Later that night, when we’re tucked into bed, you tell me I’m crazy. What were you thinking, Betsy, everything is worse now, and I say No it isn’t, it’s better; you say You got grounded forever! And I say We spoke up. We spoke up. You say You spoke up, and I say We spoke up. We’re a team.
— I have something I want to do next.
— What’s that?
— I want to go to your wedding.
— That would be nice. It was an awesome day.
— So you are married!
— Yes, Mom, I’m married. Didn’t we already cover that?
— It’s getting a little blurry for me, what’s real and what isn’t.
— Well, let’s just try it.
Betsy’s Wedding
You always said you wanted a beach wedding, so you plan a ceremony on the beach on Fire Island, and the Solomons are kind enough to host a backyard reception. Everyone you want to be there is there. I make your dress, of course. I’m not sure what’s in style right now, so let’s keep it simple, it’s at the beach. You don’t want to look like some dumbass in a ball gown on the beach, you want to go sort of bohemian. Off-white with an empire waist, maybe a slim brocade ribbon under the bust with the ends hanging down, a flowy chiffon skirt, with off-the-shoulder straps, almost like a cap sleeve. A flutter sleeve. Very Juliet. It’s a perfect New York September day, not a cloud on the entire East Coast. Your friends gather on the beach; there’s an aisle made from two rows of beach glass on either side, leading to a driftwood archway decorated with all kinds of white flowers. Ben is at the end of it, with his father and best friend next to him. Nina is your maid of honor, of course. I’m a bridesmaid, because we’re sisters, but it’s informal so we’re just standing there on your side. Everyone is happy.
— That’s nice, Mom. Ben’s parents are actually long gone.
— Oh no!
— I guess this confirms that you aren’t all out there somewhere having a big after-party.
— No, I wish. Well, I’m sorry for Ben.
— Yeah. He’s okay. But I’m sure he’ll be happy to have his dad there too.
Fred walks you down the aisle. He is, of course, beaming.
You say your vows; your old friend Bob has gotten ordained just so he can perform your ceremony. People cry and laugh; they know you’re a good couple. I sob and sob, more than a sister might, ordinarily, to the point where some of the guests are wondering what’s wrong with me and are maybe thinking it’s because I’m still single and not because I’m both your sister and your mom and I’m so happy to see you so in love. Everyone walks back up to the house, which is where I unfortunately have to deal with the fact that Victor is now married to that awful Bernadette, and because I’m your sister I can’t just say I knew it! I have to keep acting like we’re sisters, which I guess means that Fred is my father too, which is a little weird. (Am I my own mother? Too much to process at once. Let’s pretend Fred’s second wife is my mom.) At the reception, Fred/Dad takes me aside and tells me how lucky he is to have two such special daughters. He believes he’s had a whole lifetime of knowing me, and that that version of me is someone he would say such a thing to. I want to ask him a bunch of questions, basic ones, like What exactly do you know about me? — which is, of course, absurd, something you might say to a stranger you were suspicious of — but I don’t have to, because he immediately tells me about a camping trip we took when we were kids in the seventies, and our mom was away (ha!), and how different you and I were: you were happy with a Tab in a hammock with your nose in a book, and I wanted to do everything that could be done, go fishing, paddle a canoe. He told me I even asked about hunting, which is hilarious to even think about, me with a gun, not to mention him with a gun (We skipped that, he says), and of course, hearing this, I knew he’d have been just as happy to sit in a camp chair with you and read too. No question you were his kid. Me, anybody’s guess how far back my odd string of DNA came from. But in his version of history, he took me to do all those things, and you were not happy about having to go along, didn’t know why you couldn’t stay back at the tent. Because you’re nine, he said, so you brought your book into the canoe and we fought; I was pissed that you were sitting in the boat like a lump, and I didn’t know why you were allowed to just do that, and he says that he told me You girls are both the best daughters around, but you’re two different people, and there’s no one thing that’s going to make everybody happy besides roasting marshmallows, and we can’t do that all day, so if she wants to read a book in a canoe that’s fine with me, and if you want to spend all day swimming in the lake, that’s fine with me too. Of course, he also made sure there was time for you to read, and told me it wouldn’t hurt me to read a book either, and after the sun went down we told the silliest ghost stories around the campfire that we could think up, about ghosts who come back and do nice things, like make delicious lobster eggs benedict before you wake up, and then when no one in the family takes credit for it you’re a little spooked because where would you get the lobster in Iowa anyway, and you happen to notice that there are no lobster shells or eggshells in the trash, there’s nothing in the trash at all, and you say Well, you or Mom could have taken the trash out, and you say Mom never takes the trash out, and you laugh because it’s true. The truth is, seeing Fred all these years later, in this way, is weirdly nice. I’m many decades older than I was when we were married, and here I am in the body of a forty-year-old, and I mean, yes, I have had sex with that old man, but he doesn’t know that.