The Reception

The day was supposed to be about us: Me and Callie, our commitment to one another, our love. I suppose it mostly was, and as we sat hand-in-hand at the reception, I knew things had gone as well as could be expected. She’d said her vows. I’d said mine. Friends and family cheered as Callie triumphantly lifted a bouquet of dahlias over her head and trotted back down the lawn. Now we were quiet, tired, and warm with wine.

At a circular table, Callie’s fingers grazed my palm. By that point in the evening we wanted to act normal—not overly, wedding-day happy. But the photographer was nearby, still snapping photos. We put on our smiles and spoke playful grievances through our eyes at one another.

Beyond Callie, the wedding party drank heavily on a makeshift plywood dance floor. Further on, a half-dozen cigar embers floated in the dusk. The men—mostly my father’s friends—were likely talking about him and commenting on what a lovely affair it had been.

And it was a lovely affair. I can’t stress enough that it really was.

The sorrow in my heart was attributable to another recent event, a thing I did not want to talk about.

At least not to Callie yet, and not on our wedding day.

…

Darkness slipped over the yard. The tent we’d married in was lit with white Christmas lights and Edison bulbs had been strung throughout the trees. From my table I watched Callie do the YMCA with her bridesmaids, the train of her dress stained by freshly-cut grass.

My mother ambled across a path of stepping stones, her violet skirt blurring into the night. She carried a small brown bag and sat beside me. I opened my mouth to thank her again for allowing us to use her and Dad’s home as our venue, but knew it wasn’t necessary.

Mom’s flushed cheeks were sunken. Both of us drew in short breaths, and the necessary sentiments floated silently between us:

I’m sure your father would have loved this.

Yeah, I’m sure he would’ve.

I really thought he was going to make it to the big day.

Me, too.

She set the brown bag on the table. A breeze shook the flame of the citronella candle at its center.

“Wedding gifts,” she said. “A couple of things I wanted to give you in private.”

From the bag, I pulled out a small black book, each page blank. It had a soft ribbon bookmark and an elastic band that held the pages safely together. I recognized the style of the book immediately: My father had always kept one.

“You know, your dad liked to have these for his forest walks, sometimes for fishing… just little notes he took. He had a whole chest of them—or so I thought. I’m not sure where he kept them; I’m still looking through the basement and attic. Point is, I thought you might like to start keeping one, too.”

I brought the journal to my chest. My throat tightened.

“And...” she went on, lifting an envelope from the bag.

I opened the envelope and found a check for $20,000.

“Mom—” I protested.

“No need to argue,” she said. “He wanted this for you. It’s supposed to go towards a down payment for you and Callie. It was one of his final requests.”

The check was written in Dad’s sloppy cursive, the t’s crossed high, the s’s resembling squat birds. I tucked the check into my pocket and hugged my mother, who exhaled and released a few tears.

“Okay,” she said, patting me on the shoulder, “this is your day, now.”

My day.

If that were true, I knew what I needed to do.

Lifting my eyes, I checked to see that Callie was still enjoying herself. In a folding chair beside the refreshments, she bounced her sister’s toddler on her knee. Her smile was tinged with merlot.

…

I snuck past the crowd and into the apple orchard.

Beyond our property line, there was a strip of untouched forest—privately owned by a farmer who rarely visited. It was a place my father and I used to walk when I was a child. The moon had turned the ground a chalky blue and crickets chorused from every patch of brush.

Dad and I used to kick rocks down this path and pause to identify various birds and snakes. Ten steps to my left there was the stump of an oak tree that blew over in a windstorm when I was 10. Now it was clothed in trailing ferns and moss. Up further, there’d be a pond where swarms of tiny frogs emerged each spring. Evergreen trees creaked in the gentle wind, and the scent of jasmine carried on the air.

I knew every step of that path so well, I hardly even needed to look at the ground as I walked. A small mound of fresh dirt took me by surprise. Bending at the waist, I dug with my hands and discovered a shallowly buried chest of little black books, just like the one Mom had given me. All of them were time-worn and stuffed fat with pressed leaves and feathers. My father’s handwriting filled the pages:

9/28: Excellent mushroom forage today - chanterelles AND oysters.

5/23: Alamanac says trout season’s open, but no bites down at the river.

6/10: Downy feather of a red-tail hawk! Juvenile, most likely.

There must have been about 20 of them, filled with personal observations and treasures. On the top of the collection, a folded piece of paper had been thoughtfully placed. I unfolded it to read a single sentence:

I knew you’d find these, son.

Love, Dad

...

I pulled the chest of journals off the path and leaned them against a tree. In the morning, once the festivities had faded, I’d come out with Mom and show her all the books.

I took Dad's most recent journal back with me to the reception. Its latest note said this:

2/18: Incredible snow goose display today - like a white tornado over the cover crop. Very blessed to live here.

Closing the book, I stepped back through the forest and re-entered the reception. When Callie saw me, her eyes lit. She traipsed up in her dress and wrapped her arms around my neck. I held her head to my shoulder with one hand and held Dad’s journal in the other.

As we swayed together, I knew that he was there.