- Aiden -
It didn’t seem real until I saw her walking down the aisle with my Dad.
And she looked beautiful, more beautiful than she ever had before. She was actually glowing. And the whole time she was walking down the aisle, she never took her eyes off Dave.
And he was glowing, too.
I couldn’t believe it. The guy was usually so serious, so sarcastic, but he actually looked so happy you would’ve thought my sister was a goddamn Christmas tree.
And I’d never seen her look so girly. Sure, when she was little she and her friends would dress up like princesses and have tea parties and all that crap. But as she walked towards Dave in her strapless, floor length wedding dress, she actually looked like a real princess.
That’s when I realized that her main function in this world wasn’t just to be my awesome sister anymore. She was someone’s bride. Dave’s. And he was going to build his whole life around her. He was going to make her his purpose and his partner in everything.
And I have to admit, I respected the guy for pulling the trigger. I admired the fact that he was so confident in his love that he didn’t even want to see what else was out there, that he was prepared to piss all around her in front of his family and friends. Or have a wedding. Whatever, same thing.
I envied his clarity of thought, his confidence in the one arena I felt like I wasn’t equipped to navigate.
When Claire finally took her place across from Dave, the whole church disappeared for a second. Seeing my sister that happy made my chest swell so big I thought I might burst. Not that I understood it. I thought Dave was a pretty normal guy. More intelligent than most maybe, but clueless about cars and grilling.
Of course, none of that mattered once I saw my sister beaming like that. I knew she loved him. She’d said as much to me in a dozen different ways over the years so I knew this day was coming. But the way she looked then said it in all the ways her words couldn’t.
And she seemed just as calm, just as excited, and just as resolute as he did, and her love for him was radiating from every pore. It was weird to see her like that.
After all, she was my sister. We didn’t have any secrets. I could remember every pimple she tore the house up over, every guy that ever hurt her feelings, everything she ever achieved that meant something to her.
But suddenly she was in a realm I couldn’t relate to. For the first time I realized that everything was about to change. She was leaving the family and starting her own. From now on it was Dave who was going to live through the drama of her every dramatic triumph.
And don’t get me wrong, I was more than happy to let him take that load off the family’s hands, but I would miss that intimacy Claire and I had. I knew things would never be the same. Even if she never admitted that I wasn’t the number one guy in her life anymore, that didn’t change the fact that I would know Dave came first. Which was as it should be.
And when she started having kids I could fucking forget it. I’d be knocked down peg by peg until I wasn’t even in her top three priorities anymore.
But when I looked at her looking at him, I wasn’t afraid of that future. I was just happy for her, happier than I ever thought I could be for somebody.
And then something made me turn around and look at Lucy.
She was looking at Claire, too, just like everyone else in the church.
But she averted her gaze towards me a moment later, smiling at me through eyes that were welling with tears.
I smiled back at her before turning around, comforted by the fact that whatever I saw in Claire’s eyes, Lucy must’ve been able to see, too.
Not that I was surprised. Lucy had known Claire almost as long as she’d known me. When we were younger, Claire had almost been a role model for her. Or at least, she was one of the only cool, older girls that acknowledged her in school.
I can remember how excited Lucy used to get when she’d be over on a night that Claire had a high school dance. She would peek through the front windows at our house and watch all the couples taking pictures, pointing out the dresses she liked and talking smack about the rest of them.
It was the only time I ever found her painfully dull. I used to count down the minutes to when my sister and her friends would finally leave for the dance so I could have my regular Lucy back, so we could return to the serious work of fort building or video gaming or hot lava leaping or whatever was grabbing us that day.
Remembering that made me realize how much it probably meant to Lucy that she got to do Claire’s hair for her wedding. And I have to say she did a good job as far as I could tell.
Claire’s hair looked pretty without being distracting. I figured that was probably the point.
While the priest reminded us why we were gathered here today in case someone had a really short term memory or was supposed to be at someone else’s wedding, I let my eyes drift towards my parents.
I smiled when I saw that my Dad had his hand on my Mom’s knee, and I was happy for them. They liked Dave. He presented himself well, didn’t lose his temper, never drank too much (at least in front of them), and had a good job and a strong work ethic. As far as they were concerned, they could’ve done a lot worse.
When Claire was eighteen she was an absolute terror. One night she told my Mom she was going to elope with her boyfriend on his motorcycle. He broke up with her the next day, but she got a big fake tattoo of his name on her lower back just to give my Mom a heart attack. That’s when I realized she never even cared about the guy and was mostly dating him to fuck with my parent’s blood pressure.
Whether or not I was the only one that thought it was funny that she’d ultimately married someone who both our parents approved of was anybody’s guess, but I suppose she got that rebelliousness out of her system. Plus, she’d always been a seat belt freak so a biker boy was never going to do it for her in the long run.
When it came time to do the vows, it turned out they’d written their own. Dave made a few bad jokes that only Claire laughed at which, fortunately, caused other people to laugh at how well suited they were. Then he got really serious and made some farfetched geology reference that I think was supposed to be another way of saying he would love her forever.
Claire couldn’t even speak when it came to her turn, and I made a note to myself to ask her what the hell she was warbling at the time. Not that it mattered.
What mattered was that when the priest said “you may now kiss the bride,” neither of them had changed their minds. So Dave laid one on her. I assume it was a tasteful, crowd pleaser without tongue, but I’ll never know cause I looked away. I didn’t need to see that shit-wedding day or no wedding day.
And when the bells started chiming and they skipped down the aisle hand in hand, I was kind of jealous.
Not cause I wished I was getting married or anything. I was a long way off that.
But suddenly it was clear that they were a team, and that from then on, they were going to do whatever the fuck they wanted.