Blackberry Winter

by Maryanne Fischler

  Brian was even more baffled than he had been. He had never heard the rhyme, and he didn’t know what in the world she was talking about. His bewilderment was evident on his face.

  “Brides are supposed to have something old to carry or wear, so I sewed Miss Margaret’s beads on my dress. My wedding dress.”

  Light dawned, joy followed swiftly thereafter.

  Paul’s reaction when Brian called to tell him was typical of his level-headed wit. “So you’re providing the entertainment for this week’s feast. I’d better do the cooking.”

  Brian asked tentatively, “You think we’re both a little crazy, don’t you?”

  Paul’s answer typified all the reasons why Brian cherished his best friend, “What do I know from crazy? I’m only a psychiatrist. It’s crazy when you do things that make you or someone else unhappy. Seems to be like the least crazy thing you could do right now is marry the woman you love.”

  As an ardent student of Emily’s psychology, Brian knew that his task for the rest of the day must be to keep her from thinking too much. “If it occurs to her that she ought to be re-thinking her decision, she’ll second guess herself into a panic,” he thought.

  “I know what I feel like doing,” he announced. “Let’s go to a ball game.”

  “We’re supposed to be getting married tomorrow, and you want to go to a baseball game?” she sounded more amazed than anything.

  “Why not? We don’t need to do anything in particular. Paul’s cooking tomorrow, the house is already tidied up, you have a fancy new dress to wear, so what’s the big deal?”

  “Well I don’t know exactly. I have to think of something borrowed and something blue. I could borrow Paul’s handkerchief—that would be good luck. But blue, now I ought to think of something because blue is your favorite color.”

  Brian was smiling, “Don’t worry, I have something blue for you. I bought it ages ago and put it away to give you for a wedding present. You may have it tomorrow.”

  And so they spent the late afternoon and evening at the baseball park watching the local minor league team play, and play well at that.

  Independence Day is traditionally a low attendance day at church. It suited Emily just fine for the crowd at worship to be a little thin. She knew it was ridiculous, but she had the feeling that everyone there knew the crazy thing that she and Brian were going to do. It’s not as though everyone gets up, eats a scrambled egg, goes to church, and then comes home to have a wedding.

  She couldn’t begin to say what Jack preached about that day.

  Driving home from the church, she found herself watching Brian. “How come you don’t look the slightest bit nervous?”

  “Because I’m not the slightest bit nervous. Weddings are a piece of cake compared to autopsies, trust me. All you have to do is say what the minister tells you to say and kiss at the end. What could be easier than that?”

  They found Paul already at work in the kitchen, assembling what looked to be a most impressive Sunday feast. Brian commented that there was enough food there to feed an army. “The only people here will be the three of us and Jack and his wife Betsy. It takes two witnesses to make the whole thing legal, and that’s exactly how many we’ll have.”

  Paul smiled as he said, “You’ll want lots of leftovers so you don’t have to cook for a couple of days.”

  Brian stood idly by munching a carrot stick and watching Paul work. Emily surveyed the two of them, hands on her hips. “Am I the only person here who understands the gravity of this situation? This is not a Sunday stroll in the park, this is a serious thing. There’s going to be a real, live wedding here. This is a big deal.” The more she talked, she knew, the more ridiculous she sounded. The two men looked at one another and then back at her, grinning all the while. “Oh, you two are impossible. At least I know enough to take this seriously.”

  “Then why haven’t you put on your fancy dress yet? You’re the only one who’s not ready.” Brian said with a smile.

  She responded, “I need to borrow a handkerchief from Paul, for something borrowed.”

  Paul went to the chair where his jacket was neatly folded and pulled out a lovely linen handkerchief, the kind Emily knew he always had. “You won’t cry on it, will you?” he asked, smiling.

  “I might just,” she answered.

  Brian said, “I have something blue for you.” And he went to the pantry where he had hidden a lace covered Bible with white silk stephanotis pinned to it. “The Bible under there is blue and it’s engraved ‘Emily McClellan,’ and if you think getting those flowers was easy, think again,” he said as he presented it to her and kissed her. She returned his kiss, murmuring a quick “I love you” in his ear, then ran off to change.

  When she emerged, the Petersons had arrived and everyone was sitting there waiting for her. Brian felt his breath simply disappear at the sight of her. She had found a dress that suited her in every way, it balanced perfectly modesty and flattering lines so that she was at once old-fashioned and incredibly appealing. Paul was reminded of Shakespeare’s line about infinite charm.

  Jack told the participants where to stand, checked to make sure they had the rings handy, and they were off. The nature of marriage as instituted by God was described, and Brian heard himself asked if he would love, honor, and care for Emily under all the conditions and circumstances of life. As he answered affirmatively, Emily thought to herself, “He’s been doing all those things already.”

  When her turn came she paused to think about the question just long enough so that she realized everyone was staring at her, “Oh, I will!” she said quickly, and heard a stifled chuckle from the best man.

  They exchanged their promises to be faithful and loving in sickness and in health for as long as they both lived.

  Then came the rings. Brian repeated after Jack, “This ring I give to you in token and pledge of our constant faith and abiding love.” Jack had done the wedding service fifty times at least, and knew when Emily did that part of the ceremony, things didn’t look right, until he realized that it was because he had never had a groom who wore his ring on his right hand.

  As Brian had promised, once you’ve said the stuff you’re supposed to say, it’s just a matter of listening to be told when to kiss. Weddings really are a piece of cake. When it was all over, Paul claimed his right as best man to be the second person in the world to kiss Emily McClellan. He and Betsy Peterson then signed as witnesses on the wedding certificate, and Jack signed as officiating minister, and it was done.

  It was a Sunday feast to be remembered. They all ate too much and made an inordinate amount of noise. Jack and Betsy seemed to be having as good a time as anybody, and Emily made a mental note to invite the two of them to dinner some time soon, thinking to herself that it would be nice to start making some married friends.

  Jack told stories of funny things that had happened at weddings he had performed. His wife would prompt him with, “Tell them about the time...” and before long they would all be hysterical. They worked their way through beef tenderloin, potatoes O’Brien, a huge green salad with Paul’s special dressing, and a variety of other assorted delectables until the grand finale, a beautiful white cake.

  It seemed like no time until the Petersons were exclaiming over the time and rushing off after a last volley of congratulations.

  And so the three were alone on a Sunday afternoon, and except for Emily’s rather formal attire, it was not so different from countless other Sunday afternoons. They chatted amiably about how good the meal had been and what nice people the Petersons were. After a decent interval, Paul got up to go. The McClellans protested that it was early yet, but Paul just grinned his most devilish grin and said, “Got to go. I’ve got a hot date tonight. Going to make some fireworks.”

  As was his custom, he shook hands with Brian and kissed Emily’s cheek, but she was not content to let him go at that. She held on to his hand and looked him square in the eye. “You’re so dear, Paul. You do know that I love y
ou, don’t you?”

  “I love you, too, Emily. This has been a great day. My best friend married my other best friend. Now, be happy. It’s your turn.”

  There was a strange awkwardness between them when they were left alone at last. Emily kicked off her fancy white shoes, and presented quite a picture tidying up the kitchen in her bare feet and wedding dress. Brian commented as he looked on, “I don’t think that dress was meant to do dishes in. Why don’t we leave the rest till tomorrow?”

  So they sat together in the living room, Emily studiously avoiding Brian’s gaze, Brian grinning in a mindless sort of way.

  “It was a nice wedding, wasn’t it, Brian?”

  “Yes, I thought so. Of course, there never was as pretty a bride. Promise me sometime you’ll have a portrait made of you in that dress. It would be something I would treasure, and my parents would love it.”

  “Well, I guess I could do that.” she responded, and then just blurted out, “Do you suppose four o’clock in the afternoon is too early to go to bed?”

  Brian burst out laughing. “We’ve been waiting nineteen months, you can’t wait until dark?”

  “If we sit around here all afternoon, I’ll just get more nervous.”

  He swept her into his arms and kissed her, “There’s nothing to be nervous about. We can certainly go to bed now if that’s what you want.” He started to lead her by the hand to the bedroom, but she stopped.

  “I’ll meet you there. I need to change first.”

  When she appeared in the bedroom door, she took Brian’s breath away for the second time that day. He had made himself comfortable in bed and looked up to see her in a cloud of white lace and satin. “Well, what do you think?” she asked shyly.

  “I think I’ve never seen anything so lovely in all my life, and I think you ought to come over here and give me a closer look.”

  More than any experience in his life, Brian would look back on that afternoon as the event that most varied from what he had expected it to be. Where he had expected to find fearfulness, he instead uncovered a well of eagerness. She was eager to learn, eager to please, and eager to be pleased. She continually asked, “Is this right? Show me. Tell me how.” He had known there would be naiveté, but he was surprised that it was accompanied by so warm a passion. He had expected her to cling to her dignity in maidenly modesty, and was overjoyed to see the willingness with which she abandoned herself to the event.

  Emily would explain to him later that it was his approach that made her behave the way she did. She said, “I asked so many questions not just because I wanted to know the answers, but also because I loved hearing your voice, I loved the way you explained everything. You make love the way you do everything—patiently, gently, and romantically. You kept making sure that I was all right, that I was comfortable. You kept encouraging me. I lost my fear in the sound of your voice. I just got lost in you.”

  The days that passed that summer were delightful, slow days. Brian came home from each day of work to long, quiet evenings of conversation and discovery. Emily continued in therapy, still having the occasional bad day, still having days that left her wondering how there could possibly be any more tears to cry, but always finding solace in Brian’s arms. She reveled in a new found sense of security, a feeling that God intended good things for her life, not just because she found herself married to a remarkable man, but also because she was deciding that she was in her own way a pretty remarkable person herself.

  As the summer drew to a close, they made the long awaited journey to Vermont. There was a terrible thunderstorm that delayed their flight’s arrival until the small hours of the night, and so by the time they were actually in the elder McClellans’ house, there was time only to tumble to bed exhausted.

  The morning dawned a spectacular day even by the standards of Vermonters. The sky was a shade of blue that people in metropolitan areas never see. As they enjoyed a late breakfast, they discussed the planned activities of the vacation. Brian wanted to show Emily every attraction his home state had to offer, but his immediate plan for the day was to lounge about in the sunshine on his parents’ back porch. The long day of traveling had left him exhausted.

  The McClellans, Sr. were so obviously glad to have the newlyweds with them that Emily began to think what Brian had said all along might actually be true, maybe they both really did like her.

  Stuart McClellan was eager to show his new daughter-in-law the sights of the town that he had called home for close to three quarters of a century. “Come on, Emily, and I’ll show you where Brian spent his youth.”

  “All right, Dr. McClellan,” she answered, after grinning in Brian’s direction.

  “Oh, you’re not going to keep calling me Dr. McClellan, are you?”

  “Not if you would prefer something else, sir,” she responded.

  “Why don’t you just call me Dad?”

  Brian held his breath to see what she would say. He need not have worried.

  “Well, all right. Dad. I like the sound of that.” There was a wonderful warmth in her tone that spoke to Brian as loudly as if she had used the words, “I’m all right now, this is good.”

  As he watched his father and his wife walk off arm in arm across the lawn, he saw her lovely lavender dress against the blue Vermont sky and through the tear that clouded his vision, the picture blurred and reminded him of the print by Monet that hung on the wall of Emily’s favorite room. It was the picture that she said made her feel a sense of peace. In that particular picture, it is always spring.

  His mother interrupted his reverie to ask, “What does Emily like to eat, Brian? I want to make her something special.”

  “Make her a blackberry pie, Mom. I’m sure it’s been a wonderful season for blackberries.”

  #####

  About the author

  Maryanne Fischler is wife, mother, and church planter (along with her husband, Rev. David Fischler) in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church currently living and working in Woodbridge, Virginia.

  If you liked this book, and want to be an encouragement for her further efforts, you can contact her at:

  cadfael1111@yahoo.com