A Wedding Invitation

by Alice J. Wisler

  “But it’s our home,” Van explained to me. “We are Vietnamese, and we want to go back. We left our hearts there.”

  The afternoon sun is fading as I approach the address Lien jotted down on the piece of blue paper. Slowing down, I make a left onto a street lined with massive oaks. My stomach twists like a pretzel sold by the vendors near the Smithsonian.

  “It’s 607 Amelia Avenue,” says Lien as she looks out the window.

  “Do you see it?”

  “She said there is a sign for Laurel Archibold Apartments.” With her nose to the window, Lien searches the road.

  I look to my left and see that the numbers on the mailboxes are odd ones and, thinking that the apartment will be on my side of the street, continue to read all the mailboxes, steering my car away from trash containers and potholes.

  With a cheer, Lien shouts, “I see the sign for the apartments!”

  Sure enough, there’s a large wooden block with Laurel Archibold Apartments printed on it in curvy blue letters. Both of the l’s and the a and e of Laurel have worn and faded over time, and the first five letters of Archibold are barely visible so that at a glance, the sign reads, ur bold. Smiling, I pull my car into the parking lot; gray apartment buildings surround us.

  We circle around until we find one that has 607 in bold numbers over the door. My first thought is, we made it. My next is how bleak this place is.

  Lien unfastens her seat belt. With a hand on the door she looks at me. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Paralyzed, I sit.

  She opens the door and thrusts her legs out. “Miss Bravencourt, hurry.”

  Something comes over me. I feel it start in my head and move down my whole body, like a blanket being pulled over me. I hope this isn’t what having a seizure feels like. From the way Beanie has described the ones she has, I’m probably safe. I turn toward Lien. “Look at me,” I say.

  Confused, Lien slides back into her seat. She eyes me.

  I conform my tone to that of a teacher, to the voice I used when I wanted to make a point in the classroom. “You go by yourself.”

  Immediately, Lien replies just as I knew she would. “No. No. You come too.” Her voice has gone back in time to that of a little girl’s in a Hello Kitty T-shirt.

  I take my eyes from hers, not wanting to see her desperation. “No, I’ll wait here.”

  “Why? Please, Miss Bravencourt.”

  Before she can continue, I place my hand on hers. “Listen,” I say. “Will you listen to me?”

  “Yes.” Her hand trembles.

  “You are a woman now, Lien. You are brave. Look at all you’ve done! You came to America, learned a new language, got your high school diploma, work in a restaurant, met a man, fell in love, and have searched for your mother.” I pause and give her a weak smile. “After doing all those things, you are capable of meeting your mother. On your own. Without me.”

  “Without you?” She frowns. “I need more courage.” Squeezing two of my fingers, she pleads again. “I need you.”

  “Go. I know you can do this.”

  “I’m frightened.”

  Clamping my mouth so I won’t say anything I shouldn’t, I release my hand from hers.

  Huffing, she says, “Okay. Okay.”

  I hold my breath as she climbs out of the car. She takes a few steps and then turns to say, “You pray to God for me?”

  “Yes, I will do that.”

  As my heart beats with fear for her, I watch from my car window. She leaves me, walks up the uneven path toward the main door to the building, and then pauses.

  When she gets to the door, she looks back at me. She waves. It’s not one of her wild waves that she so often produced in the camp’s marketplace when she saw Carson or me. This is a feeble movement of her arm. She looks so tiny against the stark edifice. Lien, who used to make us all quake with her powerful arm that hit many a teasing boy or girl. Lien, who showed no fear.

  I ball my fingers into fists to keep myself from running to her and calling, “Wait! Wait! I’ll come with you.” I know this is something she must do alone. I know I cannot intrude on this moment.

  When I look up from my fists, she’s out of sight. I hope she made it inside; the child Lien would have hidden behind a bush. I scan the two scrawny bushes by the door and realize they are not big enough to hide a woman. Remembering my promise to pray, I begin. I pray for Lien to have courage, for Thuy to let her inside her apartment, for understanding, and for a good reunion.

  As I become aware of my strenuous breathing, I wonder how else to pray. I watch a thin mother in an oversized plaid jacket push her toddler in a stroller from one of the apartments to the left. As the two come closer, I note how bright with love the mother’s eyes are as she stops to stroke the child’s hair and tie his shoe. I bet Lien’s mom looked at her like that. I bet she hated to have to give her up.

  On the sidewalk embedded with weeds, a man sails by on a bicycle. A young boy on a smaller bike follows. I wonder if Lien ever had a bicycle. There are so many things I don’t know about her. My eyes grow moist; I dig through my purse for a tissue.

  When the air in the car gets stuffy, I roll down the window and, sticking my head out, watch crimson leaves rustle in the wind overhead. I count the windows on Thuy’s building, noting the chipped paint on the shutters.

  Forty-four minutes later, my heart swells with gratitude as anxiety dissipates. Lien exits the concrete edifice. Quickly, I dry my eyes.

  She opens the car door and slips into the passenger seat. Giving me a hug, she cries, “I saw her! I saw my mother.”

  I let tears consume me again.

  “She nice,” Lien says. “She have photo of me when we were in Vietnam.”

  “That’s great.”

  “We drink some tea.”

  Smiling, I repeat, “That’s great.”

  “I tell her not to worry about the M.S. She think I might get sick like her, but I just say, ‘Never mind, never mind, we don’t need to worry. We are together now. Just be happy.’ ”

  We do grow up, don’t we? I think as a gust of wind causes golden leaves to find resting spots on the milky pavement. This self-absorbed child has become a woman, and I get to experience this amazing chapter of her life. I feel privileged and unworthy at the same time.

  We ride in silence for a few miles, until Lien says, “She sorry about everything. Just like me.”

  forty-four

  The day we have all hoped would happen has arrived. The bride has yet to walk down the aisle but already I’m exhausted. Having the wedding at my church instantly put me in charge. By no means am I a wedding planner, yet I feel I’ve done a commendable job.

  The church is decorated with crystal vases of pink roses and white lilies. The organist doesn’t sound too bad. And Taylor and Natasha have met, shaken hands, and are seated on the same pew in the sanctuary. Dovie, Pearl, and Beanie are dressed in matching hats with short golden plumes and seated in the second row on the bride’s side. I must get a photo of Beanie—finally inside an actual church. I wish Little could be here, but she’s in Europe for two weeks, visiting her daughter and meeting her daughter’s boyfriend, who really is from France.

  After seeing that all seems to be under control in the sanctuary, I head down the hallway to find the bride.

  Lien is adding mascara to her eyelashes in one of the preschool Sunday school rooms. She’s seated at a low table in a chair shaped like a bunny, a compact in one hand and the mascara wand in the other. The faint scent of perfume surrounds her. Seeing me, she says, “I take my shoes off. They hurt my feet.” She wiggles her bare toes.

  I stand off to her side and snap some photos—first her face and then her feet.

  She giggles. “My bridesmaids leave me to do this on my own.”

  “You look really nice,” I say. Then I adjust the pearl hair clip Mom gave her to wear. Smoothing her hair to one side, I place the clip in her brown locks. Her hair smells sweet, like cherry blossoms.

  She
eyes herself in her compact mirror. Putting the makeup into a white bag that is on the table next to her bouquet of flowers, she asks if it’s time to head to the sanctuary.

  I’ve left my watch at home but am sure that it’s time.

  “Miss Bravencourt, you help me so much. I never be able to do this without you.” She stands and slips on a pair of white pumps. In the shoes, she’s taller than I am. I hand her the bouquet Natasha made for her. She sniffs the arrangement of red roses, baby’s breath, yellow carnations, and white gardenias, and then tells me, “I am happy.”

  When we leave the classroom, we make our way to the vestibule, where we can hear the organ music and the conversations of the assembled group in the sanctuary.

  Lien walks slowly as though practicing for her walk down the aisle. Her gown’s train swishes against the carpet. At the vestibule she suddenly trips, and I help to steady her.

  “I’m nervous,” she says, catching her breath. Like a child, she then peers through the crack in the door separating the vestibule from the larger room. I think she’s looking for her mother, but she says with relief, “I see Jonathan. He did show up.” I wonder if she thought that at the last minute her fiancé would bail from the ceremony. “I see his parents and brothers.” His two brothers are the groomsmen, so I’m glad they are standing, as they should be, next to the two Vietnamese bridesmaids.

  I get a couple of shots of Lien as she holds her bouquet. When Carson appears, I ask if Lien’s mom has made it. He gives me a worried look, and I know that she has yet to arrive. I take a few pictures of Carson and Lien together.

  Swallowing panic, I look at Carson’s watch. It’s five minutes to three. I swing open the front door and scan the street. I don’t know what kind of vehicle to look for, but even so, I keep watching for Thuy. The organ music continues to play, tender tunes that cause me to worry that any minute they will change into the bridal march. Not yet, not yet, my mind echoes.

  Carson’s jaw is tight when I return to his side. So only I can hear, he says, “She better get here now.”

  Minh has arrived and shifts from foot to foot beside his niece in the vestibule. He sucks in his belly, runs fingers over his hair, and looks like he might pass out.

  Lien’s face is beaded with sweat. I recall how during the rehearsal last night she couldn’t stop giggling. I search her face for a smile now, but there is none. I take a tissue from a box on the table and blot her cheeks. Next to the tissues sits a clear box containing a corsage. Two tiny red rosebuds sit between a white carnation and a spray of baby’s breath. It’s waiting to be pinned to Thuy’s dress.

  Minh adjusts his tie, fiddles with the neck of his starched shirt, and gives us an apprehensive smile. He looks at his watch. “It is time,” he tells us.

  I think of the importance of the day and want to say something significant, something warm, truthful, and kind. I wonder what I would want to hear from my friends on my wedding day. I have no clue.

  The organist has stopped playing. In seconds, she will begin the famous tune that will send Lien and Minh down the aisle toward the waiting groom. I only have a second. With my hand on Lien’s arm, I whisper the Vietnamese words for You are beautiful that suddenly like a flash come to mind: “Dep gai.”

  Smiling, I know that she gets it; my pronunciation must not be too bad.

  Embracing her lightly so as not to smudge her makeup, I whisper, “I am so happy for you.”

  It is then that Lien’s bottom lip quivers. With a hand to her mouth, she says, “Thank you for all you always do for me.”

  I have to look away as my eyes turn damp.

  Carson opens the door that separates uncle and bride from the gathered crowd in the sanctuary. As the music begins, everyone stands.

  Lien gulps as Carson nods, and with her arm slipped around her uncle’s, Lien starts to glide down the aisle with him. This kid who only knew how to rush into my classroom, scaring the rafter rats and everyone else in sight, is now gracefully making her way down the aisle toward the next adventure of her young life.

  I grab my camera and am ready to slide in after them to get a few shots when I hear one of the double doors pulled open behind me.

  Carson and I turn at the same time to see a woman appear. Her face looks vaguely familiar and then I recall exactly where I have seen her before. She’s the one who came into the shop that day so many weeks ago. “Is this the right place?” The sunlight plays against her frosted hair.

  I walk to her side, a finger to my lips.

  Dismissing my gesture, she booms, “Is Lien getting married here?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  She turns and heads outside, the door banging behind her.

  Carson and I share a moment of anticipation, and then a small Asian woman in a metallic green wheelchair is brought into our view. Carson helps hold the door open, saying a few lines to the woman in Vietnamese. Assuming it is Lien’s mother, I grab the corsage, remove it from the box, and swiftly pin it to the lapel of her blue silk dress.

  “Welcome,” I say, relief filling every pore. I don’t know if that is the appropriate thing to say or not, but it is all I can come up with for an occasion like this.

  Lien and her uncle are now at Jonathan’s side next to the two bridesmaids and two groomsmen. Jonathan’s leg is twitching, just like he told us earlier that it would.

  Not wanting Thuy to miss any more of Lien’s life, I motion for her to wheel her chair down the aisle. She presses a button on the console in front of her and the chair springs forward. The wheels squeak over the carpet as the other woman follows closely behind.

  Lien glances over her shoulder to view what she has been hoping for all these months.

  I expect to hear the little girl who is still very much alive in Lien shout in her native tongue to her mother, a greeting of glee. Perhaps even a boisterous wave and a loud hyena-sounding laugh. But the woman in Lien merely smiles demurely and turns her attention to the minister and her groom.

  I steady myself and enter the sanctuary, my camera at my eye. I snap a few pictures and, as the music ceases, scoot over to the left of the room where poised guests reverently sit.

  Thuy has stopped her wheelchair at the edge of the front row, her corsage lopsided, a handkerchief shielding her eyes. I use my camera to hide mine, suddenly blinded by this happily-ever-after.

  forty-five

  When I asked them, Sanjay and Venya said they’d be glad to have the reception at their bakery. Sanjay let customers know that he would be closed for the day, encouraging me to create a sign with my Sharpie markers for him to place on the front door.

  With the help of some enthusiastic ladies in my church, I arranged the tables in rows and added white linen tablecloths to each one. In the center of the tables, we placed bud vases with single red roses. Then we prepared the lime sherbet punch and filled crystal dishes with mixed nuts.

  Sanjay made the wedding cake, a three-tiered work of art decorated with baby-blue beaded icing and six pale pink roses piped on the top layer. He joked that he had thought about adding martini glasses and olives but decided against it. Carson and I offered to pay him for the cake as well as for the use of his store. He refused any monetary compensation. “I just like to see people find each other,” he said, exposing his romantic side.

  Chi, Minh, and Huy stayed up well past midnight on Thursday making hundreds of spring rolls and mixing the special dipping sauce to get the right consistency. They placed their fried creations in large sealed Tupperware containers for the trip to Virginia. Once in Falls Church, I arranged for them to put the chagio in Sanjay’s deep freezer until Saturday morning when they took them out to defrost. Sanjay offered turkey sandwiches, although we protested. “You don’t like turkey? I can make chicken salad.”

  “No,” I’d said. “We like sandwiches, but you are already making the cake.”

  “Venya can make the sandwiches.”

  I thought of how tired Venya seemed lately with her pregnancy. She’s in her third
trimester.

  “She needs something to do when she can’t sleep at night. The baby kicks every night from ten until three in the morning.” Sanjay sounded weary.

  After more convincing, we accepted the offer and let Venya make turkey sandwiches for the reception.

  Pearl wanted to know if we needed some rhubarb pies, but I told her the wedding cake would be enough. She, Dovie, and Beanie drove up from Winston last night and got a room at the Hampton Inn, saying that the breakfast this morning was one of the best hotel breakfasts they’d ever had.

  As the church ladies turned Sanjay’s bakery into an elaborate reception hall, Carson set up an old turntable and CD player on a table in one corner of the store. He was instructed by Lien to play old records her mother might like—some classical selections like Bach, some Beatles, Michael Jackson, Carly Simon, and Bread. Carson was willing to play whatever she requested, carrying in a large crate of vinyl records and another of CDs.

  Sanjay locked his shop at two, telling us we needed to get out so that we could head over to the church or we’d miss seeing his favorite part of the day—when the groom kisses the bride. Carson and I rode together, the fingers of his right hand laced with mine as he drove us across town.

  After the ceremony, all the guests convene in the church parking lot where a butterfly release is to take place. Once, after showing Lien photos I’d taken of one of Dovie’s butterfly releases, the girl said she wanted my aunt to do this at her wedding.

  “I want butterflies because they are symbol of freedom, and besides, they are so pretty.”

  I agreed with her.

  Of course, Dovie is in her element this afternoon as she educates us about the monarch butterfly, its life cycle, its colors, and what it means to release yourself to God to let Him work in you. “Jonathan and Lien,” she addresses the newlyweds, “I hope that in your marriage you will strive to freely share from your hearts with each other. Be free like the butterfly.”