s brought another twenty chicken. People brought dishes we didn’t ask for.”

I counted later. Two hundred thirty-one people. We fed them all and sent them home with foil-wrapped plates, and there was enough left for the veterans hall, the nursing home, and the fire station.

At four I was collecting plates at the far end of the third table. Roone was still beside Dolores, who had not left him in three hours. His plate held a third of a slice of ham, half a roll, and a piece of the lemon cake he had once been going to make himself.

He stood when I came near. “Mrs. Weddle. May I help with the tables?”

I thought of the dish towel folded so neatly, and the freezer I had prayed would fail.

“The veterans hall wants theirs back by six,” I said. “They’re heavy.”

“I’ll carry them.”

And he did. At five o’clock, in the clear afternoon light, with his shirtsleeves rolled, I watched him fold the veterans’ tables one at a time and stack them in Cecil’s truck. Cecil handed him a pair of gloves without a word.

Harvey and Lindy had one night, at the little motel by the highway whose sign said Vacancy in letters nobody had changed since 1982. I did not ask. Arlie and I sat up in the kitchen with the pig magnet and the seating chart and a pot of decaf neither of us drank.

Sunday the church was full again. Pastor Wade preached eleven minutes and said nothing about the wedding. At the end he asked Harvey to come forward and the whole congregation stood. He laid a hand on the young man’s shoulder, and the women of the prayer chain came down the aisle two by two, thirty-one of them, Dolores first. Each touched him on the arm or the sleeve as she passed. They did not say anything. They had prayed for him for three days and there was nothing left to say.

Roone sat in the back pew. I did not look too long.