Earth Works: Selected Essays

Beauty

214 n memory, I wait beside Eva in the vestibule of the church to play my bit part as father of the bride. She is supposed to remain hidden from the congregation until her queenly entrance, but in her eagerness to see what’s going on up front she leans forward to peek around the edge of the half-closed door. The satin roses appliquéd to her gown catch the light as she moves, and the toes of her pale silk shoes peep out from beneath the hem. The flower girls watch her every motion. Twins a few days shy of their third birthday, they flounce their unaccustomed frilly skirts, twirl their bouquets, and stare with wide eyes down the great length of carpet leading through the avenue of murmuring people. Eva hooks a hand on my elbow while the three bridesmaids fuss over her, fixing the gauzy veil, spreading the long ivory train of her gown, tucking into her bun a loose strand of hair, which glows the color of honey filled with sunlight . Clumsy in my rented finery—patent leather shoes that are a size too small and starched shirt and stiff black tuxedo—I stand among these gorgeous women like a crow among doves. I realize they are gorgeous not because they carry bouquets or wear silk dresses, but because the festival of marriage has slowed time down until any fool can see their glory. Concerned that we might walk too fast, as we did in rehearsal, Eva tries in vain to teach me a gliding ballet step to use as we process down the aisle. “It’s really simple, Daddy,” she says, as I botch it over and over. On an ordinary day, I would have learned the step quickly, but this is no ordinary day, and these few furtive seconds of instruction in the vestibule are Beauty 215 Beauty not enough for my pinched feet. I fear that I will stagger like a wounded veteran beside my elegant daughter. Eva, meanwhile, seems blissfully confident, not only of being able to walk gracefully, as she could do in her sleep, but of standing before this congregation and solemnly promising to share her life with the man who waits in thinly disguised turmoil at the far end of the aisle. Poised on the dais, wearing a black ministerial robe and a white stole, is the good friend whom Eva and I know best as our guide on canoe trips through the Boundary Waters. He grins so broadly that his full cheeks push up against the round rims of his spectacles. “There’s one happy preacher,” Eva says. “He believes in marriage,” I reply. “So do I. Remember, Matt and I figured that between you and Mom and his folks, our parents have been married fifty-eight years.” Eva lets go of my arm to lift a hand to her throat, touching the string of pearls she has borrowed from my own bride, Ruth, to whom I’ve been married thirty years. The necklace was a sixteenth birthday gift to Ruth from her own parents, who have now been married over half a century all by themselves. Love can be durable, I’m thinking, as Eva returns her free hand to my arm and tightens her grip. The arm she holds is my left one, close against my racing heart. On her own left arm she balances a great sheaf of flowers—daisies and lilies, marigolds, snapdragons, bee balm, feverfew—the sumptuous handiwork of a gardening friend, and in her left hand she holds a Belgian lace handkerchief , also borrowed from Ruth, in case she cries. But so far there is no welling of tears in those bold brown eyes. The organ strikes up Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” for the bridesmaids’ entrance, and down the aisle they skim, those gorgeous women in midnight blue. The organist is another friend, the former choir director of our church, an old pro whose timing and touch are utterly sure, and likewise a generous man, who has postponed open heart surgery until next week in order to play for Eva’s wedding. He tilts his head back to read the music through bifocals, then tilts it forward to study the progress of the bridesmaids, then tilts it back again as he raises the volume a notch for the entrance of the flower girls. Overawed by the crowd, the flower girls hang back until their mother nudges them...