By James M. Maskell
The rain started some time before dawn, big drops pelting the tin roof of the shed in the back yard, while an occasional surge mimicked a passing truck too large to traverse their suburban neighborhood. She’d have given anything for it not to rain, not today, but she wore her mother’s gown to please her father—tailoring the fit on her mother’s dressmaker stand in the short time she had—and was a beautiful bride, nonetheless. She had met her groom on an expedition to the North Pacific while studying environmental science at U-Dub. Her parents, nervous about her going, knew trying to talk her out of it would have been selfish on their part. The groom, a Seaman in the Coast Guard, stationed in Anchorage, was off-duty one evening, playing darts at the Pioneer Bar when he noticed her in the crowd, and said hello. They sat at the bar. He bought the first round. She spoke of her studies, he of his training, and by the end of the night, the world around them had become a blur. She was on her way back from the expedition a few months later, already hastily engaged when she got the call from her father, mishearing him through the bad signal. “You’re breaking up, Dad. All I heard was ‘Mum said.’ What did she say?” He hated having to say it again. She sounded irritated enough by his interrupting her trip home, but when he said it the second time, the signal was clear, and his gut twisted in sorrow for having to deliver such news to his daughter. Heavy rain, slick pavement, and a tight corner had taken her mother from the world in a twisted, one-car wreck, and the burial took place just days after she arrived home. This afternoon, she married her groom in a short, tasteful, backyard ceremony, with no military splendor nor magnificent rose woven arches. Negotiating the rapids of wedding prep without her mother by her side simply held no appeal for her. The heavens were kind enough to lighten the rainfall as the ceremony began, and her father stood by her side in the drizzle, glassy eyed at the recent loss of his wife and the approaching departure of his daughter. Afterward, she rehung the dress on her mother’s stand to dry from the rain. Within days she will be off to her new life, her bedroom strewn with remnants of childhood: the board games, the beaded bracelets, her favorite doll, all left behind as if she were to escape even the memories of her youth. She won’t see her father break down days later when he sees the dress, doesn’t know that he will keep it on the stand, and that on days of heavy rain, position it in the center of the room, and sit beside it, spending time with his wife and daughter the only way he can.
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James M. Maskell has taught high school English in Massachusetts for over twenty years and writes in the early mornings before heading off to class. His poetry and fiction has been featured in Loud Coffee Press, Lucky Jefferson, the Dance Cry Dance Break podcast, Crow and Cross Keys, and Vita and the Woolf. His non-fiction has been featured in recent issues of Waccamaw, Windmill, and Paper Dragon. You can read his other work at jamesmmaskell.com.