The next day he was kicking himself for not coming with me. I was on the train. The Wi-Fi wasn't free, but I sprang for the 7-hour deal.
"I don't know what else to say," he said in the first email. "I’m sorry," he said in the second. It would be another hour and a half before I arrived in York, PA for our father's wedding at 2.
I’d received my invitation only a week ago. And apparently so did my kid brother Ricky, because when I retrieved my phone after having left it at the apartment all day by accident, I had twelve texts and eight missed calls from Long Island.
Voicemail 1 said, “Jason, I know you’re at work, but pick up. Did you just get what I just got in the mail? This is so fucked up. I’m really freaking out. Please call me back.”
Text 1 said, “CHECK MESSAGES NOW.”
Voicemail 2 said, “Dude, I need to talk to you. Are you in a meeting or something? Just text me that you’re in a meeting. I mean, Jesus Christ. I haven’t told Mom yet and she’ll be home any minute, so CALL ME BACK. Soon. Okay, thanks. Bye.”
The remaining texts and voicemails were of similar panic levels until they finally gave up at around 4PM. To be fair, I was equally shocked when I opened my own invitation. The magenta piece of stationary drowned in sparkles and fake roses was blinding and left me disoriented for about a minute until my sight returned and I was even able to read the thing. Of anything it could have said, I was least expecting to see that the “honour of my presence” was “requested at the marriage of Stephen Sparks and Ashley Rachel Wright on Saturday, June 18th.” At first, I thought it was a prank that Ricky himself was playing on me. But then I realized how unlikely that was; he was hit pretty hard by our parents’ surprise divorce three months before. As a second-semester senior in high school, he just couldn’t accept the fact that the happy, perfect family he’d known for eighteen years was suddenly splitting up. The divorce seemed out of nowhere to me too; but I was an independent twenty-four year old with a full time job at a Manhattan Commercial Production company, so I was much more removed from it. I figured they had just fallen out of love and weren’t getting along. Like what happens for most middle-aged couples. Ricky just couldn’t understand that. But apparently, I was wrong as can be, because out of thin air, here was an invitation for what appeared to be the extravagant Pennsylvania wedding between my recently divorced father and a girl named Ashley Wright. My parents, Ricky and I had lived in York, PA until my Dad got a job on Long Island when Ricky was twelve and I was about to enter college. After my parents divorced, my Dad left his job and returned to York, which really confused us at the time, but now made a touch more sense.
I had known Ashley Wright through some friends before the move. She was classic York: pretty blond girl from an upper middle-class family of businessmen who all lived in big brick houses with a few acres of land and never planned to leave. She was nice enough, as I remembered, not funny or crazy or remarkable in any way. Ashley and I had seen each other at a few parties in York. Pool parties, Christmas parties, barbecues, Church gatherings. And insane house parties our friends used to throw in high school when I was a junior and she was a senior. Yes, my father’s bride-to-be and I were classmates. In high school. So, that made her twenty-five now. And how old was Dad again? Oh that’s right, just turned fifty-two. How did they even know each other? Did he chaperone a field trip once and meet her? Did he spot her in the chorus of the school play and think, “Oh, I gotta make her my future bride?” I checked one more time that I’d read the names correctly on that sparkly pink piece of garbage, and grabbed my phone. I texted Ricky.
“Okay, okay, okay,” I said. “This looks really bad. But I’m sure it’s not what we think. I mean, it’s York. Something this scandalous would never fly. There has to be a whole story, explanation, something. I’ll call Dad tonight.”
“Whatever,” Ricky responded. “There’s no way I’m going to that shit show.”
I couldn’t help but feel tempted to get angry and jump to the same conclusions as Ricky. But the adult in me decided just to call my dad.
“Hello?” His voice sounded oddly chipper. At first I thought I’d called the wrong number.
“Oh, uh, hey Dad, it’s Jason. I just got your invite in the mail.” I was hoping the lingering tone in my voice would be enough of a cue for him to immediately start explaining.
“Oh, great. Sorry it was on such short notice. There was a whole pile of invitations that somehow didn’t get sent on time. I hope you can still make it!” Not the reaction I was hoping for. He sounded so casual. Cheery even. My dad was not a cheery man. He was quiet and private and only liked to discuss sports and dinner and work. But all the sudden he was cheery and totally oblivious. It all seemed suspect. He had to understand; none of us had ever heard a word about Ashley or this wedding in our lives.
“Um, yeah, I’m pretty sure I can,” I answered, feeling the frustration mount in my voice. “But that’s really not the issue, Dad. I mean, can you like, explain at all what is going on?”
“Between me and Ash?” he asked innocently. He was acting bizarre. Ash? How wasn’t he admitting that this relationship, that this frilly pink invitation came out of absolute nowhere?
“Yes, Dad. How did you two even get together? We’re all pretty confused up here.”
“Oh, well, I didn’t want to have a big dramatic sit-down to tell you kids about it,” he replied. Finally, an acknowledgement that he had pretty much lied by omission to his family. “But I guess I should probably tell you now.” I braced myself. It made me a little nervous that I was about to hear my father talk about falling in love with another woman. Especially one that I knew from partying in high school. Then I remembered, he was, in fact, a person outside of being my Dad. “See, it all happened sort of suddenly, as I’m sure you can tell,” he began. “When your Mom and I were going downhill last year, I went on a business trip to York. And Jim Pratt, you remember my golfing buddy, Mr. Pratt… Well, Jim invited me over for a little get together. Ash was there, and we got to talking. I thought she was a great girl, but of course I was still married to your mother then, so nothing happened. Anyway, after the split, I kind of remembered her, and asked her if she might want to have dinner with me some time. And I guess the rest is history. It’ll make so much more sense when you see us together, Jase, really. I hope you and Ricky can both come.” Sounded plausible enough. Get-togethers full of random Yorkies do happen all the time. And I guess Ashley Wright, being a townie and all, could very well have been bored enough to accept that first free dinner with Mr. Sparks. Beyond that, things still didn’t click for me. But this is what the man was doing, and that was that.
“All right, Dad,” I responded, warming up to his story and whole idea of the wedding itself. “As long as you’re happy, I guess. Yeah, I’m free this weekend, so I’ll be there. I’ll see what I can do about Ricky. He’s pretty upset, you know.”
“Yeah. Yeah. I don’t doubt it,” he half-whispered in a way that wasn’t so chipper and much more like my Dad. “Well, I guess I’ll see you soon.”
“Right. Well. Bye, Dad.”
“Bye, Jason.”
I hung up the phone and shot Ricky a text that read, “It seems like they just met at a get-together in York. He seems happy. I don’t know.”
Ricky responded with a, “Whatever, dude.”
I chose to sort of forget about the whole ordeal for the next couple of days leading up to the wedding. Again, I just felt so removed. Part of me almost didn’t care and another part of me didn’t believe any of it was actually true. And anyway, we were being inundated with projects and agency boards at work, so I didn’t even have the time to concern myself with all of that even if I wanted to.
On the Thursday before the wedding, I got a text from Ricky saying, “Mom wasn’t even invited. You can’t possibly still be going.” Like most texts I receive that aren’t work-related, I put it on the back burner and ignored it. Family drama was not something I indulged in dealing with. As long as my family members weren’t killing innocent people or each other, I was pretty much fine with whatever they decided to do with their lives. I had my own shit to worry about, and didn’t find it necessary to get too involved with theirs. Plus, I already bought my train ticket to York for the wedding. I figured I would just go, because I told my Dad I would, and it seemed weird not to, and it’d be done with soon enough. So, I ignored Ricky’s text. At the time, I didn’t think it was that big a deal.
The next day, I was walking from the subway back to my apartment after work, when I got a call from Ricky.
“Hey, man, what’s up?” I said.
Out of nowhere, he goes, “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Out of nowhere.
“Woah, calm down, dude,” I said, still unsure if he was totally serious or not. “What are you talking about?”
“Yesterday, I texted you that Mom wasn’t even invited to that traitor’s wedding,” he fired.
Oh here we go, I thought.
“And you didn’t have the decency to text me back? What kind of brother are you? What kind of son are you? I can’t believe you are seriously going to that creepfest, screwed up wedding tomorrow. I mean, Ashley Wright? We had friends who banged Ashley Wright! And now our fifty-two year old father is marrying her. In what way is that not totally wrong? I don’t care if he loves her. You can’t possibly think that Mom and Dad split up for their own reasons and then he miraculously forms this relationship with Ashley Wright and moves back to York. He was cheating on Mom, Jason. Dad had to have been cheating on Mom. He betrayed us. And you’re supporting it. Like, who the fuck do you think you are?” I could hear the quivering in his voice like he was about to cry, but that only made me more and more pissed off. I shouldn’t have let Ricky go on screaming at me like that over the phone even as long as I did.
“Okay, you can just shut up for one second,” I started. I really didn’t want to get into this at all. I was tired from my workday, and hungry, and had to get up early tomorrow to catch a train. But once I go off, it’s over. And I was about to go off. “You think everything is so simple?” I snapped. “You think Mommy and Daddy are supposed to stay together forever because they love you and everything is perfect? No, you idiot. These are people. And people fall out of love. It’s a fact. Not everything is about you. I mean, how naive and immature can you possibly be to think this is a matter of what, betrayal? Dad made a choice, because he wasn’t happy anymore. Simple as that. Of course he didn’t invite Mom. Do you even understand how painful that would be for her? He’s getting married to someone else tomorrow. And you may not like it, but he is a grown man who is allowed to make decisions for himself, even though he has a bratty kid to think about. So either you can be a man and not be so selfish and go tomorrow, because it’s our father’s wedding, or you can sit in your room and cry like a baby. I don’t care.” And with that, I heard a faint “I’m not going…” as I quickly hung up the phone.
I arrived in York alone, in my suit, at 1:30PM the next day. A cab transported me from the train station to Heritage Hills Golf Resort, where the wedding was to take place. I stepped out of the cab to head to the outdoor ceremony area; and as I was walking, my eye immediately shot to a girl with wavy auburn hair in a short yellow sundress. She was holding onto the arm of a muscular guy with a crew cut and gold anchor pin on his suit. When she turned in my direction to find a seat amongst the 200 magenta-colored foldout chairs, I saw that it was the freckled face of Jenny Foster. Jenny was surely a guest of Ashley’s, and also the girl, who out of nowhere, broke my heart at the end of high school, because she fell in love with a Marine. And married him. Jenny Foster and I had lived on the same block since we were born. We built my tree house together and played knights and princesses. Even in overalls, Jenny was the most convincing princess. She was the minister’s daughter, but didn’t exhibit an ounce of the high-and-mighty attitude you might expect from her. She was unknowingly beautiful and had the most infectious laugh. Everyone loved Jenny Foster. But she was mine; because in 10th grade, Jenny and I started dating. It might have been due to my provincial mindset, but I planned on marrying that girl. However, that plan came to a screeching halt senior year, when she all the sudden told me she’d fallen for someone else while she was in Mexico for Spring Break. I missed her so much that week she was away, and couldn’t wait to get her back. But I never did. I moved to Manhattan immediately after graduating, and that November, Jenny was married to her Marine.
Not a second after confirming that this yellow-dressed girl was indeed Jenny, I held my breath and redirected my path to find a seat in the very last row. For some reason, I hadn’t carefully considered the prospect of seeing people from high school at my father’s wedding. My hectic work week, or denial, perhaps.
I tried to ignore my blast from the past and looked up at the lavish flowered gazebo that made up the altar, where I saw my Dad, but no groomsmen, standing firmly and quietly. As I looked around at the rest of the guests, I was surprised to see that, other than some old York golfing buddies, no one was there for my Dad besides me.
But it didn’t seem like there would have been room for people from our family anyway, because within minutes, every single seat was filled by a person here to see Ashley Wright become the second Mrs. Stephen Sparks. And before I knew it, there she was: Ms. Ashley Rachel Wright processing down the aisle, arm and arm with her teary-eyed father, as if this was the man and the wedding of her dreams. Ashley was the same as always, only blonder, slightly thinner, and in a way, even more unremarkable than ever, despite her being decorated in what seemed to be a very expensive white lace gown.
After the ceremony, I came up to emptily congratulate my father. I couldn’t stay for the reception, because I was catching a train back to Manhattan at 4:30. He looked sort of flummoxed and nervous amidst the crowd of mostly strangers, and I could tell he was relieved when he saw me. I didn’t quite know what to say to be honest, but thankfully, he spoke up first.
“Thanks a lot for coming, Jase. I know you’re busy,” he offered.
I nodded in the way I would nod to a stranger who had just thanked me for holding the door. Ashley was frolicking giddily from guest to guest, so I didn’t have a chance to interact with her at all, which I was actually sort of grateful for. Although I never did get to see Ashley and my Dad together, as he had insisted I should. So, the “not making sense” factor didn’t really change much.
As I was walking back toward the parking lot and whipping out my cell phone to get a cab, I heard a familiar voice call in my direction.
“Jason!” I turned. Jenny Foster and her arm candy were walking towards me. “Jason, my god, how are you?” she said in the most genuine voice I’d heard all day.
“Oh, Jenny, wow,” I exclaimed, feigning surprise. “I’m doing great. I’m actually heading back to New York just now. Work tomorrow.”
“On a Sunday?” she asked, with both shock and sweetness in her question. “You big city boy, you work too hard.” I shied my head away and shrugged. “Oh, I’m sorry, this is Kurt,” she motioned to the crew-cut statue to her right. “He’s my…”
“Marine,” I interjected, outstretching my hand.
“Yes, sir,” he responded, militantly. I would have loved to snicker at this joker. But he wasn’t just any brainless meathead. As he solidly shook my hand, I caught a glimpse of the gold band wrapped around his thick and leathery left ring finger.
“Well, it really is wonderful to see you,” Jenny promised. “Come get a drink with us! It’s cocktail hour. I hear Ash has put together an amazing spread.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” I replied. “But my train leaves in a little bit. I actually have to jump in a cab.”
“Oh, what a shame. Well, I guess I’ll catch you in another six years!” I smiled, apologetically. Jenny’s voice got quiet in an all too familiar way as she told me, “Good to see you after all this time, Jason.”
“Yes, nice to meet you,” bellowed Kurt, obligingly.
I looked for any hint of unhappiness or regret in Jenny’s demeanor, as she reclaimed the arm of her Marine and headed back to the party. But I couldn’t find any.
At 4:30, I was on the train back to Manhattan. Luckily, my 7-hour WiFi was still good. I checked my personal email and saw Ricky’s first and second messages sitting in the inbox.
“I’m sorry,” he said in the second.
Yeah, I thought. Aren’t we fuckin’ all.
I closed my laptop and looked out the window. It would be another two and half hours before I arrived in New York for work the next day at 9AM sharp.
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