Come Rain or Come Shine (25 page)

The dad's brother named Kenny took one of the rings and gave it to Granpa Tim, who gave it to the dad.

‘Bless, O Lord, these rings to be signs of the vows by which this man and this woman have bound themselves to each other, through Jesus Christ our Lord.'

If his leg started jiggling . . . ‘Lace, I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow and with all that I am, and all that I
have, I honor you . . . in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.'

She felt it slipping onto her finger, felt the steadiness of Dooley's hand as he placed it there. A simple gold band, just what she wanted; it was a kind of nourishment.

Jack Tyler watched Uncle Sammy take the other ring off the pillow and hand it to Granpa Tim, who handed it to the mom.

‘Dooley, I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow, and with all that I am, and all that I have . . .' She caught her breath. ‘I honor you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.'

He felt the warmth of her touch as she slipped it on his finger. He was plastic in a microwave.

Beth took the pillow from Jack Tyler, who stretched out his arms for Roo. Nobody else had ever touched Roo except his granny, who sometimes would hide Roo for days. He smelled Roo to see if he smelled different.

Then Uncle Pooh reached in his pocket and pulled something out and gave it to the granpa and the granpa gave it to the mom. He laid Roo in the grass and held hands with the mom and the dad and they stood in front of the granpa.

He'd said it over and over in his mind, and the mom and the dad said they would squeeze his hand at the right time to say it out loud. ‘Say it in your very biggest voice,' the mom had told him.

‘Dooley, Lace, and Jack Tyler . . . we honor you today as a family.'

‘Amen!' said the people.

‘Forever.'

‘Amen!'

‘For better or for worse. To love and to cherish.'

‘Amen!'

The hand squeeze. ‘Come rain or come shine!' yelled Jack Tyler, and all the people laughed and clapped.

The mom leaned down and took his left hand and put a ring on his finger and looked in his eyes really close. ‘We're a family now, Jack Tyler.' She kissed him on one side of his face. ‘This is forever.'

His dad squatted down and kissed him on the other side of his face and looked in his eyes and said, ‘We're a family now, Jack Tyler. We'll be a family forever.'

‘Those whom God has joined together let no one put asunder!' said the granpa in a really loud voice.

He grabbed Roo, his dad picked him up and the people clapped and clapped and somebody whistled and the bass fiddle went
whoom, whoom, whoom,
and not knowing exactly what else to do, he held Roo up high so everybody could see his best friend.

Second row back on the groom's side, Henry removed his handkerchief and pressed it to his eyes. He wished his mother
could see this, but he would tell her everything, everything. Since coming up from Charlotte this morning, he was surprised to realize that he no longer thought about Eva every day. In one way or another, she had occupied his thoughts for nearly forty years. A bird sang—Eva. A stylish woman boarded the train—Eva. Hearing a church choir—Eva, whose voice was honey distilled from clover.

The dark-skinned girl in the black hat with the red rose had swept him off his feet in the truest sense; he remembered the strange weakness in his ankles as she boarded his train the first time, as if the bones had become the brittle bones of a bird.

Eva was dying of a rare type of brain cancer and he should have insisted, or somehow wrangled a marriage license without her consent, for he wanted with all his being to be legally bound to the crucifying pain and to her death for as long as it took. But her mother had passed and Eva had disappeared. The cruelest hurt he had ever known or would know. Just gone. A lifetime of loving had been compressed into eleven months that he would remember for the rest of his days.

He looked with tenderness at the young couple who had overcome so much of their own loss and sorrow and in the bloom of their youth were given this fine little boy, a gift from God.

Indeed, it was God who had urged him to make this trip into the eastern highlands, tracing his bloodline to his brother. And he was satisfied. Seeing the young family
finding their way together was a benediction—something in him felt healed and healing.

Tommy grinned. He'd never heard so many amens, and he'd been raised Baptist. A lot of stuff had made his hair stand up today—Choo-Choo breathing down their necks, for one. But he was no hero, he'd been scared out of his mind to walk the guys toward the cattle and then lead a bull and three heifers all the way to the gate. Bulls could be plenty mean, even kill people, and a heifer could get her back up, too. How did he know the music would work? He'd seen something on YouTube where a few French dudes got together and played music and the cows loved it. But it was totally rolling the dice, what they'd done today, and with way too much at stake. After they got the cattle back in the field, his legs had turned to mush.

And Beth—she made his hair stand up, for sure. Run a wet finger around a fragile glass with water in it and out comes the shining, haunting sound in her voice, something pure as spring water on his granddaddy's place, or maybe sheer as silk but strong as a tow sack. He put his hand on the neck of his old archtop and felt the reassurance of it. He'd brought his favorite axe for this and would flat-pick for the recessional and the dancing.

She stood so close he could touch her. He smiled along her back and the curve of her shoulders, and wondered if
that was her perfume or was it the roses. He probably wouldn't tell her that her voice reminded him of a tow sack. So what would he tell her before she left tonight? That was the question.

‘Wake up!' Honey said to her husband. ‘It's th' Prayers of th' People.'

‘Eternal God!'

Doc Owen's baritone boomed out a prayer. ‘Amen!' said the people.

Jack Tyler laid his head on the dad's shoulder and slept. Roo fell into the grass.

The program quivered lightly in Pauline Leeper's hands. She would not weep as she was wont to do in anything associated with her children. She could at least do that for them.

‘Give us grace when we hurt each other . . . to recognize and acknowledge our fault, and to seek each other's forgiveness and yours.'

‘Amen!'

She realized she had said the prayer incorrectly. It read, Give
them
grace when
they
hurt each other . . . and acknowledge
their
fault. She had deeply humiliated herself.

Buck Leeper did not notice his wife's revision of the prayer. He squeezed her hand as she sat down, knowing that he couldn't have made it without her. She hadn't saved his
life, exactly, nor he hers. Two hopeless drunks had pushed and pulled together, mostly fifty-fifty, and by the grace of God, they had each made themselves a gift offering to the other. He knew it couldn't have happened if he hadn't prayed with Father Tim that night in the rectory.
Thank you, God, for loving me and for sending your Son to die for my sins. I sincerely repent of my sins and receive Christ as my personal savior. Now as your child, I turn my entire life over to you.
So simple. So mighty.

There would be healing with her children, he could feel it. His heart swelled with some new hope as he read his part in the Prayers of the People.

Harley cleared his throat and stood. He would rather take a whipping.

‘Make their life together a sign of Christ's love to this sinful and broken world . . .' He paused briefly and carried on. ‘. . . that unity may overcome . . .' He did not like this next word, it was long as a coal train . . . ‘
estrangement
, forgiveness heal guilt, an' joy conquer despair.' Breathing like a man reprieved, he sat. How anybody could make heads or tails out of that he didn't know.

‘Amen!'

Mink Hershell squirmed in his chair. The torment of it. Sure, he thought the world of Dooley and Lace and the little kid was a blessing, but it looked like they'd be in this tent till the cows came home, which they already
did,
in case nobody noticed.

‘Stay awake,' said Honey.

He was cured of weddings; he'd rather go to a funeral.

Third row back on the bride's side, Agnes Merton, longtime sexton of Holy Trinity Church up the holler, was signing the ceremony for her son, Clarence, deaf since early childhood. The signing came so naturally to her that she was able also to dwell, however briefly, on her affection for the celebrant.

Father Tim's stability had been a spiritual banquet, nay, a lifesaver, for her and for Clarence. All those years she and her son had worked in the forsaken little church, so remote from anyone, and then he had come, this good man—fording the creek, climbing the mountain, and ending up in their lives, a sweet savor of the one true Father. Oh, he was fully human—could even be a mite snappish at times, but that was the worst of it.

Father Tim lifted his arms. ‘God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, bless, preserve, and keep you: the Lord mercifully with his favor look upon you, and fill you with all spiritual benediction and grace; that you may faithfully live together in this life, and in the age to come have life everlasting.'

‘
Amen!
'

‘The peace of the Lord be always with you!'

‘And also with you!'

Danny Hershell had read the program and knew this was it, it was now or never.

‘Kiss th' bride!' he hollered. What was wrong with people in this religion that guys didn't get to kiss th' bride? His mama would kill him, but she had killed him before any number of times.

The crowd applauded big-time. And ol' Dooley, he leaned over and laid one on her. Then he, Danny Do-Right Hershell, did what had to be done, though nobody had asked him to do it: he rang the cowbell loud as he could.

Everybody was standing, people clapping, cheering, Doc Harper running up th' aisle with his camera, and whoa—the musicians playin' somethin' really cool and for sure not out of a church songbook an' there came th' bride and Dooley and th' little guy still asleep.