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Show Motherlunge a novel i Pavia's wedding, and once again I thought of Anonymous: Til never forget that hot afternoon. We drove to the church, where Walter, our father, stood outside by the front door, smoking and refusing to come in. Thus it was Dorothy, his estranged wife, our mother, two hundred and seventy-eight pounds and moth-like in a sage-colored caftan, who alone compelled Pavia down the aisle and up to the altar. I wasn't wearing my glasses, but I loved the way I knew it would look always, later, clearly, on videotape: Pavia's ten attendants ascending on the side to me, the maid of honor and (yesl yes I) also the tallest, and across the aisle our tuxedoed escorts-all of us angled like slats of a privacy fence toward the couple on the dais. Rigid in our formal wear, we were a splendid army, serious and duty-bound. The church organ chorded up and down, the congregational infants gurgled. Pavia-beautiful as a bone'shard in her plain dress, as evidentiary-turned in her affirmatives; Jack, her groom, sobbingly agreed I will. And from behind the tripod, Doug the videographer panned the scene with exquisite Soul Train slowness. One month later, Adam, sullen after a Saturday teaching AP physics prep courses, i didn't understand my passion; We were at his house, on the couch; his parents were out of town. I was massaging my third eye with my thumb while we reviewed the newly delivered wedding video. |