May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
Jordan proposed to sweet Sierra on the beach in Santa Barbara in January. He went over all the details with Mike and Erin on the phone three days prior and said he had selected that particular day because it was exactly one year since he first had met her at Sunset Beach, Hawaii. At Jordan’s insistence, Mike and Erin drove up to Santa Barbara to be there, waiting in the wings with a small gathering of friends and Sierra’s parents to celebrate with the newly engaged couple.
The giddy clan cheered as the couple came walking back from the beach at sunset, bundled together in a blanket. Her ring was a simple, custom-designed etched band that Sierra convinced Jordan was all she wanted. She wasn’t a diamond sort of girl. Her choice was to have a series of thin bands that she would add to her ring finger as the years went on, like the assortment of bangles she often wore on her arm. Unconventional, but as Erin had discovered, it was very much Sierra.
Jordan and Sierra were radiant and remained so during dinner. The group dined under a portico laced with twinkle lights and thick, gnarled grapevines at a beachfront restaurant. The owner was a friend of Sierra’s dad.
Mike leaned over as Erin was midbite into the best calzone she had ever tasted. “This is good stuff,” he said.
“Delicious.” Erin dabbed the corners of her mouth with the red-and-white-checkered paper napkin.
“I’m not talking about the food. I mean life. Us. This. This is good stuff.”
Erin leaned over and kissed her husband on the side of his neck. “Do you know that I love you more now than ever before?” Erin whispered.
Mike slipped his arm around her shoulder and drew her close. “I had a clue or two.”
“Oh, really? What were your clues?”
Drawing back and looking closely at Erin’s face he said, “It’s your smile. I can always tell what you’re thinking by the way you smile. And right now, you’re smiling as if you love the whole world but especially me.” He pressed his forehead against the side of her head and whispered in her ear, “And I love you more than ever, too.”
Jordan and Sierra’s wedding was set for August 7. Everyone assumed the two of them would zip through the planning because, after all, his mother did this for a living.
Within a week Erin knew that if she wanted to maintain a strong relationship with Jordan and Sierra, she would have to turn the planning connections on this one over to Sharlene. Erin had far too many opinions about what the couple should do, and like all young couples, the two of them had their own ideas.
“So I’ll be the backup planner,” Erin explained once she had Sharlene, Jordan, and Sierra on the phone the second week of January. “I need to be just the mother of the groom, if that makes sense. I’m here, and I’ll do whatever you two ask, but from here on out, Sharlene will be the one to provide you with your personally designed portfolio and follow up with anything you need.”
“Mom, you have no idea how much that helps us. Thank you. We were feeling uncomfortable with some of your suggestions, but we weren’t sure how to tell you.”
“I hope you don’t feel as if we don’t appreciate everything you put together for us.” Sierra sounded concerned.
“Don’t worry about any of that. I got a little overeager and started to run ahead without taking the time to listen to what the two of you had in mind.”
“Thank you for being so understanding,” Sierra said. “I can already tell you’re going to be a wonderful mother-in-law.”
“Oh, I hope so, honey. I hope so.”
Sharlene took over like the pro she was, and Jordan and Sierra were pleased with all the recommendations she pulled together for them. Since the wedding was going to be in Santa Barbara, Sharlene and Erin had to expand their connections beyond Orange County’s borders. It turned out to be a helpful addition to their website and their business.
When the invitations went out, Erin followed up with a handwritten note to her brother, inviting him to stay with them after the wedding. She didn’t hear from him until two weeks before the big day.
“I just can’t pull it off, Erin. Sorry. I had hoped I might be able to come. It would be the first chance I’ve had to see you guys since I’ve gotten clean and sober.” For the next twenty minutes he told her about the recovery program he had been in and how his life had been turned around.
Toward the end of their phone call, Erin told her brother, “I’m really glad to be able to talk with you like this, Tony.”
“It’s good to talk to you, too. Let’s try to do this more often.”
“I’d like that. I’m so glad the recovery program has worked out for you. This is really, really good news.”
“My wife and the girls think so, too. I was a mess for so long. The guy who heads our group has gone the distance with me, you know? It’s what I needed. I wish I could come to Jordan’s wedding. I really do. I think camping on the backside of Maui is about as far as I’m going to make it anywhere during the month of August.”
“I understand. Maybe Mike and I will have to come over there and see you guys.”
“Now there’s an idea. I’m ready to see you. I’m able to handle the real world, if you know what I mean. So come on over. I’m not sure you’ll recognize me, though.”
At their mother’s funeral Tony’s hair was long and hung in front of his face. He didn’t make eye contact or have a conversation with anyone. Apparently he already had been using drugs for some time, but Erin, in her sisterly naiveté, told people he was in mourning and as shocked about the loss of their mother as she was. Had she known what was really going on, she would have responded differently to him.
“You haven’t said anything about Dad,” Tony said. “I’m assuming he’s coming to the wedding with his wife.”
Erin noted that Tony didn’t seem to remember Delores’s name. Either that or he chose not to speak it.
“Yes, they’re coming. Dad said he wanted to drive so he would have his own car while they’re here. He said they had big plans to go to Ireland earlier this spring, but they had some financial adjustments to make before they could go. I think they rescheduled their flight for the fall.”
“What sort of financial adjustments?”
“I don’t know. He’s put a lot into the place where they live on the Oregon coast. All those remodeling expenses might have caught up with them. I didn’t ask him. All I know is that he said they plan to take their time, drive down the coast, and stay here in Irvine after the wedding for at least a week.”
Tony didn’t reply.
“I really wish the two of you could be back in communication.”
“I know. I’m almost there. Give me a little more space. I’m working on it.”
Erin held on to the thought of “a little more space” as the final wedding details came together. Sierra and her mom were handling everything in Santa Barbara. All Mike and Erin had to work out were the details for the rehearsal dinner as well as transportation and accommodations.
Somehow those few arrangements kept hitting snags. Erin needed more space in her packed calendar.
The last week of July Sharlene showed up at Erin’s with the newly altered mother-of-the-groom dress hanging in a zipped-up garment bag, compliments of the family dry-cleaning business.
“You are a lifesaver on so many levels, Sharlene. Thank you for having this done for me. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Well, I can tell you what you’re going to do with me once the wedding is over. You’re going to sit down and go over these applications for assistants. I marked the ones that I think have the best potential. Our goal should be to have someone in place by the first of September, if not sooner.”
Erin knew that Sharlene had been doing far more than her share over the past few weeks. Once the wedding was over, Erin would be able to go back to a regular workload and that assistant could work mostly with Sharlene. They both knew it was a nice problem to have, needing to hire someone.
As Erin spent the evening packing for the wedding weekend in Santa Barbara, she thought about all she had to be grateful for: Jordan’s darling wife-to-be, the screaming success of The Happiest Day, and most recently, the great conversation she’d had with her brother.
She was almost ready to zip up the suitcase and go to bed when she decided she couldn’t ignore the rumbling in her stomach any longer. It was hard to tell if the grumbles were over not eating enough in all her scrambling around that day or if she was feeling more nervous about this huge event in their son’s life than she was letting herself believe.
Padding barefooted out to the kitchen, she told Mike, who was watching the eleven o’clock news, “I’m almost ready to go to bed. How about you?”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Erin opened the refrigerator door and stood for far too long, staring at the contents as if one of the uninteresting items would suddenly change into a Boston cream pie and start singing to her, “I am your midnight snack. Yum-yum! I’ll calm those nerves and be nutritious for you, too!”
All she saw was a warehouse-sized glass jar of artichokes, a carton of orange juice, and four square plastic containers of leftovers.
“Did you eat the last of the broccoli salad?” she asked Mike.
He didn’t answer. The sportscaster was giving the scores of the baseball teams that were World Series contenders.
Undeterred, Erin moved the containers around and peeled back the corners of the lids to determine if any of them held promise for a snack. As she reached her arm in for the large container at the back of the middle shelf, the huge jar of artichokes inched forward too far and toppled off the shelf.
Before she could catch it or move out of its path, the heavy glass jar came crashing down on the big toe of her left foot. She let out a scream as if she had been run through with a sword. Losing her balance in the wake of the sudden, overwhelming pain, Erin collapsed onto the floor and sobbed.
“What happened?” Mike towered over her, looking around for a clue.
The jar of artichokes had rolled, unscathed, across the floor and into the pantry, where it seemed to be hiding like a child who knew he was in trouble.
Mike’s voice escalated. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Erin rocked back and forth, cradling her foot with both hands. “My toe,” she managed to gasp.
Mike grabbed a kitchen towel, ran it under the cold water, and handed it to her to hold as a compress.
Catching her breath and feeling ridiculous for the dramatic burst of emotion, Erin tried to explain. “A jar fell . . . on my toe.”
Mike leaned down to have a look. “Do you want an ice pack?”
“Yes.”
He pulled out a frostbitten ice pack and handed it to her. “What else do you need?”
“Help me to get up.” She couldn’t believe the intensity of pain that was still shooting through her big toe. The metal rim of the jar must have hit right at the cuticle line. She had a sinking feeling that her whole foot was going to be in convalescence for the next few days. This was not good. The last thing Erin wanted to do was show up at the rehearsal dinner tomorrow wearing a sock with lots of padding around the big toe on her left foot. She could see herself hobbling around and watching people’s expressions as she explained that a jar of artichokes fell on her toe.
Mike tried to help her to the bedroom but first she wanted him to see the culprit. As soon as he spotted the huge jar he winced. “Ouch! Oh, sweetheart, I can see how that would hurt.”
She iced her toe and calmed down long enough to sleep, but it was a fitful night.
They rose early to get on the road, and the first thing Mike wanted to do was have a close look at her toe. It had turned a deep shade of purple and still was throbbing.
“You’ll probably lose the nail.” He said it as if he were familiar with these sorts of injuries. He had been the one their boys went to with their sports injuries and was handy with an ACE bandage. This time his recommendation was sandals so that her toe could breathe, whatever that meant.
Erin babied her foot to the car, kept it padded with a rolled-up towel, and iced it for the first hour of the drive. By the time they arrived at the hotel, it didn’t hurt as bad.
Erin wasn’t big on having her toenails painted. When she got a pedicure, which was a rare treat that she didn’t stop to take time for very often, she always had the manicurist buff her toenails instead of paint them. On the drive up, she had sent Mike into a drugstore for nail polish. He returned with three different colors, all in the range of dark plum. Before they went to the rehearsal dinner that night, Erin would make sure all her toenails were plum colored.
That morning she had thrown into her suitcase three different pairs of open-toed shoes since the pair she had bought for the wedding were closed-toed and tapered to a point. For good measure, she tossed in her walking shoes just in case she wanted to wear something protective around the hotel room.
It turned out she needed the walking shoes right away when Jordan asked Mike and Erin to help set up the outdoor venue where the wedding would be held the next day. This was their way of cutting back on expenses. Mike went to work helping Sierra’s dad and two of her brothers set up tables and chairs. Dozens of strings of tiny white lights were already in place, strung from the trees that canopied the beautiful location. Sierra had collected dozens of Moroccan lanterns and hundreds of tea lights that were waiting until tomorrow to be put in place. It was easy to see that the wedding reception in this private park would be magical.
Erin pitched in, helping to wrap the plastic cutlery in a napkin and tie the bundles with colored yarn. She listened in on all the details of the plans Sierra and her mom had made with Sharlene’s help for this picnic-style celebration.
She had heard a lot of the particulars along the way as Sierra would share some of her ideas and as Sharlene would update Erin. The experience gave Erin a new appreciation for what it was like to be on the other side of the business as the groom’s mother.
Erin convinced Mike to take her back to the hotel while the others were finishing up so she could change out of her jeans and walking shoes into the outfit she had brought for the rehearsal dinner. She had a feeling the others weren’t planning to change, but she wanted to. She was the hostess, and Mike was the host. She thought they should show up looking and smelling a little fresher than she was at the moment.
Plus, she wanted to paint her toenails and give them a chance to dry.
Forty-five minutes later, just as they were ready to leave their hotel for the rehearsal, Erin received a call from Dolores.
“We’re not able to come.”
Erin knew that others who were driving into Santa Barbara that afternoon had called to say the traffic was worse than usual.
“How far away are you? Are you at the hotel yet?”
“No, we’re not at the hotel.”
“Okay. Well, you have the information on the restaurant where we’ll be for the rehearsal dinner, don’t you?”
“We got the directions you sent,” Delores snapped.
“Okay, good. Why don’t you just come directly to the restaurant? The rest of us plan to arrive at around seven.”
Delores hung up abruptly, but that wasn’t anything new. Erin was in such a scramble over last-minute details and her role as the rehearsal dinner hostess that she didn’t think to ask where they were or what the problem was. Erin simply expected her father to come strolling into the restaurant in time for dessert and to charm the socks off all of them.
But her father and Delores never showed up.