We left the house very early to catch a noon flight to Raleigh, North Carolina. News of an impending storm, and the fact we are bound for Cute Husband’s brother’s wedding has made us overly cautious.
The flight has been delayed multiple times.
So it is that we have spent five hours at the gate, watching High School Musical and browsing over-priced paperbacks.
We have eaten two meals out of the food court. Speaking of overpriced.
I ask the attendant at the gate to please be sure we could pre-board. She says, “Ask my relief attendant, she’ll be in charge of your flight.” So an hour later I make a special trip over to the gate to ask, “Hey — pregnant lady, two kids, and a Marine carrying three times his body weight in car seats … can we pre-board?” And she says “Sure. Sure you can.”
Can you see where this is going, can ya, can ya??
###
“Why didn’t you preboard?” the flight attendant says as she sees us lumbering down the ramp at her. Cute Husband is pushing the wheeled car seat, the other car seat and a bunch of crap piled on top. I am pretty sure we’re over the 40-pound recommended weight limit on that stroller. We’re all carrying bags. And coats. And I am carrying a flimsy plastic garment bag stuffed with two poufy flower girl dresses.
“We asked,” I say.
“They didn’t do it,” he adds.
“We were back of the line,” I continue.
And now we are the last people to board this mother-effing —
“‘kay, kids! Let’s find our seats!” And then I am crammed between two rows, knee in a car seat, hauling on the straps that secure it. The straps won’t go through the way they are supposed to. The seat is jiggling. People are glaring. I am the reason this plane is still sitting at the gate.
“You might want to check that car seat,” the flight attendant says.
Ah, yes, but that would defeat its purpose as a safety device protecting my child way up here in the cabin, then, wouldn’t it?
My cell phone vibrates. A text message from my brother: “It is happening now. We’re going in.”
My heart sinks — yesterday they said the baby’s lungs weren’t ready.
I fire off a reply with Sunbeam-worthy speed: “Love to you three. Tell Emily Sarah: Auntie loves her.”
Please God let her be okay. Please don’t let her be hurt.
“They’re delivering the baby,” I say to Cute Husband as the plane starts to move.
He squeezes my hand and then we are taxiing down the runway and I am thinking my usual take-off thoughts: Please don’t let us go off this runway in the ice. Please don’t let there be a terrorist on this plane. Please don’t let the kids get hurt. And now a descant: Please protect Emily Sarah.
And we’re airborne.
###
In Raleigh, two texts and a voicemail. She is born. She can’t breathe. She’s in the NICU.
###
In Chapel Hill: We feed the girls hush puppies and fried okra and remind Mary that she was born two hours from here. Cute Husband and I watch the bride and groom and can’t believe it’s been ten years since we were that young.
The cell phone is plastered to my palm. Whenever it vibrates, I jump. “NICU for weeks or days,” come the reports. “Blood sugar is low. She’s burning too many calories breathing.”
Please, please.
###
Chocolate fondue and champagne — a gorgeous red champagne that is not too sweet. The women of the bride’s two families dip fruit and cake and tell the stories of their weddings.
“Watch your shoes,” we Schwarzers warn her. Every single bride in this family has had Shoe Issues.
“Oh,” she says, “too late. I forgot mine in South Carolina and ordered a second pair already.”
“Great,” we say. “You’re all set then. Only keep an eye on this pair.”
###
A tired voice. My brother, the Dad.
“She’s okay,” he says. “She’s just all of a sudden a lot better. I’m really tired, I’m going to go.”
And then it hits me: I’m an AUNT!
###
“I not ‘Renny’ I Rudolph.”
“Oh,” I say. We’re in the rental mini-van, on our way to the rehearsal.
“I want you to call me ‘Rudolph,’” she insists.
“That’s fine, Sweetie,” I say, “you can be called whatever you want.”
“Not ‘Sweetie,’” she says. “‘Ruuuuudolph.’”
“Oh, this is going to be a long night.”
###
The wedding coordinator is ultra-organized. We all have name tags. Ren stares at hers a long minute before wordlessly handing it to me.
“I understand,” I say. I walk over to the coordinator and gently explain things. He passes me a pen.
Now, her name tag reads, “Renudolph.” She pats it on to her dress, satisfied.
###
“Okay, so after the last bridesmaid, the flower girls will go. Mary, that’s you and Rudolph.”
This may just be the Greatest Wedding Coordinator in the World.
###
“But you don’t have a red nose!” — About sixteen people have said this to her.
“No,” she replies in an exceedingly patient voice. “I not Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. It just my name: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. But you can call me ‘Rudolph.’”
###
We’re in the Bride’s Room. Mare and Ren are in their poufy dresses, hydrangea-blue bows in their hair and around their waists, little black patent-leather shoes on their feet. Ren has been tugging at her braids and scowling at the bow around her waist for the past twenty minutes.
“Momma, what if I don’t want to be a flower girl?” she finally asks. I figure once all the fun starts, with the pictures and everyone telling her how cute she is, she’ll be happy.
“Momma, Daddy, and Mare are all going to be in the wedding,” I tell her. “You don’t have to be. I can call Aunt Margaret to take you, but that’s it, you’ll have to stay with her until it’s over.”
I have turned away from the Doodle, adjusting my panty-hose, scowling at the obvious line they make across my belly. I glance back at her and do a double-take.
Her hair is out of its cute braids, the sash is gone. A puddle of hydrangea-blue satin is at her feet.
“Momma, call Aunt Mahgit. I all done.”
“Bye, Rudolph!” my new sister-in-law says happily, officially making her the coolest Bride I have ever known.
###
Mare looks lovely going down the aisle. Serene, composed, a picture of creamy organza, blue satin, piercing blue eyes. She carries a blue-and-cream pomander from a satin ribbon.
I glance over at Margaret. Renudolph is beside her glowing with pride at Sister’s procession. As soon as Mare is gone, Doodle turns her attention back to the pomander on her lap, resuming her work of methodically ripping cream-colored baby roses out of it, shredding them, dropping them on the floor.
###
They take their vows. It is tender, funny, transcendent. Cute Husband smiles across the altar at me and for one breathless second it’s like it’s our turn again. I rest my hand on Mare’s shoulder.
The baby kicks and I just can’t believe how generous the world can be sometimes.
###
The Bride and Groom have departed together for their new home in South Carolina. Family lingers for the last of the music and champagne.
My bouquet is fading, and my feet hurt. I spy Renny sitting on the steps and take a seat beside her.
“Hi, Rudolph.” Unlike Mare, Ren can sit in silence. Needs to, sometimes. After a bit, I say, “I’m proud of you.”
She looks surprised.
“You did such a good job of saying what you wanted today. You used your words, and you knew being a flower girl wasn’t for you.”
Her smile breaks my heart. There is such relief in it.
“I don’t think you like it when people look at you,” I say. She throws her arms around me with a happy sigh.
Fierce, fearless, determined … and shy. She kisses me and tears off to throw herself onto a pile of dancing cousins.
###
A text: “We’re home.”
I cheer and cry and Cute Husband and I dance to Our Song. We toast our new niece and her parents.
###
Our little house is burried in snow. Sunbeam texted midweek to say all is well, but the cats are hopelessly lonely for us.
The door opens to the smell of rotting flesh. On the floor in front of our hearth, a stiff mouse corpse.
“It looks like a sacrifice to the gods,” Cute Husband laughs. Please bring our family home. We don’t know what we did, but please bring them home.
The cats are in Mare’s bed. They open sleepy eyes, register that we’re there, and roll on to their backs. The girls rub fuzzy bellies, and I crawl to bed. I wrap myself around the Body Pillow and manage not to cry from relief.
I have a new niece, and a new sister-in-law. We are home in one piece. I rub my belly, find what I think is a foot above my hip, rub that, too.
So much to be grateful for.
Nothing better in the world than Coming Home.
