Jonathan’s First Wedding
By
Sandy Nygaard
During the summer that he turned five, Jonathan learned about weddings. The fuss started when his sister Susan and David Anderson, her boyfriend since high school, came home from college for the weekend. She rounded up the family and made them sit down in the living room. Then she stuck out her hand. Jonathan’s other sister, Karen, sixteen years old, with her hair dyed orange that day, shrieked and bounded across the room to hug Susan. Jonathan’s mother hugged Susan, then David, eyes full of tears, and his father shook David’s hand.
“Glad to have you in the family,” he said.
Grandma Hudson also hugged them both and said to David, “Your grandfather and I grew up together in this town. Who would have guessed that one day our grandchildren would get married?”
Susan showed Jonathan the ring on her finger. “David gave it to me. It means that we’re going to get married. And I want you and Karen to be in the wedding. Would you like that?”
Jonathan didn’t know if he’d like that or not, but nodded anyway.
“We’re thinking August. That will give us two months after graduation to find jobs and plan the wedding.”
“Honey, two months isn’t much time.”
“We want to keep it simple. An outdoor wedding in the park, with just close friends and family. We figure a hundred people at the most.”
“That sounds very reasonable,” said Jonathan’s dad. Jonathan’s mom shook her head but said nothing.
After they left to tell David’s family, Jonathan’s mother wiped her eyes with a tissue and said, “They seem so young.”
“When I get married, I’m going to elope like you did,” Karen said to Grandma Hudson.
“Good idea,” said Jonathan’s dad.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” said Grandma Hudson. “A normal wedding is much better for everyone in the long run.”
Karen looked and Jonathan and made a funny face at him, sticking out her tongue and squinting her eyes. Jonathan mimicked the face back at her.
The next morning, Jonathan and his mother began planning the wedding. He didn’t want to plan the wedding, but Karen was at school and no one could stay with him. He played games on his mom’s cell phone while she leafed through pages of photographs at the photographer’s, pictures of flower arrangements at the florist’s, and most boring of all, pages of invitations and announcements at the printer’s. He saw pictures of kids dressed up for the weddings, but he couldn’t figure out what exactly they did to be in the wedding. Every place they went, his mother wrote in her notebook, and took brochures. By then end of the week, her notebook would hardly zip closed it was so stuffed.
One evening while Jonathan sat at the kitchen table coloring and his mother sorted through her papers, the phone rang. It was Susan calling from college.
“Have you thought more about the wedding?” asked his mom. There was a pause. “We talked to the Andersons, and I don’t know how we can keep the guest list down to a hundred.” Another pause. “But our relatives alone will push the list to over a hundred. I honestly don’t know how to keep the list that low without hurting feelings.” She listened then said, “Well, think about it. We’ll talk more when you come home for the weekend.”
When Susan came home, they talked more about it, then they argued about it, then they cried about it. Jonathan hid out in the family room where he couldn’t hear them and began building a crane with his brick building set. Karen came in not long after, her hair now with a purple streak dyed in it, and sat down with him. Then Susan came and sat down on the floor too.
“This is impossible,” said Susan as she snapped a brick in place. “Mom has the wedding planned already.”
Karen picked up a brick. “Why don’t you elope? It would solve all your problems, and it would be so romantic to sneak away in the middle of the night.”
Susan rolled her eyes. “David and I don’t have to sneak anywhere. We’re adults.”
A knock at the back door interrupted their conversation, and Grandma Hudson walked in.
“Hello everyone,” she said. “Where’s your mom?”
“She’s upstairs crying,” said Susan.
“I know, she called me.” Grandma Hudson sat down on the couch near them. “Weddings are such problems in this family. My father wouldn’t speak to me for two years after I ran off with your grandfather. It’s a hard way to start out.” She reached out and tousled Jonathan’s hair. “I wish you could have known your grandfather.” She continued, “Then I thought I’d never recover from your mother’s wedding.”
“Why is that?” asked Karen.
“You know, having to call off the wedding at the last minute.”
“Why did you have to call if off?” asked Susan.
“Don’t you kids don’t know the story of your parents’ wedding?”
“I didn’t think there was much to it. They were married at home, weren’t they?”
“Yes, but we had planned a church wedding, with a small reception afterward. Nothing big or fancy. Very simple. The kind of wedding that you want, Susan. Anyway, your mother woke up two days before the wedding and called everything off.”
Karen shrieked with delight and flopped backward on the floor, arms outstretched. “You mean she left Dad at the altar?” she said to the ceiling.
“Yes. Then two weeks later, she had another change of heart, so we had the pastor come out to the house and marry them.”
“I can’t believe it,” said Susan.
“It happened, and I know your mother regrets it. I regret running off too. If we had been more patient, I know my parents would have consented. I’ve always wished I’d been married surrounded by family and friends; had a nice dress and flowers.”
“I want my wedding to be happy too. David and I want it small, but neither of our moms can cut the guest list. They’re afraid of offending people. But finals are coming up, then graduation, and David and I both have to find jobs. I just don’t want the stress of a big wedding.”
“Your mom says she’ll help. Maybe that’s a way to make it happy for everyone.”
“Maybe.” Susan looked down and added another brick to the structure.
The rest of the weekend was calm and when Susan left, the family arguments went back to the familiar everyday topics of Karen’s hair and Jonathan’s bedtime.
“Just because I like to experiment with color doesn’t mean I’m some kind of weirdo. I mean, it’s not like I want tattoos or anything,” said Karen.
“You’re not a weirdo,” said Jonathan.
“She just looks like one,” his mom sighed
“You’re too old to understand,” said Karen as she stormed out of the room.
“I’m not that old,” Jonathan’s mother shouted after her. Then she looked at Jonathan and said quietly, “I’ve only been forty-nine for two years now.” Then she scooped Jonathan up in her arms. “If I’m old, then you’re the joy of my old age. Get your PJs on and I’ll read you a story before bed.”
“Moooooom!” he wailed in protest.
After graduation, Susan and David both moved home, and wedding plans began in earnest. Susan, Jonathan and their mother went to the stores again, but not to all of them. This time Jonathan’s mother knew exactly where to go. She flipped through pages in the books, while Susan nodded and twisted her engagement ring around her finger. They reserved the church and talked to a caterer. “We’re expecting about three hundred,” said Jonathan’s mom.
Susan glanced away and bit at her nails. “I’d feel better about all this if one of us at least had a job,” she said.
“You and David can live in our basement room for as long as you need to. Everything will be fine. You’ll see,” said Jonathan’s mom.
A month before the wedding, the Andersons came for dinner to help finalize the plans. David’s grandfather, who was visiting until the wedding, came too. After dinner, he and Grandma Hudson sat on the back patio talking and laughing in the warm evening, while everyone else sat in the living room. Jonathan didn’t fit in anywhere. He wished Karen would play with him, but she sat cross-legged on the living room floor blowing bubbles with her gum, her hair red all over now and spiky on top, listening to every word. Susan sat on the couch next to David nervously twisting her hair around her finger, her eyes darting between the two mothers as they discussed the menu for the rehearsal dinner. Jonathan wandered outside and listened to the grandparents’ private jokes.
“Remember that day at the little Northfork?” David’s grandfather said.
Grandma Hudson laughed. “I’ll never forget when Jonas Knudson jumped off the bridge.”
“He was crazy. I wonder what ever happened to him?”
“I don’t know. Probably still jumping off bridges somewhere.”
“We had good times,” said David’s grandfather. “We thought our little gang of kids would stay together forever. But then you met Bill, I met Emma, and we went our separate ways.”
“It’s hard to believe that both of them are gone.”
They sat suddenly silent, until David’s grandfather noticed Jonathan. “Well now, here’s a fine example of a young man.”
It embarrassed Jonathan to be called a fine example. “I’m the joy of my mom’s old age,” he said.
Grandma Hudson smiled behind her hand, but David’s grandfather laughed out loud. “I think I have just the thing for someone who spreads such joy.” He reached into his pocket and gave Jonathan a piece of hard candy.
Then Jonathan’s mother came to the door. She spotted him and spoke the dreaded words.
“Bedtime.”
“Noooo!” he objected, but between his mother and grandmother, he hadn’t a chance. As he kissed his grandmother, he felt David’s grandfather tug at his coat, and later found another piece of candy in his pocket.
By the end of July, the planning was done except for one detail that Jonathan’s mother found hard to arrange.
“You simply can’t wear your hair like that in the wedding,” she told Karen.
“Susan said I could. It’s her wedding.”
“When you get older, you will be so embarrassed to see those wedding pictures.”
“That’s my problem, isn’t it?” Karen stormed out of the room.
A week before the wedding, Jonathan hardly saw Susan, and when he did, she looked past him as if he wasn’t there. She slept until noon every morning, but he saw light coming through the crack in her closed door late one night when he got up because of a nightmare. That afternoon he overheard his mother and grandmother talking.
“She’s a nervous wreck. She’s worried because neither of them jobs yet. She’s worried about the wedding, worried about being married, worried because she’s worrying herself sick. You name it, she’s worried about it. I took her to the doctor, and he gave her some pills to calm her nerves, but now she won’t take them because she’s worried that they’ll be addictive.”
“We just can’t seem to get weddings right in this family.”
“I feel terrible. I tried to do it all for her so she could relax, but I guess that wasn’t the right thing either. She says it doesn’t feel like it’s her wedding. This should be the happiest time of her life, not the worst.”
“I’m sure it will work out one way or another.”
At rehearsal the night before the wedding, Jonathan finally learned his part in the wedding, and decided that he liked it. He got to carry a white shinny pillow that held the rings.
“Everyone will be watching you, but don’t be scared,” said Karen. “I’ll be right behind you.” Her hair was brown again, parted on the side, and combed straight. Jonathan hardly recognized her.
Susan didn’t eat anything at the dinner, and when Grandma Hudson and David’s grandfather took Jonathan home early, Susan came too, saying that she was exhausted.
Even though it was late, Jonathan couldn’t sleep after Grandma Hudson tucked him in. The excitement of the dinner, and thoughts of all those people watching him kept him awake. Finally, he got up and sneaked past the living room where Grandma Hudson and David’s grandfather sat together on the couch.
“Do you think it’s possible to love more than one person?” Jonathan heard him ask.
“Of course it is. I loved Bill, and I love my daughter, and grandkids, and lots of people.”
David’s grandfather put his arm around Grandma Hudson. “You know what I mean,” he said. Jonathan tip-toed into the family room and turned the computer on, but wasn’t quiet enough.
“Hey, what’s this?” David’s grandfather leaned on the doorway, arms folded across his chest. He slipped a candy into Jonathan’s hand, then sent him back to bed.
Jonathan usually was the first one up in the morning, but the next morning he found his mother sitting in the rocking chair in the family room wearing her bathrobe.
“Jonathan, come sit with to me,” she said. He climbed into her lap, and rocked in her arms for a while. Finally she said, “I don’t think there’s going to be a wedding today. Susan’s sick. I was up with her all night.”
“What will we do?”
His mother sighed. “I don’t know.” She kissed the top of his head.
What she did was to get both families together to decide what to do. She clattered around in the kitchen serving coffee and passing out muffins. Her eyes were red, and every few minutes she reached for a tissue.
“We’d better call all the guests,” Jonathan’s dad said. “If we split up the list, it won’t take long.”
“What will we do with all the food we ordered? And the flowers and the cake?” said Jonathan’s mother. “I don’t think we’ll be able to get any of our money back. It’s too late.” She burst into tears.
“Instead of a wedding, let’s just throw a big party,” said Karen.
“No,” said David’s grandfather. “I have a better idea. Let’s have a wedding.” He reached over and took Grandma Hudson’s hand.
Jonathan never completely knew how it happened, but at two o’clock, he stood at the church entry holding a shiny white pillow. His mother tried to explain it.
“You see, Susan and David are still going to get married, but later, when Susan feels better. We’ll probably do something in the park with just the families.”
“They’re getting married without the wedding?”
“That’s right. Grandma Hudson, and John Anderson are going to be in the wedding, but they won’t really be married. They’re flying to Nevada tonight and they’ll really get married there.”
“So no one’s getting married at the wedding?”
Jonathan’s mother sighed looking at Karen. “I guess that about sums it up.” Then David’s cousin took Jonathan’s mother by the arm and they walked down the aisle.
Karen leaned over and straightened Jonathan’s tie. Her hair was red and spiky again. “Isn’t this wonderful? It’s so romantic. Maybe when I get married, I won’t elope after all. I want to have a wedding just like this one.” She pushed him forward gently and whispered, “Your turn.”
Jonathan walked up the aisle, followed by Karen. When he got to the front, he smiled at his new grandfather and turned to watch as Grandma Hudson walked arm-in-arm with his father up the aisle. Everyone in the church stood up. When she reached the front, she took Grandpa Anderson’s hand and they turned and faced the minister. Jonathan glanced sideways at Karen. Tears ran down her face, and she dabbed at them with a tissue. But she still managed to grin and make a funny face just for him.