July 21, 2024 - “First Marriage”

You hear Patty’s loud laugh and think about how much nicer it is when she’s here. May becomes less of a mother and more of a person, and the boys are calmer too. Patty brings a little bit of her brother with her wherever she goes, and everyone feels lighter because her cackle sounds just like Bobby’s. 

Patty says she was married to May first, citing the time they had built an altar in the woods behind the house and had Bobby tape a white strip of paper to the neck of his black tee shirt to officiate. 

You wonder what it would feel like to be family from the start. You find it both envious and impossible, that they will all be happy here forever. 

They’d written their own vows, had read them out loud as Bobby tried not to laugh, and then they sealed the ceremony with a kiss – not a real one, May would insist – the kind where you grip each others cheeks and put your thumbs over the others lips and then pressed your lips to your thumbs and sway together in an imitated embrace. Schoolgirl stuff, she says, blushing.

A decade later, on May and Bobby’s wedding day, Patty read the vows they had written as girls and even the groomsmen cried. You can’t imagine having so much love for so long and you think, on her best days, this is why May wants you to have a child so badly. She knows what you are looking for and she is saying here – there’s a way to have that. But mostly, May just wants a baby. Mostly, she just wants another go, and on your best days, you almost want to give it to her.