Day 72

It rained on the wedding day. “That’s supposed to be good luck.” It was the response from my polish great grandmother, who had managed to out live both her step-son and daughter, our grandmother. She stood all by herself, ninety-three, as we all huddled beneath a tarp at the edge of the field where Meredith and Sang-ho were supposed to get married. A little cousin asks her something I can’t hear as I watch Sang-Ho hold Meredith’s hand in a way that I never liked, like a child, his whole hand over her fist. It seemed wrong, like he would be ready to crush her.

“It’s Polish.” I heard my great grandmother say, “In Poland if it rains on your wedding day, then it was said that all of the bad luck would be out early, and that there would be sunny days ahead.”

“This isn’t Poland.” I heard her now, but couldn’t see her, there were too many bodies, the suit I wore rubbed at my forearms and elbows from the way I folded my arms so that I would not lean on someone else. “This is Ohio.”

“Well, its not just Poland, its everywhere.” And the little girl seems satiated at that. I look at Sang-Ho and he isn’t holding her hand anymore. And that’s worse somehow, to stand farther away like that, to watch her instead of standing right beside, to be right next to her.

A few minutes later the weather gives way and we all stand where we were before, we stand, instead of sit, because the chairs laid out on the lawn are still slick with water, except for my great grandmother, who sits, her hands in her lap, and watches everything through a thin line between people. I should have been watching the thin side of Meredith watching Sang-Ho, the slight bump showing on her, but I watch Nana, and think about how happy she could be right now, even through losing a son and daughter, and a husband, and even me for a while. I wonder if she is even that happy, if she knows, that just like my cousin Cole there will be something else, something else to get ready to fall apart. But she smiles, still, and everyone cheers and I look and they are just past the point of kissing, their lips coming apart, and their eyes beginning to open, and Meredith looks up at him and he looks down at her hands and like before, both of his hands are covering her fists. And I think that I’m the only that notice, that I’m the only one that still noticed, but I cheered and clapped, and later I would drink two whiskey ginger ale’s and an old fashioned in under an hour from the open bar. And when I saw him doing it again, even when they were talking, I walkied into the whole group of them and knocked his hand away, and shook each of their wrists like dish rags and then put them together, lacing the fingers one by one, saying “There, better.” I drank for the rest of the night and didn’t understand why.