Written on My Heart

by Morgan Callan Rogers

  She and Evie were not friends like Dottie and me. They liked each other, but they didn’t have much in common. Maureen, like her mother, loved all things that had to do with church, while Evie tended in the opposite direction. Evie was a force, while Maureen radiated light from someplace inside herself.

  “I don’t know where she came from,” Bud said about his sister once, after I had commented about her “glow.” “The rest of us are gloomy as hell.”

  “Ma said to give you this,” Maureen said to me. She held out a clothing-size box wrapped in silver paper and tied with a white ribbon.

  I took the box from her and placed it on the bed. “Thanks,” I said.

  “No, you have to open it now,” Maureen said. “It goes with your wedding gown.”

  “Maureen, you do it,” Evie said. “Florine might chip a nail.”

  Maureen looked at me for further instructions.

  “Go ahead,” I said. She tore the ribbon and wrapping paper off the box. Before she lifted the lid, she said, “Ready?” I nodded and she lifted the top and parted the crinkly white tissue paper. I caught glimpses of silk material before she gently raised the garment from its resting place.

  “Oh my god,” I said, and gasped.

  Ida, who made beautiful quilts, had already performed a miracle by taking Grand’s old wedding gown and stitching in a lace and flowered panel that gave the baby room and made me feel almost pretty. But this new thing was beyond beautiful to me, and yes, precious. The patchwork petticoat was totally made from bits and scraps of my parents’ clothes.

  “Don’t cry!” Evie shouted. “Your mascara will run.”

  But cry I did. “Who made this?” I said.

  “Ma,” Maureen said. “She said it would give you something old, borrowed, blue, and new, all at once.”

  “Oh my god,” I said again, and my trembling hands reached for the thing she was holding. “It’s precious. Just precious.”

  “Bud snuck Ma into the house while you and Dottie were shopping for Dottie’s dress,” Maureen said. “She went through the storage boxes you have. Stella gave her some of your father’s things.”

  I saw bits of Daddy’s hankies and parts from one of his summer shirts quilted throughout the petticoat. I fingered each star-shaped patch, which were the colors of summer and memories.

  “It’s beautiful.” I sniffed. “Oh, Ida.”

  Maureen said in a quiet voice, “So, you like it?”

  “She’s ruined her face.” Evie sighed. “I’d say she does.”

  “See the blue patch toward the bottom?” Maureen said. “Ma sewed your names and the date in it. See? It says, Florine and Bud, June 12, 1971.”

  “I wish she was here so I could hug her. Where is she?” I asked.

  Maureen laughed. “She’s got Bud and Dad to deal with,” she said.

  “They’re a handful, I guess,” I said. “How’s Sam this morning?”

  “He’s okay,” Maureen said. “He’s ready.” Bud’s father was a lifelong alcoholic, and near the last stages of cirrhosis of the liver. But that hadn’t stopped him from drinking.

  I wondered how sober Sam was that morning. He was standing in for my father, and I hoped he would be able to walk me down the aisle.

  “We have to fix your makeup,” Evie said. “Thanks for nothing, Maureen.”

  Maureen ignored her. “Bye,” she said. She hugged me and clattered down the stairs, meeting Dottie on her way up.

  “Jesus, what did you do to her?” she asked as she sashayed into the room. I shot her such a look she said, “You look nice, Florine,” and shut up.

  After Evie repaired the damage, we got ready. Dottie hauled the blue dress over her head, and then helped me step into the beautiful petticoat, which swished against my bare legs. She called Madeline upstairs to help lower the tent of a wedding dress over my hair and face without touching either of them. As a last touch, Madeline perched a circlet of daisies and clover on my hair. The three Butts women stood back and checked me over.

  “Probably the best you’ll ever look,” Evie said to me. “Do not cry. I mean it.”

  Madeline’s smile wobbled as she said, “You take my breath away, Florine.”

  Dottie pursed her lips and said, “You’ll do,” and then she walked over to the window and looked down onto the side yard.

  White lace swirled around me as I turned toward the mirror, but I didn’t see me in the reflection. Instead, I saw someone who looked much like her grandmother must have looked at twenty. Carlie had blessed me with ginger highlights in my hair and in the freckles on my face, and Daddy had blessed me with his height, but it was Grand who showed up in the mirror. She was right there with me. I heard her say, Heaven’s sake, you didn’t turn out so bad. Now, you go get yourself married to Buddy so’s you can have that baby.

  “I will,” I whispered, my eyes shiny.

  “Well?” Evie said. I looked at her and nodded.

  “You did good, Evie,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said.

  We got ourselves downstairs and Madeline handed Dottie and me our bouquets, and then she and Evie joined the small crowd on the lawn. Dottie and I went out the kitchen door, away from the onlookers, to join Sam, who stood waiting for us. I kissed him on the cheek, trying not to be shocked at the yellow tint of his skin and by the fact that his eyeballs were yellow too.

  “Christ almighty, you look just like Florence did,” he said, seeing Grand, just as I had seen her. “Don’t she look like her grandmother?” he asked Dottie.

  “I guess,” Dottie said, too busy tugging on her dress to pay much attention to me.

  I buried my nose in one of the giant peonies in my bouquet. The smell of June filled my heart as the warm sun spun melted honey over my head. A seagull laughed and I turned my head to see the water in the harbor winking diamonds at me.

  Someone on the lawn lowered a needle onto my old record player. The first notes of “Here Comes the Bride” sounded, and I hooked my arm through Sam’s. He kissed my cheek. “Glad to have you aboard,” he said. “You and Bud be good to each other, now, you hear me?” I nodded. Whiskey perfumed his breath, but we held each other steady as we began our march toward Bud and Pastor Billy Krum.

  Since we were holding the wedding on the lawn, I had decided to go barefoot, and the grass was smooth and cool beneath my feet. The baby rolled over just as my eyes lighted on Bud, and I smiled. He answered my smile with one of his own as he told me he loved me with his eyes. As Sam and I closed in on him and Pastor Billy, I saw that he was shaking.

  I may have been walking past people who had known Bud and me our whole lives, but that didn’t calm my nerves. The lawn seemed twice as long as it was, but finally, Bud and I stood face-to-face in front of the dusty pink fireworks display of peonies in bloom. I handed Dottie my bouquet, careful not to meet her brown eyes, as I was afraid I might cry or burst out laughing for nervousness.

  Bud’s dark eyes danced with tears. “You look beautiful,” he whispered.

  “It’s okay,” Pastor Billy murmured, “it’ll be over in a minute.” His blue eyes twinkled and he winked. “Dearly beloved,” he began in his deep pastor voice. When asked, Sam gave his permission for me to marry his son, and then he walked over to where Ida waited for him.

  Pastor Billy heard our vows to love, honor, and cherish each other until death did us part. Glen fished two gold rings out of the pocket of a gray suit that fit like he’d probably borrowed it from someone. Bud’s trembling hand shoved the smaller ring over the knuckle of my swollen left ring finger. I did the same for him with the bigger ring. We kissed soon after that, a dry kiss that sealed our vows, and we were pronounced man and wife. We turned to face our families and friends.

  “May I present Mr. and Mrs. James Warner,” Pastor Billy announced, and everyone clapped and whistled. “Now, let’s
party,” Billy added, and everyone clapped and whistled some more.

  The reception was held about two yards from our wedding. Everyone grabbed something to eat or drink, and the party commenced.

  Dottie’s father came over and hugged me. He grinned and said, “So, when you two thinking about having kids?” I smacked him and he grinned and guzzled some beer. Stella, who had followed him over, grabbed both of my arms and said, “Oh, honey, you look so pretty. Your father would have loved to be here, and I’m sure Leeman wouldn’t have minded that you’re so far along.”

  She didn’t let me go right away. As always, I couldn’t help but stare at the scar that ran most of the length of her right cheek, the result of a car accident when she had been a teenager. She squeezed my arms and I locked onto her gray eyes. “We miss him, don’t we?” she said. Gin tickled my nostrils. Since my father’s death almost two years earlier, Stella had gone on several drunken benders. I nodded a little before pulling away from her as gently as I could. I missed my father like crazy, but it was my wedding day.

  Dottie did her maid-of-honor duty and stepped between us. “Now, Stella,” she said, “don’t insult the pregnant bride on her wedding day. Let’s go toast all the virgins we know. I’m thinking it will be a half a shot-glass-full, at least.” She threw her right arm over Stella’s thin shoulder and walked her over to a makeshift bar set up on a folding table in front of a couple of sturdy forsythia bushes.

  “Hello, daughter-in-law,” Ida said from behind me.

  “Oh, Ida!” I cried as I spun around. “The petticoat. The petticoat is . . . it’s . . .”

  Evie sauntered by. “Don’t cry,” she muttered.

  Ida smiled. “I’m glad you like it,” she said. “You look absolutely lovely. It’s time for your first dance. Are you feeling up to it?”

  I nodded. “Might as well get it over with.” Neither Bud nor I was a dancer in private, let alone in public. We’d practiced a few times, but the size of my belly, and our own clumsiness and giggle fits, had blocked our progress.

  Maureen ran up to Ida and me. “All set,” she said. “You nod, and I’ll put on the record for you.”

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling a rush of goofy love for all of Bud’s family. Maureen tried to wrap me in a hug. When the baby kicked between us, she jumped back. “Whoa!” she said.

  “Saying hi, Aunt Maureen,” I said. Maureen dashed over to the record player.

  My eyes swept the side lawn for my husband and found him downing beer with Glen over by the beach-rose bushes. I nodded his way and he joined us.

  “Ready?” I asked him.

  “Ready or not,” he said.

  We both jumped when Maureen shouted, “And now, the bride and groom are going to dance their first dance.”

  Bud blushed, the twenty-odd people in the yard clapped, and Maureen set the needle on the old 45 rpm record. It scratched and popped its way onto “Love Me Tender,” by Elvis Presley. Bud took my right hand with his left and threaded his right arm around my bulk. The minute Elvis started to sing, I was gone. “I shouldn’t have picked this song. It was my parents’ song,” I choked out between sobs.

  “Hush,” Bud said, “it can be our song, okay?” He wiped away my tears with his fingers. “It says what I think about you. I’m happy you picked it.”

  I blinked the tears back into the box of sorrowful keepsakes I kept inside my heart. “I remember Carlie and Leeman waltzing in the kitchen to it. I miss them so much, Bud.”

  “I know you do,” Bud said. “But you got me and Junior. No one’s going to take us away from you.”

  “Okay if I cut in?” Glen asked.

  “I don’t know as you’re supposed to cut in during the first song. But you timed it just right. Glad you’re here,” I said. He had a knack for doing and saying the wrong thing at the right time.

  Glen was about four inches taller than Bud, who was my height. It felt nice to look up into his snapping black eyes. He was only a couple of months younger than Dottie and me. He and Bud were like mismatched twins, so different, but as close to each other as Dottie and me.

  “Glad I’m here too,” Glen said. “Wish I could stay longer.” Right after high school graduation he had joined the army and had gone through basic training. In less than a month, he would head for the war in Vietnam.

  Bud wasn’t going near Vietnam or anywhere else, for that matter. His number had come up in the draft lottery and he had gone for his physical, but he had been declared unfit for service. As a baby, he had developed near-fatal pneumonia and his lungs were scarred. He also suffered from asthma from time to time.

  Although he had dreaded being picked for the draft, his 4-F status had bothered him. “Thought that might happen,” he told me. “Didn’t want to go anyways. Stupid to go fight someplace I have to look up on a map.” After saying that, he had taken a long walk, which was something he did when he had to think.

  “You like the army?” I asked Glen as we shuffled through our clumsy dance.

  Glen shrugged. “It’ll keep me off the streets,” he said. “When I come back, I’m going fishing. You hold Leeman’s boat for me, maybe?”

  “We’ll keep her for you,” I said, hopeful that my father’s lobster boat, the Florine, might get to do what she’d been built for, once again. As of now, she sat in her cradle on dry ground in Daddy’s yard across the street.

  When the song ended, Glen bent and kissed me on the forehead. “You send me pictures of the baby? It’s almost like it was mine.”

  “How do you mean that?” I asked with a grin.

  He blushed. “I mean . . . Well, you know what I mean. All of us have been so close.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m teasing you. I’m glad you’re going to be in this baby’s life.” A touch of nausea made me dizzy and I grabbed Glen’s arm. “Sit me down, would you?” I said to him.

  He led me over to a line of metal folding chairs set before the peonies and I plunked down onto the warm metal surface of one of them. Bees buzzed and wove their way through the garden. A flower brushed my cheek and I buried my nose in its silky folds. The baby kicked me a couple of times and then settled. Maureen put “Going to the Chapel” onto the record player and almost everyone started to dance, except Dottie, who stomped her way across the lawn, tugging at her dress as she came toward me.

  She sat down beside me and we watched the dancers for a few minutes. Pastor Billy hopped and bopped with Maureen, twirling her in circles as she giggled and tried not to get jumbled up in her legs.

  “Ain’t that cute,” Dottie said. We turned our attention to Evie, who was dancing with Glen. The red dress she wore was so tight it might as well have been body dye. Her little butt wriggled its way up to the tips of her fingers and down to her toes. “Looks like she’s been practicing,” I said.

  “For what, I’m not sure,” Dottie said. “Whatever it is, it’s packed with trouble.”

  “Think Glen notices?” I said. He grinned like a fool as Evie spun around him like a curvy tornado, laughing with her mouth open wide.

  “Have to be blind not to,” Dottie said.

  “Speaking of Evie, how’s my makeup?” I asked.

  Dottie produced a crumpled Kleenex from the pocket of her dress. She dabbed it here and there on my face, pocketed the tissue, and squirmed in her chair.

  “Take off the dress if you want,” I said.

  “Nah. I’ll wear it for a little longer. Someday, you’ll owe me a favor, and I can use this to remind you of all I’ve done for you in my life.”

  “I do appreciate everything you’ve done,” I said. “By the way, I might need you to babysit sometimes.”

  “That’s something else I get to do for you,” Dottie said. “What you doing for me?”

  “Making you an unofficial aunt,” I said. “Something happens to me, you take the baby? You okay with that?” When she
didn’t say anything, I looked at her. “You crying?” I said. “Are you crying?”

  “Jeezly flowers stink to high heavens.”

  “So, if something happens . . .”

  “Well, yes, but it better not,” she said. She suddenly stood up. “I can’t stand this dress no more,” she said. She walked quickly toward Grand’s house, head down.

  The wedding guests danced and drank. We all ate hamburgers, hot dogs, and some of the platters Ray had put together for the day. “Free of charge,” he’d told me, which let me know he held me in high esteem. Ray was famous for pinching the green out of a dollar.

  Sometime during the afternoon, Glen remembered that he was best man and he decided to toast us. He cleared his throat and raised a Champagne glass. “These two people are my best friends,” he started out.

  “Hey!” Dottie shouted.

  “Dottie too,” Glen added. Then he frowned. “Now you made me forget,” he said. He looked at the sky as if the words might be written somewhere up there. After a minute, his face lit up and he said, “Oh, yeah! I wish them and the baby all the happiness in the world and I hope they’ll remember to keep a beer in the fridge for me. Glad to see that Bud got smart. He couldn’t do no better than Florine.” Everyone clapped and Glen looked so relieved that I laughed.

  Bud pulled the garter from my leg without much ceremony, much like the way he undressed me at night. The three single men at the wedding all looked content to stay that way. Ray looked down at the grass just as Bud threw the garter. Glen ducked behind Pastor Billy, so Billy had to catch it. “Not fair,” he said with a laugh.

  Dottie wouldn’t even stand with the single girls. Evie couldn’t reach up with her dress as tight as it was, so Maureen snagged my side-garden flower bouquet. “I’m so happy I caught this,” she whispered into my ear. “I’m going to marry Billy someday.”

  I grinned at her. “You are?” I tried to do the math in my head, but the Champagne from the toast had made me woozy. Billy had to be at least fifteen years older than Maureen, though I didn’t know his real age.