The Wedding Shhhh

  “’Speak now.’” Arlene pointed at me on her way up the stairs to bed, and then held her finger to her lips to make the shush face.

   “’Speak now.’” I smiled, pointing and shush facing. Our grandson, Jeremy, looked up from some game he was playing on his cell phone. “Your grandmother and I have been saying that since our wedding day. Well, one of our wedding days.

   “You know, your great grandfather, my father, was a judge, and he told me before I married anyone I should go down to the courthouse and see if their name appeared on any court records. You know, you could be marrying someone who had a criminal record, a robber, an embezzler, a murderer. A murderess. Or there could be a record of them already married. They might be a bigamist. That’s when you’re married to too many people. I don’t how anyone can do that. I can barely keep up with your grandmother.

   “The records might also show that they’re divorced, and it would give the reason why. They might have been incompatible, that’s okay. They might have been abusive. There might have been mental cruelty. That’s like when they keep asking when you’re going to fix the back fence, or mend the front screen door day after day after day.”

   “They might owe all sorts of parking fines and speeding tickets and when you marry them you’ll be on the hook to pay them, too. They might have sealed records. You know they were up to something but the court won’t tell you.

   “Anyway, father says I got to check the records. Only I won’t do it because, well, because my father always got my back up. He’s being the almighty judge when I need him to be my pa. He’s even holding back his blessing. A father’s blessing is a terrible thing, it’s good people don’t do that anymore.

  “Okay, so the first time we were trying to get married I'm standing in front of the preacher with my bride in front of all our friends plus far too many of my father’s invites. There were three hundred people and I was lucky if I knew the names of thirty of them.

  “The church is overflowed, there’s no air conditioning. I’m sweating in a gorilla suit. Your grandfather was not made to wear a tuxedo. And I didn’t even have this basketball of a belly then.

   “I swear the ceremony was going on for four hours. The preacher had me repeating half a bible of vows. Ant then we get the part where the preacher asks is there any reason why these people shouldn’t get married. He’s all fire and brimstone, his voice goes all deep, and he says ‘Speak now!’ Then he points a finger out to the guests and then he brings his hand down to show that that’s the end of that part of the ceremony. If you wanted to speak you had your chance. But that’s over now. The preacher’s put that down for the ten-count.

   “And now we’re going to clinch it. We’re going to seal the deal. Now the Preacher’s going to call for the ‘I Dos’.

   “Then this woman yells from the choir loft ‘I am Cassandra Lockhart and I know this man and I love him and he loves me.”

   Jeremy interrupted, “Wait, were you marrying grandma?”

   “I was trying to, but this woman stood up out of nowhere. She was wearing a black dress. Nobody saw her come in. Nobody knows how she got up there in the loft.

   “Your grandmother threw her bouquet at her, and left me at the altar. I passed out. My best man got me on a stool and gave me some water. The Preacher was asking for Arlene, your grandma, to be brought back to finish, but she wasn’t coming back.

  “Your grandma’s brothers came up to the altar. They wanted to have a go at me, but I outfoxed them, I passed out again. Oh, they’d twisted my tail for years after saying what a coward I was that day. And they were right. Oh, not about fighting, I could always do that. But I never saw the point in fighting with family. And passing out is nothing to be ashamed of. I saw lots of fellows pass out in army basic training.

   “No, I was a coward because the woman said she knew me, and I kept telling everyone at the wedding I didn’t know her.”

   Jeremey’s eyes widened. “You knew her?”

   “Well, that’s the trick. The truth is I went with a lot of girls before I met your grandma, and, well, even then when my memory was good, I didn’t remember them all. It might have been a case of I might have known her, but I might not of. I was a coward for not admitting it.

   “Okay, so all the guests get apologies. All the gifts are returned, but our friends don’t know whether to hold onto them because I’m trying to fix the damage, but your grandma refuses to see me ever again. The whole town’s a mess, and I think my life is over.

   “Then, I do the one thing I promised I would never do when I decide to get married and become a man, I went and asked your great grandfather for help. And do you know what he told me? Check the court records.

   “I said, ‘I’m not checking any records, I know Arlene is a good person and I trust her.’ And your great grandpa said, ‘I know she’s a good person, it’s you I have doubts about! Where’s your head young man? Do you know this Cassandra? You say you don’t, but you don’t say it with any confidence. Do you know no one in this town has ever seen her before?’

   “I didn’t know that. Your great grandfather, the Judge, gave me addresses for all the courthouses within a day or two’s travel of our town. I wrote them all letters asking about Cassandra Lockhart. And I started writing your grandma a letter every day. I was hoping to melt her heart before winter.

   “No luck with your grandma. I did get to meet her at the church in the presence of the preacher in his office. A lot of apologizing on my part, and explanations of which I still had none, and would your grandma ever consider me in any form as suitable in the future. It was a lot of formal courtship stuff I never had to go through the first time. I guess I was better for it.

   “The letters finally came back, long after Cassandra had disappeared. Oh, she had done this before. Just went around small towns showing up at weddings and drawing attention to herself. Public Mischief. She had several unpaid fines. Pa said she needed to see a doctor.

   “Anyway, your great grandfather had the letters published in the local paper, and then your grandma said ‘Then I was forced to marry Jeremiah.’ 

   “That wedding day we only had about eighty guests. And it was a cool fall day. And the ceremony was down to forty-five minutes. And when the preacher got to ‘Speak now’, your grandma and I turned out to the guests and we pointed at them and made the shush face. Then we did the ‘I dos’, and the kiss, and all that mushy stuff.     

   “You know, Jeremey, it’s been forty-seven years now, I think your grandma and I are working out alright. Jeremy? Jeremy, it’s getting late. You should stop playing with that. I read you should shut off you cell phone in the evening, it’ll give you trouble sleeping when you get to be my age.”