wedding day

Daddy married Crazy in HER church. That was the deal - get married at hers, keep going to ours. Pastor Norm came, but only to watch.

I sit in the bride's room with her and the Italian girls. We are wearing long peach dresses with ribbons around the middle. They are dresses with elastic on top, so you can leave it up or pull it down around your shoulders. We have brown strappy sandals too. I think we should wear white, but Lynn says we can't because it is fall.

I learned about serfs and peasants and lords in school this year. I look in the long mirror - and we look just like the peasants in my history book - peasants with feathered hair and frosty lip gloss.

I leave my dress up. The twins are fighting with their mom - they want to wear them down. Lynn says "No - that will look weird on the little girls." Tiffany is eleven and does not like to be lumped in with me. She pulls hers down, and Gina says, "See it looks fine."

"No," says Lynn, nodding towards me. "she is only eight - it will look weird."
All three of them look at me with hard eyes - like it is my fault that they cannot show their barely existent cleavage to the entire church. Like it is my fault that this wedding is even happening. Like they wish I would just disappear.

It's Gina that says, "No, mom is right. It would look weird on her - because everything looks weird on her." They all laugh at me - even the one who is going to be my mom.

I know I do not belong here. Me with my blue eyes - staring hard at their brown ones. My blonde hair that will not stay curly even when the hairdresser swears out loud. So I just sit at the table and I watch. I watch Lynn get ready, and I see how beautiful she is, and I hope she will love me, even though I am not pretty like Cassie, or funny like Tiffany, or the fastest runner like Gina. I hope she can find something in me to love - but I do not know what.

Later I walk down the aisle with little brother and Anthony. We are the last of the kids to walk. Daddy is in his suit, looking nervous. Little brother and Anthony are giggling. Lynn comes behind us, looking like a princess and Daddy smiles at her.

Standing up so long makes my legs itchy and I scratch my ankle with my sandal. I am supposed to pay attention to the pastor. I look at the audience instead. There are a lot of people here. Her friends, her family, daddy's friends, daddy's family. They are smiling, and teary eyed. But I do not look at them, because I see something else.

There are Mama's friends, Mama's family, and they are not smiling, or teary. They are holding hands with serious faces, mouths closed - like when you are watching a movie again and you really think it will turn out different this time. They watch the whole wedding like that, and I look at them and wonder why.


At the reception we stand in a row so people can shake our hands and hug us. They make jokes about six kids and how we look like the Brady Bunch. I stand as close to her as I can - wanting to belong to her already. People hug Lynn and tell her to take care of us. They say that Daddy is a "great catch" and that little brother and me are good kids. They say she is very lucky.

Nobody says that to us.

In theater, they call that "foreshadowing."