Second Oldest

Second Oldest

Why is Katie calling me? I’m driving the few miles home from our neighborhood’s country club, and it’s almost midnight. “Hey, Katie! I wasn’t expecting to hear from you for at least a week.” Two hours ago, sparklers had burned and crackled under the winter night sky, raised in the hands of whistling and woo-wooing guests, as my older sister and brother-in-law ran into a waiting car. The rain had waited until the wedding reception to come. While we danced, it poured, but then only a cool mist fell. Katie and Nathan leaned out the back window; Katie’s blonde, damp curls were blown across her neck, reaching towards Nathan, who kissed her on the cheek with childlike rapture and then continued to smile and wave. The car rounded the curve of some back road, out of view.

“I know,” she laughs, and as she continues I think she must be eating pretzels, “but Nathan just remembered that in the pocket of his tux jacket is some money an uncle gave him—he left the jacket in my room. Do you think you could bring it by tomorrow—just leave it in an envelope with the desk clerk for us?” They were staying the night in the Proximity, a posh hotel in our hometown, before driving to Charleston, S.C., the next day. “Can you hang up my dress too? I left it lying on my bed. Oh, and my bouquet—I want to preserve it. Do you think you could find a way to hang it upside down?”

“Sure,” I want to talk about the day but know I can’t and so remain quiet, unsure of what to say next.

“Thanks, Liz. I love you and can’t wait to talk in a couple of weeks. We’re doing great—so happy. Send my love to the family! Bye!”

“Bye, Kade. I love you too.”

Her requests dance in my mind, along with the memory of my Aunt Barb attempting the electric slide as I walk into the mud room of the only home I can remember. What a relief to slide my feet out of the black heels from Payless and pair them against the wall next to my dad’s tennis shoes. During the last hour of wear, my toes began to throb, pressing against the tip of the shoes. I notice that my sister’s and mom’s heels are against the wall too.

In the living room, my mom is icing her swollen ankle, still wearing the gold dress she had searched for in five different department stores. Storage boxes, filled with vases, red berries, ivy, candles, and silky pieces of sparkling fabric, are scattered on the floor. It reminds me of Christmas morning four days ago after all seven of us kids had finished opening our presents. The scene doesn’t change from year to year: as we tear into our gifts, throwing the wrapping and tissue paper next to us on the floor, my dad crumples it into large wads and shoves them into the trash bag by his side; but, despite his efforts to maintain order, after an hour of opening one gift, one child at a time, starting with the youngest and ending with my mom and dad, and repeating until the Christmas tree has nothing beneath it, the unwrapped presents are in separate piles throughout the living room and the rest of the carpet is covered in bows, boxes, bags, tissue, and wrapping paper.

The white boxes in the kitchen hold the leftover wedding cake that I am beginning to pick at with a fork. I ate a breakfast of cereal and munched on carrots all day and was (naively) counting on having a plate of the dollar-a-piece meatballs and, well actually, I cannot remember what else was served at the reception because all that I ended up getting onto my plate before it was time to give the Maid of Honor toast were two slices of cucumber and a cherry tomato.

Leaning against the archway between the kitchen and living room, I attempt to talk about the day with my mom, but she is tired and tearing up. All day, I watched her from a distance, moving between the wedding planner and her assistant and the musicians and the flower arrangements with her beautiful smile only lost to a frustrated look when we were standing in front of the mirror an hour before the five o’clock wedding ceremony and she couldn’t get her hair to curl. I had imagined what our conversation might be like at the end of Katie and Nathan’s wedding day. Would we say how we can’t believe that the first child of the Held clan is married, six more to go, or would we laugh about Katie’s declaration that “Where Nathan was concerned, her heart was a locked door…and she had thrown away the key!” just months before they started dating? Or would we be content to sit silent on the couch, my head leaning on her shoulder, gazing at the lights on the Christmas tree until they blurred into tiny sunbursts.

My mom is falling asleep. And the icepack is slipping off her foot.

“I love you, Mom. You looked radiant. I’m going to head to bed, I guess. You think you’re going to fall asleep on the couch? You’re neck might hurt in the morning if you do.”

She squeezes my hand. “Thanks, honey. G’night.”

I head back through the kitchen and mud room. The backstairs of my house lead upstairs to the T.V. room, painted a bright periwinkle, off of which is Jane’s room to the left and Katie’s room to the right. I can hear Jane and Joseph laughing in her room—the door is open and Joseph is impersonating Aunt Barb, bent over slightly, crossing one leg over another with pretended difficulty, and then stumbling onto the floor. “Hey guys!” I haven’t hugged Jane all day—she was stunning in her cranberry-colored bridesmaid dress. She’s sixteen but danced with Nathan’s college-aged cousins and David whom she begins to talk about on her Hawaiian-print comforter. Sitting next to Jane on her bed, ten-year-old Joseph on my lap, we continue to laugh about Aunt Barb. None of us want to go to bed. My desire to stay up all night and discuss all that happened from the morning until now is just as strong as Joseph’s, maybe stronger, for Joseph really is a kid and I only want to return to being one. I suggest we sleep in Katie’s double bed together—Joe can stay until we all decide we better go to sleep so we can wake up and say goodbye to all of our extended family members before they drive or fly back to their homes.

The door to Katie’s room is closed but we enter without knocking this time, knowing that she is gone. Her yellow comforter has slid onto the floor, bunched against the dark wood of the bed frame. Lying on the white sheets where she used to sleep is Katie’s wedding dress, a purer white. Small white flowers are sown onto the sheer piece of material that wraps around the top half of the dress like the snow flurries, there, against the cold glass of her window then, a moment later, a trickle of water, moving on. I hang the dress onto the one remaining hanger in the closet as I tell Jane and Joe Katie’s instructions about the bouquet. “How about if we tie this red hair-ribbon around the stem-part and hang the bouquet from the ceiling fan?” Joe suggests. It works.

We pull the comforter back on the bed and the three of us snuggle under it. Now I can finally talk about the day, freely, like they do. As I watch the bouquet of a dozen red roses sway back and forth above us, the movement almost imperceptible, Joseph’s energetic voice becomes distant. Fresh memories, preserved from the day, are opening: how I missed when Katie and Nathan cut the cake, caught in a conversation with the Elswicks who wanted to know when I thought I would get married; how, after gathering the bridal party in his church office, my dad prayed for Katie, holding her hand, slender and fair against his large, ruddy hands; how beautiful she was, walking up the aisle with her arm in my dad’s. My contentment surprises me.